Paypal holding my funds for 21 days or more?

[00-nzl]

Hi Ebayers,

It has been a while since I've sold something on ebay and after spending last weekend photographing and listing in anticipation of earning some extra dollars for Xmas, I now find that my dollars earnt from the sales are being held by Paypal for 21 days.  After following the instructions to speed up the process (express postage with a tracking id) it hasn't shortened the length of time that i need to wait.

I find this most annoying and this isn't made obvious when listing.  The downside to this is I'm out of pocket for postage AND ebay selling fees before I even get my funds.  

Dear Ebay - I will not be selling on your site again and intend to cancel all other  auctions that are in process, I think this recent move has killed the fun for home consumers selling their knick knacks around the house.  Having to wait 21 days whilst you sit on my money is ridiculous.  Wonder what Paypal does with my funds during that 21 days of holding?  Sure as **bleep** I wont see any interest from it!

I think I'll go to Gumtree, no fees, cash payments and less bs.

Todd

[davewil1964]

Fill in the online complaint form at the FOS, don't ring.

[00-nzl]

Thanks for all the replies.  Admittedly I must have missed the waiver in my excitement to post my ad, although I did post 4 different auctions on that day so maybe it wasn't obvious on my screen?

I contacted Paypal to enquire how I speed up the process given I've been a member since 2005 and sold multiple items in the past.  Simple answer - if you have a history on EBay you only need to wait until the tracking number is showing as delivered and with a quick call to Paypal they will release your funds.  Case closed.

I do agree with the various posts and I have been burnt with dodgy traders too... its one of those minority / majority things!

Cheers.

[allfixelectrical]

Don't mess about.

Lodge an FOS dispute and most likely your funds will be released immediately.

What they are doing is wrong and they know it.

If they did not release the funds after a dispute is filed and it eventually went to a case that was pursued by the FOS they would lose and be fined heavily.

Multiple penalties and they could lose their licence to operate in Australia.

They know that is the case so will always resolve it quickly.

That is why they are never penalised by FOS for this behaviour.

They know that as long as they resolve disputes quickly they will be able to continue to do what they are doing.

https://forms.fos.org.au/onlinedispute

[rgherron]

And having pushed out Paymate, eBay now forces you to offer Paypal to your customers so sellers are at their mercy .

Ebay pretends to offer merchant cards  as an alternative but this is a scam . When I tried to register a merchant card they turned it down because I did not have an operating Paypal account . 

What is most galling is that my Paypal account was suspended without the possibility of this being reviewed because one of their staff had a private dispute with someone who used their paypal account several times to payback money he owed me. For some bizarre reason the paypal staff member decided quite unfairly that I had something to do with dealings with the guy paying me and so abused her position in the company to have us both banned from Paypal . 

When I contacted Paypal they gave me some drivel about how they had decided they did not like my business model -despite my having around 1000  100% positive feed back score at the time . 

My point is both Paypal and eBay do whatever they can get away with and keeping your money for 21 days is just one of their unfair practices

[lyndal1838]

What has having a Merchant Credit Facility got to do with having a paypal account?

Why do you need to register it with paypal when it is an alternative payment option?

[rgherron]

That is not what I said -You don't need to register it with Paypal . I was talking about eBay not Paypal. Ebay refused to accept my merchant facility as an alternative method of payment to me on the grounds I did not have a Paypal  account despite my having 1240 plus positive feed back . So unless you  have a Paypal account you can't operate as an eBay seller now. 

[rgherron]

The email said and I quote 

"As per our guideline in granting request to use Merchant Credit Card ,we have to make sure any associated restriction on your Paypal account must be resolve (sic) first ."

Michele D

eBay Customer Support 

31st  August 

[lyndal1838]

My apologies, I misunderstood what you said.

That does sound crazy but it is all about ebay's money back guarantee I guess.

If ebay is going to refund buyers they have to have access to your funds, which they would not have if you only offer Merchant Facility.  This is probably why they decided to cut Paymate out of the payment options too.

It seems that they are getting back to what they wanted years ago....paypal as the only payment method on ebay.  I feel it is only a matter of time before they manage to get rid of bank deposit.

[rgherron]

You might be right Lyndal in it being related to eBay's money back guarantee but I am more inclined to believe eBay and Paypal are really more interested in the extra percentage they make on sales and now postage by forcing sales to go through Paypal .

[lyndal1838]

Ebay get their percentage no matter how the buyer pays....their fees are calculated as soon as the invoice is sent to the buyer.

And the paypal fees are based on the amount of money being transferred...paypal gets nothing if their services are not used.   I doubt that ebay is concerned how much money paypal gets or does not get now that they are separate companies again.