PayPal’s slogan ought to be: No good deeds go unpunished~!
I am an exceptional eBay seller with an impeccable 12 year track record. I have never received negative feedback and have only had one returned item. That solitary returned item was sold “As-Is with No Returns” yet striving above and beyond my obligation I allowed the return and even paid the return shipping cost. I go the extra step, even if it ends up costing me a few dollars to keep my buyers very happy. I am a seller of the highest integrity~! But now, I am being punished for it.
PayPal recently enacted a scheme to penalize eBay sellers who refund partial payments by holding all of the seller’s incoming funds for up to 21 days.
When I sell an item on eBay, Paypal sends me a letter that says:
Your funds are pending – please process this order
You received a payment from S0-and-So.
This money is being temporarily held in your pending balance. It will be held for up to 21 days. While it’s being held, it won’t be available for withdrawal.
We’ll move the money to your available balance after 21 days as long as your buyer hasn’t reported a problem. It may be available sooner if we can confirm that the item was delivered and 3 days elapse or, if this is an eBay item, your buyer leaves positive feedback.
To get access to this money more quickly, please process this order right away and communicate with your customers early and often.
What’s the reason they are holding my auction winnings? Well, PayPal wants to make as much interest off my money as they can. ~ No wait, that’s conjecture. They do claim I’m irresponsible… but with only a single returned item in 12 years, I’m going to tell you what’s really going on. (Beside the fact they are down-right greedy.)
In the past two months, while laid-up at home with an injured neck and no income, I’ve been selling whatever I can at auction instead of claiming Social Services benefits like the rest of the disabled and unemployed in this here Good Ol’ USofA… So, when I list an item and use a “calculated shipping” cost, the buyer pays for that “calculated” amount. In the past few months there have been times when the buyer has paid a few dollars more than the actual cost so I refunded them the over-calculated amount out of my PayPal funds as an act of kindness, in good faith. Paypal is punishing me for giving back some of the money.
Do I mind paying the increasingly higher and higher fees for selling on eBay? Do I mind that the payment system is a monopoly run by eBay? Do I mind that I pay listing fees, final value fees & transaction fees all for a few dollars income while I’m disabled? Not really…
I do mind being lumped in with the lot of unprofessional sellers of ill-repute and having my money be held for 21 days so PayPal can earn interest on my only source of income? Do I mind being labelled as untrustworthy because I felt that eBay overcharged my buyers so I gave them a few dollars back? Yes, I do.
Paypal’s message here is: If you are a seller on eBay – don’t refund anyone anything unless you are forced to or they will punish you by holding your funds for up to 21 days.
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What’s worse is PayPal stole $75 from me recently and won’t respond to my inquiries. I went to a gas station and swiped my card. The pump said: See Attendant. I went inside and paid the cashier for $20 worth of fuel. Paypal “held” $75 from my account, and deducted $20. A day later the $75 was “released”. But then, 10 days later PayPal took $75 and linked it to that gas station transaction.
There was never a point when my balance increased by $75 but unfortunately 10 days later PayPal took $75. I wrote them repeatedly about this to no reply!
In order to avoid this hate/hate relationship they have against me, I no longer use my PayPal debit card to buy things and take every single penny out of the PayPal account and deposit it into my bank account where I am FDIC insured and where the bank will act responsibly and ethically toward me as a customer. Thankfully, my bank does not punish me for being considerate.
Things are not getting better, they are only getting worse. The world is not a friendly place. It is dog eat dog, big fish eat little fish and you are on your own. Take what you can and horde it. Love nothing but the bottom line. Fight to survive. ~ LOL… there’s no love an peace in the auction world but I am still going to act professionally, list and sell honestly and refund over charges in order to maintain the highest level of integrity. I don’t care if there is a god or Karma, I act the way my mother taught me.
