21 DAY HOLD FINANCIAL SERVICE OMBUDSMAN WANTS TO HEAR FROM YOU

[hmmar-spier]

Having lodged a complaint against Pay Pal and Ebay in regards to illegally freezing funds and also referring the matter to the privacy commisioner.  The Financial Services Ombudsman also wants to hear about accounts where funds have been placed under the 21 day hold. Their office is anticipating an across board deluge of complaints and they wish to be advised of individual cases as believe this is a breach of law.

[padi*0409]

Interestingly I just had cause to ring Paypal on an unrelated matter (a spoof email) and they now have a single digit number for issues with held money - with the announcement something like "this problem is experiencing long delays to answer because of high traffic"

Must be a lot of people either going through the FOS/Paypal over the issue..............................good, maybe they'll close off the can of worms they've opened. 

[bikebittz]

Its disgusting and in no way will prevent scammers.

I have traded on ebay 13 years still with 100% feedback but a few late delivery stars because buyers dont read the delivery time before they order and then wrongly penalise me.

Now I have ebay/paypal  holding $ thousands for up to 21 days which effectively renders me insolvent.  I will now have to shut down my paypal and ebay account.

[grantiquities]

Have read through all 19 pages of this topic so far and had a look at the FSO website.  I'm still trying to work out what is going on and how I can continue selling - OR for that matter even buying on Ebay and using the meagre funds in the Paypal a/c - without having access for 3 WEEKS to those incoming funds that have been paid to me IN GOOD FAITH by buyers just yesterday.

It is interesting that payments for 3 sales just a week ago were NOT held and last week (18/1) I received a message increasing my listing limit which I did NOT request.  Seller Dashboard ( for what it's worth as I haven't sold very much ) stated that I am "Above Standard". So I listed a few more things & have had 2 sales during this week  I noticed this morning that I have payment for these 2 transactions now being HELD for 21 days until 14/2.  

I have 2 user-IDs linked to the one Paypal a/c so I gather if I sell on the other one the same thing will happen???  The other I have bought and sold on since 2006 though it has not been used for a while.  

I have also bid on an item ( ending in 22 hours )  that I wanted to BUY and was relying on the Paypal a/c balance being there and sufficient to pay for that purchase without having to draw on the linked bank a/c.

This is going to be a verrrry long "long weekend" 😞  

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[cq_tech]

Why not make good use of it then, and lodge an official complaint with the Ombudsman?

If you want your funds released immediately, that's what it's going to take to make it happen.

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

[grantiquities]

Thank you cq_tech. Dispute now lodged.

[i-love-my-sheep]

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@grantiquities wrote:
Thank you cq_tech. Dispute now lodged.

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Please update us on the results?

[ja_la]

I have also just been hit with this **bleep**. Funnily enough I just made a transaction last week and that went through fine. I have emailed paypal for now but I am pretty sure I will be contacting the FOS soon. I will most likely call them tomorrow to by pass the 48hour email response time so I can go straight to the ombudsmand.

I sold a $1000 + item last October and those funds were cleared quickly. I get rules but not the inconsistencies. Seems like a random machine picker for sellers. Total BS.

[grantiquities]

Received email from FOS @ 9.00am this morning acknowledging lodgment of complaint.  Guess this is a standard response but anyway here's a tiny extract from it :-   

" .......PayPal Australia Pty Limited must respond to the dispute within 45 days of the date that you first made a complaint about this matter. If contacting us was the first time you made a complaint, PayPal Australia Pty Limited has 45 days from today's date to respond: that is, until 13 Mar 2015. If you previously made a complaint to PayPal Australia Pty Limited, PayPal Australia Pty Limited must respond within 45 days of the date that you first complained to them...... "  

[i-love-my-sheep]

I think most people are seeing results in less than a week. Fingers crossed!