I figured I should mention that when I created the listing for the Yeti, ebay informed me I could not insist on MO/wire in the listing. I added PP as an option and the listing was accepted.

Upon completing the auction, I was informed that PP funds would be held for 21 days. I knew the feller that won the auction so we were able to work it out but I really thought it was chicken$shift for them to wait till the auction was over to give me the bad news.

Did you, by chance, include a statement that the item(s) would be shipped only after payment reaches you? By "reaches you", I mean in your bank account.

I believe that I will start doing just that, if Ebay will allow me to do so, which they probably will not.

I just sent those people this...

Hello;

I understand that people are having their PayPal payments held for reasons unknown. Is there a new PayPal policy to with hold money from sellers? If so, what are the criteria for holding a seller's money, assuming that there are no disputes associated with the sale?

Thanks and, for what it is worth, you guys are pushing me, the little guy, right out of the game.

Please do not send me one of your automated responses. I want to know if you are going to start holding back monies paid to me for products I send to others.

Best regards,

Randy

I will report back if they bother to do anything to help me understand.

It doesn't seem like much to us, but if you think about it. It's 21 days of interest they are making on monies held, when you think of the millions of dollars that pass thru PayPal.Even at 1% interest that alot of free money made off our auctions.

Are you a Power seller, or an occasional seller? I have yet to have ebay hold funds on me, but who knows? I have been a power seller for a few years.

Minimum power seller is $3000 in annual sales and 100 transactions. So its not too hard to reach.


Randy, in my experience, even the live customer service is just about worthless. I have spent a lot of time with them lately trying to resolve an issue (no success of course). Anyone who successfully navigates ebay customer service is a rock star in my book.

Randy, I am assuming given your volume that you are well into power seller status. But the international nature of your sales might trigger some hold policy within ebay. Keep us posted.

Same thing here. I very rarely sell stuff on ebay. But I put some stuff up last week. When I went to check the payments at PP it says the money wont be available until the 18th.

No offense intended here, but what difference should that make. A seller is a seller. If I sell less than someone else, does that mean that I have less right to get my money in a timely manner?

I realize that there should be seller rewards for increased volume, but there should not be any penalties for people who deal with less volume.

I have already made my decision regarding how to deal with this problem. I will not ship, from now on, until the PayPal money is in my bank account. I will include, in my listings, that shipping will not take place until payment is received by me. Let's see how that dog hunts.

Not too surprised they've now gone to insisting on the PayPal option, kinda rotten on their part, but standing in their shoes (and putting on my mega-corp tinted sunglasses) I can see the reasoning. More money in their pockets, the added "buyer security" that comes with running the payment through a medium that they also control. On the flip side, pulling stuff like this can only help the growing number of alternatives out there, especially those build to serve a specific community. Seems like my recent efforts were will timed.

They do it to collect interest on (our) money,plain and simple and I think it's wrong. I will no longer send an item till funds are cleared period. Nowhere do you duy something online and receive it before the seller gets his/her money.

I had funds held recently but they released the funds as soon as the buyer left feedback.

I suppose, just one more way for them to make money off us. As if their fees aren't enough already.

Maybe your buyer didn't like the bike , you do a full refund get your fees back and since you know him just do the deal outside feebay.

We're going down this road again?

ebay and paypal do what they do because people have been ripping them off for over a decade. If people weren't scamming them half of their policies wouldnt exist.

But it is fun reading your conspiracy theories.

They just screwed my family & friends out of there Christmas. I sell this time of year the most and I also buy from Ebay this time of year the most so they lost money from me. I am disabled and don't have enough money to cover the shipping cost out of pocket period, so I need my money as soon as the item is paid for in order for me to ship. I use there shipping methods, there payment methods and have over 1450 positive feedbacks with no claims ever filed against me so why should I be treated any differently then a power seller who doesn't have a TRUE 100% positive rating like I have.

Perhaps people are cheating Ebay, but how do you cheat PayPal?

By transfering the funds out of your account and NOT shipping the item. Lets say you buy an item and there's an issue, you call your credit card company or file a dispute with ebay/paypal. So what...if there's no money to refund becasue you transfered it out the buyer will never get refunded.

All of you who insist on 'personal' transfers of funds within Paypal are setting yourselves up for trouble. I'm just waiting for the, "I transfered him $400 as 'personal' becuase he wanted to use their service for free. It's been 5 weeks and I haven't seen my part. Do you think I got scammed?"

Umm, yes.

If you wait 21 days to ship the item so that the payment can clear, like some here are suggesting, the Seller loses Paypal Seller Protection, in which case if a Buyer claims Item Not Received then Paypal will reverse Seller's received-&-cleared funds back to the Buyer anyway.

Just sayin.

And don't forget that your money is being held in a non-FDIC insured vault while you aren't making interest (which they lie about, or at best are intentionally misleading).

Someone really needs to hit them with another class action lawsuit - and refuse to settle this time.