I have no idea who you are or what this site is about. I was bored at work and decided to look for something interesting, and surprise, I found this site. That aside, I would like to let you know that you are not alone. There are a few god people in this world, and I’m glad to hear that you continue to be one of them despite inconvenience and even actual monetary cost. Integrity is a valuable thing, and I’m glad you’re keeping yours. I wish you the best.
The original poster has it right. I have 14 years on ebay. It has been some time since i sold anything on ebay and decided to sell a few items to help clean out my house of items I don’t need. I was shocked at the hoops they require a 14 year veteran to go through just to sell a few items. Nevertheles i plaid the game and then I sold the maximum nearly every month during the 90 period where they treat you like a security risk. I put up with the holds, but then Paypal began breaking it’s own rules. I would get an estimated funds release date and weeks later (well over 21 days) I would not have my funds. There were no claims, not one negative feedback and my seller dashboard continuously rated me well above standard. In fact, ebay raised my selling limits a couple of weeks early. I had one incident where a customer was unhappy (blackmailed me) and I refunded 100 percent and allowed the customer to keep the item. There was never even a dispute or claim. I just took it upon myself to do the refund to avoid any chance of negative feedback. Well that started it with periodically keeping my funds over 21 days. No email explaining why – just nine yards of Paypal arbitrary and quite unjustified.
When I communicated with Paypal and asked then to explain why they were doing this they pompously commented about how I should read the rules and how they could implement holds for safety reasons. I replied suggesting they read their rules and stop holding funds on packages that were delivered weeks ago. I further asked them to provide any evidence of any risk factor that cold possibly be applied to me as I had an excellent record. I received no reply, but then they got impertinent and started holding every one of my payments over 21 days. Now that Paypal has shown the best customer service It is about to be my turn. We will see how the company line holds up as we proceed.
Having had 40 years as a retail analyst, training and holding seminars on customer service issues with corporations all over the country I can speak with some degree of expertise when dealing with these eBay/Paypal issues. No doubt ebay/Paypal needs to acquire some good legal advice and some competent consultants who might recommend some improvements to their risk management vs. customer service posture.
Thank God I have a great living and only play on ebay. I feel a great deal of sympathy for the thousands of sellers who have a worst enemy when dealing with this schema that seems to be the offspring of mad men.. If this is the best ebay can do in terms of safety then It is clear to me that they have learned little to nothing about the significance of customer perception. If I had to relay on these entities for a living I would have gone postal by now.
I’ve also experienced the wrath of Ebay’s draconian measures. Keep in mind that I’ve done over 100,000 dollars in sales since joining and have a zero negative feedback rating or any other problems until in February there were 4 less than 5 star ratings for delivery time. I have no Idea as to who left them except they came from Texas.
Since early spring Ebay has been putting a 21 day hold on my sales money due to these 4 shipping time ratings (out of 3000+ sales by the way). Here are the real sticking points. If you do less than a certain amount of sales, your rating period is 12 months so even though I’ve had no other complaints on delivery time, I must wait until the end of the year to see if the 21 day hold is lifted. And since they do not count sales to customers who do not do the 5 star thing, those sales are not counted. For example, my sales totals for the last 60 days were in excess of 2800 dollars, yet the dashboard totals are around 1000 dollars for the same period which means I don’t qualify for the 3 month evaluation period. Hmmmm nice way to keep you on a 12 month leash and to keep MY money for 21 days. Off shore sales don’t count either, but mine are not that large but it would be nice to include those in the sales total since I’m sure offshore bidders can also rate my performance. I spent the better part of an hour talking with an Ebay representative on the phone today to whit I pointed out that my performance even in the shipping times is quite good if not stellar. But alas I am still considered a deadbeat when Ebay does their fancy statistics with loaded data. You just can not win with these folks and unfortunately there is NO competition against the Ebay machine. Fortunately for me Ebay is only my support mechanism for my hobby and grand kid spoiling. But I do feel helpless as I have tons on stuff to dispose of in my retirement years ( going on 71). I wonder how many ebay sellers like myself with excellent feedback have been subjected to the Ebay stricture of holding money?
Bob