As an eBay Mastercard holder, I was sent an email to participate in a survey regarding the Paypal Extras Mastercard, sister-card of the eBay Mastercard. I have literally no idea why I clicked on it – probably mostly to vent about the fact that I can’t take advantage of the $15 eBay offer going on now due to my frozen Paypal account – but the survery was most interesting.
I wasn’t told anywhere in the survery that the details can’t be shared and I’m therefore assuming they are okay with that.
It was an extremely long survey; a lot of it was clearly psychological ploys to see how different wordings effect the card appeal, but a recurring theme in the survey was a serious consideration for the Paypal Extras Mastercard to become a no-annual-fee 2% cashback credit card with the cashback being automatically deposited into your Paypal account after each statement closes. The cashback can then be transfered to your bank account or used to pay the credit card bill or used to shop online with Paypal.
This was one of many options shown
At one point, there was a screen which suggested that for each $1.00 in cashback earned, you’d get $1.25 when having it deposted to Paypal (apparently there would be another option to redeem as a statement credit or into your bank account).
That sounds too good to be true as it would mean that the card would be a 2.5% everywhere card. It sounds more reasonable to give a 10% bonus for depositing into Paypal or some other small amount. Unless the marketing folks win, I doubt this one will happen, but maybe it could happen at a lower rate, e.g. $1.10 for each $1 in rewards. This would make the card a 2.2% rewards card which would be awesome!
Another interesting thing in the survey was a few mentions of a card that earns 5x or 5% on Paypal purchases. This idea wasn’t as recurrent as the 2%, but it came up a few times. (This would not be together with 2% everywhere, rather instead of it.) Many other mentions suggested 3x or 3% for Paypal purchases. There was also a 5% everywhere offer mentioned, but I assume that one wasn’t serious; probably just to make sure you are a serious participant in the survey.
There were lots of other things discussed, such as making specific categories bonused, groceries to gas and everything in between was brought up.
At one point, they summed up the – apparent – main options and asked for my opinion as to which is best.
My response? “…if you guys could get your act together and let people live, I’d love to use the card”.
(As an aside, I’ll hazard a guess that this Reddit banker is working for Paypal/Synchrony, see also this  post.)
I got this survey too!!! Well… should I feel good or bad? I guess it was also because I did not get that recent offer for my ebay card.
So since I have read DoC’s post here previously, I did the survey very attentively and really hope they could combine the 2% plus 1.25 redemption feature. Well, who knows. Can’t wait to see if I made a contribution to the release of this mysterious card!!
I only use paypal to receive payments and because ebay requires it for using ebay gift cards. But it is so hard to use paypal on ebay. I get errors a lot. So, this is great news if it happens, but I do not like paypal.
As soon as I started to read this post I thought that the Reddit banker (linked post at the end) was talking about this.
I’m now also thinking that the PayPal employee what took audience questions from the Frequent Miler was not acting without his company’s consent, it was probably a company directive.
Which, if true, makes this an interesting twist; the MS-infamous PayPal is now reaching out to the MS (manufactured spending) community for ideas and marketing. Are they being innovative or just desperate for market share? If desperate, what gives, anyone follows their financial numbers to see if they are loosing business/money?
Interesting thought about PP reaching out to FM. I’m not convinced that is true, but if it is – that would be a big step in the right direction.
I don’t think they overtly did. In fact many of us commenting on the initial blog post at FM were concerned that the rouge PayPal employee would get in trouble and suggested FM remove part of the email he had received from said PayPal employee, so PayPal couldn’t identify her/him. Which FM did.
At that point I’m sure FM and the rest of us were thinking this was an employee acting on their own, taking risks while doing so, since they provided a lot of context which could identify them internally at PayPal, being they claimed they still worked there. Looking back at it now, after these other pieces of (yet not verified) info, I just think it was more likely that said employee was doing that with PayPal’s approval, likely as part of their job/project, rather than on their own and rouge.
A probably stupid question here.. Will you be eligible for multiple credit account/cards while holding only one PayPal account? My friend applied for the PayPal credit and was rejected for eBay MasterCard application; I got the eBay MasterCard and later notified as not eligible when I clicked on the link for PayPal Extras.
You can only have one Paypal product per Paypal account. I imagine that when the new product is released, they’ll give us the option of changing over to the new product, but most likely you still won’t be able to have both.
A probably stupid question here.. Will you be eligible for multiple credit account/card while holding only one PayPal account? My friend applied for the PayPal credit and was rejected for eBay MasterCard application; I got the eBay MasterCard and later notified as not eligible when I clicked on the link for PayPal Extras.
Crap. I was just shut down by PayPal because I read this post.
Zing! This post has a comedic tilt to it! 🙂
Lol. I hope that didn’t come off as a shot at the DoC… my aim was at PayPal’s ridiculousness.
I like your comment and the DofC’s aside about the banker polling Reddit for product suggestions. Both great!
“Another interesting thing in the survey was a few mentions of a card that earns 5x or 5% on Paypal purchases.”
How is this possible? The whole point of PayPal is that it’s like a bank-light that is a preferred payment method. Paying with PayPal will always prefer and default to your PayPal balance and backup with a real bank account over ACH, you have to jump through hoops to pay with a CC. This saves them a lot of money in card processing fees.
If they offered 5%, wouldn’t they be losing both their cut from the seller (~2.9%) and their homebuilt advantage over swipe fees by discouraging payment with CC? They’d still owe some money to Visa or MC.
Good question. I can see 5% on eBay (similar to 5% at Target with REDcard), but 5% Paypal doesn’t add up.
I looked again at the one of the screenshots above and it says ‘5% Paypal/eBay’ so maybe it’s only eBay purchases, not all PP purchases.
Interesting. Most surveys I for money have a whole privacy clause. Furthermore, why not. Other companies already do 2% and even a 5% cashback card (ink). Obviously I’d be more reluctant to apply for it because of all the possible problems with Paypal. It does make it more lucrative and worth a thought if they make it higher than 2.0/2.2/2.5 though.
Even if paypal comes out with a 10% cashback card, there is nothing to get excited about as it won’t be long before they deny your transactions and freeze your account due to their overly sensitive fraud system.
Thanks but no thanks. Did you have chance to name the card?
Introducing the “Lipstick on a Pig” credit card by Paypal!
This times 1000. It’s just not worth it when it comes to PayPal, I think.
Actually, I have no problem with the PP cc since it’s run by Synch. My only problem is managing the card thru the PP account.