FYI - I offer Dwolla as a payment service in all of my auctions - and give a 3% refund for using it. It takes money away from paypal/ebay, gives my buyer cash back and saves me waiting up to 6 weeks (yes, it happened once) for my cash.

Big difference. Its ebay's business, and ebay has decided to treat power sellers differently than other sellers. Such differences can include discounts in fees, discounts in shipping charges, and probably access to funds.

Why should Power Sellers be treated differentlY? Because ebay has decided to treat them differently.

I just got off the phone with Ebays customer support to ask why this is & why my funds would be held ( as per the Email I received ), I was told this has nothing to do with me and that my account will not be held up at all. They told me my customers love me and I won't have any problems with them holding my money because I have over 250 + positive sale feedbacks that have been left and to just keep doing what I have been doing. They don't know why I received that Email but said I shouldn't have gotten it & it was a mistake.

If you think you received this notice unfairly and have over 250 positive sales as a seller I suggest you call there Customer Support # at 1-866-540-3229

Glenn

When do you plan the launch of the VeloPay™ payment service?

^ +100
This what it's all about!!!!
Did you ever stop to think about how PayPal can manage to take money out of your bank account instantly (if you send money and have no funds in your PayPal account, it comes out of your bank account instantly), but if you want to transfer an existing PayPal balance to your bank account it takes 3 to 5 days to accomplish. Everything they are doing policy wise is geared to holding onto your money and earning as much interest as possible! It's like when the cable company raises rates $1 or $2 every year. Doesn't seem like much until you multiply it by all their customers. It becomes a huge number! Borderline taxation is what it is, except that it's only being paid by the people using their service and it's only being paid to one company rather than the country!

I hope one day we can ALL switch to Velobase for our transactions. These cynical moves by ebay and paypal make little sense to me, other than from a greed standpoint, which makes perfect sense. They are ostensibly taking steps to protect buyers, or so they claim, and what with all the nefarious and dishonest sellers on ebay, some of it may be warranted. But they're doing it on the backs of those that make them all their money, the sellers, most of whom are above board and do not engage in dishonest selling practices. It's mind boggling but completely understandable. The world is full of Gordon Gekkos.

It's not about protecting buyers, or even about the interest (though that certainly gives them a few bucks)...it's about protecting ebay/paypal when they're offering buyer protection (which is hypothetically supposed to benefit good sellers with more buyers based on greater confidence). Essentially, ebay is offering buyers an automatic right of refund and one sided arbitration...but they aren;t offering those things with their money, they're offering it with the money of their sellers. They figure that a bigger seller is going to write off the loss and NEEDS ebay, so they aren;t going to go to war over one refund every now and again. In that logic, a power seller isn't a non-payment risk on a guaranteed refund. Their policies are designed to protect buyers, themselves and larger sellers by increasing buyer confidence over all, but making sure it's not at their own expense.

It kills smaller sellers because it encourages buyers to seek refunds and doesn't give us a recourse other than suing ebay/paypal. It's grossly unfair because of the interest issue and they lie/mislead about FDIC insurance. They don't really care...most of their revenue is the larger sellers. Personally, I think their risk of buyer protection losses should be built into their fees/pricing or offer reasonable arbitration to sellers (especially when sellers are who PAYS for arbitration).

The reason this offends me is because of the ebay/CL alignment. On its own, paypal is just another online payment service, and there are several. If you don't like their policies, you can move along to the next guy or refuse to accept paypal (and take on the lower sale price risk). The reason it's so offensive is that they prevent the seller from using other options...or from NOT using paypal. There should be freedom of choice for both buyer and seller in payment services and there isn't. When you combine that with their heavy handed policies and arbitration techniques, it reeks of anti-consumerism. They have, in effect, given themselves a monopoly on the payment fee by excluding me from not using paypal. They've also influenced CL to ensure they don't offer compeition to ebay.

Let paypal compete on the open market with Dwolla and let's see what happens. If buyers are willing to use payment services that don't offer as much protection, let them - it might result in lower prices for sellers (eBay's argument), but I doubt it. I've seen no evidence that eBay's new policies have resulted in higher sale prices - I've only seen evidence that the sale prices reflect the market and economy. I certainly don't believe that these policies have resulted in sales prices that compensate for higher seller risk and fees. Stores like REI and Apple charge a premium for their customer service and refund policies - the consumer pays for it. That hasn't happened on eBay. Thus far, the only beneficiary I see is eBay, and to some extent buyers.

Yep, this is exactly what happened to me. Seller complained that the navy blue shoes she bought were more of a medium to navy blue, not a "true navy blue". Of course, I had hosted flickr full sized pictures in my listing. WTF? So what does ebay do? Immediate refund. Fortunately, the buyer did finally return the item, but I was out the $$ immediately. Most of the items I sell are low dollar items, so I just chalk it up as a cost of doing business, and hopefully, it does encourage buyers to bid.

Fortunately, 99% of the buyers I deal with are not scammers (although I did have one last week....)

Anybody knows if dwolla shows up as a payment option inside of ebay???