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.

[bneacttrader]

Hi

I'm wondering how some of the larger sellers are handling this. With-out going into too much detail we have a few recent issues with buyers which has now landed us in the situation earlier this week. It seems that it dosn't take many to land us here. 

eBay & PayPal are now literally holding 10K+ and increasing. 

As any business operator will understand this is creating considerable cash flow issues, especially when we ship goods all over the country. We do no use eBays Australia post system as we have a very healthy eParcel account so adding tracking numbers into eBays system is creating extra work.

Sales through this channel alone is over half a million, so one would think we would be a bit better looked after. 

Any thoughts of feedback would be nice. Feel free to Private Message.

[s44_44]

I mainly do a bit of buying on Ebay so I had no idea of this. yesterday I decided to sell a few things I had accumulated. 

and they sold rather fast. I go into paypal, and start seeing all the *pending amounts* I call paypal. and he tells me its a new policy. and that if I provide a tracking number, and only once the buyer confirms they have the package will they release the funds. 

there are a few problems with that. for 1 package there was no tracking number. as they selected std postage. 

what do I do there? I have to refund the poor guy and relist my ad 

and then it happened with 3 other things. I had to refund them all. 1 buyer did a bank transfer and the other 2 decided not to go ahead with the non paypal payment as they werent "comfortable" even though they still have Ebay buyer protection. 

so I've lost almost 900 dollars in funds last 2 days. and had to relist items. and spend heaps of time refunding, chasing up etc. 

this is SILLY. 

It may be alright for people making a buisness on ebay. but what about the little guy just selling a few things. here n there. (aka ME) 

[padi*0409]

You may well have opened yourself up for 4 defects for the 4 refunds and may still get negs and low DSR's from some of the buyers for not completing the transactions, especially if they see the relists.

A shame you didn't come here before refunding etc and ask for some advice................

[tall_bearded01]

‘I mainly do a bit of buying on Ebay so I had no idea of this. yesterday I decided to sell a few things I had accumulated’. 

I don’t think this member would give a toss as a how many deficits they just accumulated.  Tried to sell something, found the experience less than satisfactory, gave eBay a two finger salute and walked away which is eactly what a lot o new sellers are doing.

[padi*0409]

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@tall_bearded01 wrote:

‘I mainly do a bit of buying on Ebay so I had no idea of this. yesterday I decided to sell a few things I had accumulated’. 

I don’t think this member would give a toss as a how many deficits they just accumulated.  Tried to sell something, found the experience less than satisfactory, gave eBay a two finger salute and walked away which is eactly what a lot o new sellers are doing.

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So very true TB, unfortunatey that's the way that this platforrm is now treating it's customers especially if they happen to be sellers.............

I really do shake my head at the way a company is so blind that they do not see the problems that are right in front of their.eyes.

"Bloody Idiots" is an expression that comes to mind.

[ausbargainbasement]

Actually after reading all the horror stories of dealing with Paypal customer service in regard to the 21 day hold was not looking forward to dealing with them, but desperately needed funds released in order to fulfill orders, so rang them spoke to a nice lady, who asked for sonme tracking numbers, as apperently they do not upload from Ebay to PayPal as they should, another Ebay glitch !! she was happy to release funds on all delivered items, and then on all transactions bar the latest which were only 3 days prior, so was really happy with my PayPal customer service that day, now in the same boat again lots of orders bugger all released funds heaps pending, so will have to contact Paypal customer support again to release more funds, wonder if it will go as smoothly as last time. !!!!!

[clarry100]

As I think I may have said earlier in this thread. Once we lodged a formal complaint with the FOS about this we have never had another transaction withheld.
So I would strongly recommend that any seller big or small who is having funds withheld take this course of action. It has worked for us.

[crochet4me74]

I rang paypal with tracking number ans the item had been delivered and positive feedback left from buyer, still will not release my money for another 3 days. This is outrageous ebay and paypal have just lost a customer.

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@i-love-my-sheep wrote:

Ring PayPal and give them the tracking number so they can see that it's been delivered. They should then release your funds while you are on the phone. If you didn't post with tracking, you could still call them and try, but they may still make you wait the 21 days. 

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[x3n0m]

It s called third line enforcing and is a prime example of racketeering .. am sure that in the not to distant future paypal will call this ruthless distasteful feature "paypal escrow" and bump their fees up significantly for each transaction where they hold your money and will then progress to roll this feature out for every paypal transaction in our country, this is just the start ..

I just can't believe these multi-nationals dance into our country usurp and decimate every bit of competition and then proceed to rip us us off at every turn .. oh that's right the ACCC gives these multi-national tax dodgers the green light to do this stuff and then thwarts every attempt for Aussie businesses to compete ..

our politicians are blowing their trumpets at the moment saying they are going to put the spotlight onto tax dodging multinationals but I guarantee that in 10 years time things will be worse than ever and that the slime-balls who run these scams against us will find other avenues to squeeze every last dollar from us whilst any competitor is rendered impotent (by the ACCC) and thus the 0.1%ers will continue on their merry way putting a wrecking ball through our economy .. the fact is that corporate big business is dodgy, greedy, manipulative, under-handed and enjoys effective working monopolies so that they can indulge in this type of practice and they need friends in high places to get away with this ..

eventually Australia will become a basket case third world economy and the international thieves that did it to us and their politician/legal friends who enabled it all will see no jail time and will console themselves with their blood money that they are currently actively engaged in squirreling away into Swiss bank accounts and various other legal offshore tax havens .. your female children may get lucky and find themselves a sugar daddy on an internet dating site .. your boy children will no doubt be sent off to fight in some senseless oil war so as to guarantee the wealth of some shadowy cartel who also stash their money in Swiss bank accounts ..

[indigorosey]

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@bneacttrader wrote:

Hi

I'm wondering how some of the larger sellers are handling this. With-out going into too much detail we have a few recent issues with buyers which has now landed us in the situation earlier this week. It seems that it dosn't take many to land us here. 

eBay & PayPal are now literally holding 10K+ and increasing. 

As any business operator will understand this is creating considerable cash flow issues, especially when we ship goods all over the country. We do no use eBays Australia post system as we have a very healthy eParcel account so adding tracking numbers into eBays system is creating extra work.

Sales through this channel alone is over half a million, so one would think we would be a bit better looked after. 

Any thoughts of feedback would be nice. Feel free to Private Message.

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Have you thought of opening a merchant account and dropping the Paypal option? It might work for the interim, although it may discourage buyers who like the easier Paypal option.