There was NO WARNING to me as a seller that this would happen. It should not be the responsibility of the seller to research why their funds are being withheld and yet eBay offers no explanation without contacting support. There is another option to print out labels and use the withheld funds to pay for postage but that does not help if you do not own a printer.

 

Really? It's black and white in the Ebay guidelines. It has applied to ALL new sellers as well as ALL sellers who sell infrequently for a long time now, and has nothing to do with how long ago you registered on the platform, or how much feedback you have. There are about 20 threads in the last few weeks on these boards and in every single one of them the seller has not stayed up to date on all the requirements. 

Why would you need to contact the customers about the delay in payments to you? The buyer paid, you need to send with tracking within your handling time otherwise you incur a defect. That's the guideline.

You then need to wait until the items are delivered as well as for a period after delivery to ensure no disputes or chargebacks. Now you've lost sales altogether because for some reason you chose to share information with the buyer and tell them that you're not sending until you get the funds. On top of which, if you use any reason other than "problem with buyers address" as your cancellation reason, you will incur another defect.

Infrequent sellers need to rebuild both Ebay's and buyer trust over a period of time.

Maybe Facebook Marketplace or Gumtree might be better options, but there are lots of time wasters.