EBAY SELLERS BEWARE

[jamsav]

For those of you who occassionally use EBAY to sell an item, and accept PAYPAL , EBAY has a new policy . They will not permit PAYPAL to release funds to the seller before the item is , shipped, recieved, and deemed acceptable by the buyer .
Now , I m all for consumer protection and fraud prevention , but I aint shipping nothing to nobody before the money is in my hand ! Those of you who know me , know that I will send something to someone on the promise of a payment , but I wont ship a sousaphone across country by bus and hope that everything is aok on the other end - yikes !

edited for greater clarity- js

[jamsav]

To clarify, this is an EBAY policy , not a PAYPAL requirement . So the typical tubenet transaction is not effected by this, only selling and receiving money via PAYPAL for an EBAY transaction.

[Dan Schultz]

Please post a link to the information that you are citing.

[Todd S. Malicoate]

Please post a link to the information that you are citing.

Seconded. I use eBay frequently and have only see such restrictions on a few types of transactions. This is all I could find from the eBay Buyer Protection Policy:

To better protect our consumers, eBay has at times requested, and may continue to request, that PayPal hold seller funds based on certain factors, including but not limited to, selling history, seller performance, riskiness of listing category, or the filing of an eBay Buyer Protection case. Currently, access to funds from buyer payments may be delayed to promote successful fulfillment for sellers who are new to selling on eBay or have a below standard seller rating. This program may be expanded to include:

o Sellers who sell an item in a high-risk category with no recent experience selling in that category; sell an item that has a sales price that is significantly higher than the average sales price of items previously sold by that seller; add a new PayPal account to their eBay account; were reinstated following an account restriction or suspension; or have recent account activity indicating risk, including but not limited to significant changes in listing activity or buyer dissatisfaction.

o Transactions where the buyer indicates a problem, including but not limited to messages or activity indicating that the item hasn't been received or that the item isn't as described in the listing.

I've scanned the eBay community bulletin boards and haven't found anything like this. If it were new and true I'm pretty confident it would be discussed all over the place.

UPDATE: I did find an article about this in the New York Times. Apparently this "policy" affects about 1% of eBay sellers and has been around for some time.

[jamsav]

guys- I have been using EBAY for close to 10 years ( mtgmeister ) , with a 116 rating with a gold star and a 100% positive feedback score ! Last week , I sold a large brass instrument , the third , possibly fourth sale of an instrument like this . PAYPAL chose to hold my $ and not make funds available to me after I was paid . When contacted by phone , PAYPAL advised me that this was a "new" ebay policy , and my funds would be released after the seller received the item and was satisfied.
I resent any suggestion that I may be the root of this problem. If it can happen to me , it can happen to you.
I have done my part to alert the community here....I may use ebay again , but I will not accept paypal on an ebay transaction .

[jamsav]

To Todd's point regarding certain types of transactions , this is a Sousy I have sold into Southern California - a potential hot bed for sousaphone fraud
Regardless , Ebays unilateral decision to do this is entirely too arbitrary for my sensibility .
Buyer beware ? , no , seller beware !

[b.williams]

Hi Jim.
Happened to me a short time ago. I also have 100% positive feedback. Then suddenly, after a few more transactions, they informed me that the hold was removed.

Brian

[Todd S. Malicoate]

My only point was that this policy appears to only affect a small percentage of eBay users. Your original post, Jim, seemed to imply that this is a eBay-wide policy that applies to everyone and it clearly isn't. I didn't mean to imply that you were somehow responsible for this policy being applied to you. It seems to be some sort of ill-conceived "risk management" policy from PayPal.

[PMeuph]

The same thing happened to me, Paypal held the funds for 3 weeks.

[MackBrass]

This policy has been in place for a while now, at least a year. I found that if you have a tracking number and submit it showing the item has been tracked and received, the funds will be released much sooner. If you do not supply the tracking number, either in PayPal or Ebay, the funds will be held for 21 days. I have shipped using UPS, FedEx, and USPS and have only had one issue where the funds were not released for the full 21 days and it turns out that USPS did not record the number so it can be tracked electronically.

If you use GH or Amtrak to ship, then you will most likely have to wait the full 21 day period as they have no electronic tracking.

[Todd S. Malicoate]

The "21-day hold" has been in place since 2008, but its application to buyers seems as random as throwing a dart at a dartboard. The bottom line is that PayPal reserves the right to withhold payment to the seller for 21 days or until positive feedback is left by the buyer and they can exercise that right for little or no reason at all.

I've got a rating over 2000 with 100% positive feedback and have never experienced this as most sellers haven't. That said, I don't deny that it could happen to me the next time I sell something for no reason at all.

[Tundratubast]

I've purchased a few things lately of the ol ebay, and the buyer can choose to make an immediate payment, or a 14 day delay after receipt of the item, plus the 5-7 day release of funds BS. The paypal option defaults to the 14 day delay, as a buyer, one needs to select the immediate pay. My feelings are, that as a seller, we could require a buyer to elect the immediate payment versus the delayed, in order to be viable buyer, or cancel the transaction, and opt to the second chance buyer option. As sellers of high end products/tubas, or an "as is" or "no returns allowed item", the seller should be given different considerations, than the trinket seller. Just my thoughts.

[DPlander]

I can confirm that this policy is completely random, although if you don't really sell items fro larger values it will be added on. Case in point, i just sold my tuba on E-bay and sure enough the funds were put on hold until 3 days after receipt of delivery. Just something to think about. it really wasn't a big deal as I had the money to cover the shipping.

[jamsav]

UPDate - after the auction ended , the buyer , circumstantially , was someone I had a previously sold a tuba to , and a genuine " good guy ".
He contacted me and asked if , in the interest of saving a few bucks , I ship via grey hound ....I reluctantly agreed and knocked a $150 bucks off of the shipping .
When my $ wasn't released , and wouldn't be until the horn was safely received , I took it upon myself to ship via UPS ground . It could be tracked, insured and I'd get my $ faster . Inside it's gig bag , then wrapped in bubble wrap, then placed in reinforced , cut down appliance box . Open space was stuffed with towels ! Then extra card board .
Long story short , the horn arrived as if a junior high band had it for 10 yrs !!
Completely trashed , needing an easy $4-500 worth of repair
My friendly seller left positive feedback and all should be hunky- dory
I will file an insurance claim with UPS to amuse myself while I continue to wait for PAYPaL / EBay to release my money
I am told they might be release on July 2 , a full 4 days afte the horn was reporteded to have been received satisfactorily
Yes , they actually take a fee for this
It will be an additional 3-5 business days before the $ is actually in my account
NEVER AGAIN !!!!!

[J.c. Sherman]

eBay used to be a nice place. But I'll cancel a sale before I'm forced to ship without cash to do so. They can go straight to hell.

I have a dear friend who makes his living on eBay... and they are making his life a living hell with "customer friendly" services to buyers while absolutely screwing over sellers of quantity.

This policy is hitting (obviously based on the sample here" entirely at random, and I don't trust for a millisecond that "only 1%" of sellers are effected. They've totally lost their way, and in the process, their facility and honor.

J.c.S.

[Todd S. Malicoate]

Made 8 sales last week...no "holds" on any of them.

Maybe eBay just likes me better than you.

[Todd S. Malicoate]

I'm on week 6 of waiting for payment - but not due to ebay. The guy won the auction but hasn't paid, so I haven't shipped it.

6 weeks? I would have issued a non-paying bidder alert after 7 days.