Next week, PayPal will shelve its merchant referral bonus program after nearly 10 years

On August 12, eBay-owned electronic payments giant PayPal will discontinue to the Merchant Referral Bonus Program it put in place nearly a decade ago. The company will soon be amending its user agreement to reflect the shutdown.

The program worked like this: when someone referred a merchant who proceeded to sign up for a Business or Premier PayPal account, he or she was eligible to receive a Merchant Referral Bonus – a percentage of the funds received by their referral using PayPal’s Website Payments or Send Money features.

So why is PayPal putting an end to the bonus program? They don’t really explain that – here’s the canned statement on the reasoning behind the decision:

“We’ve more than fulfilled our mission with this program. And PayPal is now proud to offer a robust and dedicated line of services for both partners and merchants.”

Okay then.

PayPal originally communicated that the shutdown of the program would occur on the 15th of August, but has now seemingly decided to end it earlier.

Here’s a summary of the change PayPal will make to its user agreement:

The Merchant Referral Bonus Program (“the Bonus”) will be discontinued for all account holders and the PayPal Bonuses Policy will no longer be in effect. Active account holders will receive an email from PayPal indicating an end date specific to their current participation in the Bonus program.

You will receive this email at least 60 days in advance of the end date. Once your end date is in effect, new referrals will no longer be tracked or accumulate toward this bonus program. In addition, bonus accrual payments will be stopped.

Any final accrued bonus balances from your referrals will be paid to your PayPal account in accordance with the standard 30 day payout cycle. Your PayPal account is not impacted in any way with the discontinuation of this program.