Paypal holding funds until packages delivered, Shipping included What am I supposed to do?

jdlc433
New Community Member

I have had an ebay account for years, I just made my first ebay sales and am recieving payments to paypal. Because I am a first time seller they are holding funds until packages are delivered. The problem is that the shipping is substantial and is being held as well. How am I supposed to ship the items when the money to ship them is being held for 21 days until the packages are shipped, My shipping cost on these items is over $400 and I don't have the money to ship on hand. I was counting on using the shipping payments included in the sale to pay the shipping cost.

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18 REPLIES 18

profdata
Frequent Contributor
Frequent Contributor

Oh and the reason ebay/paypal started doing this is because of bad sellers. 

Some sellers were not shiping the items or just shipping junk so paypal would payout under  their BPP.

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Equitube
Contributor
Contributor

The truth of the matter has little to do with bad sellers, buyers or of people at all.  PayPal's original business model was to profit from the interest earned from funds deposited into their accounts and held for a (formerly) short period of time. 

 

Initially the 'holding period' was pretty short two to three days.  Electronic transactions were/are quicker within the structured Paypal "shell'. Many people, myself included bought, sold and kept a balance in the system. It was convienent and seemed to work smoothly as long as you didn't mind surrenderring the earning potential of your capital to pay for these e-services that banks had yet to fully embrace.

 

(an interesting excercise is to calculate the millions of dollars of real  income  gained by PayPal and the potential income lost by countless PayPal users leaving small, and large sums of money in an essentially 0 interest account for years.)

 

 However it doesn't  take an investment banker to realize the nearly exponential increase in revenue when plotted against greater holding time. The company has grown into a behemoth, quite impressive given it's humble beginnings. They are adept at creating 'real' money from virtual sources as all banking services are.

 

I personally dont' like to use the service, but find it inconvienent not to at times. There was a movement ( and government investigation) in Paypals initial year of operation to charge them for the use of money that doesn't actually belong to them and is being (willfully) held  several times longer than should be to cover handling and convienence fees. If enough customers would have insisted on this in the beginning, Paypal would likely be one of thousands of small transaction processors eager to transfer funds through their network in hours instead of what, about a month now?

 

If there were enough outcry and protests, these questionable (though totally legal, we all clicked on the "agree" button) tactics might change. But preditory financial practices are the norm these days (referring to payday loans not paypal).

 

 It is still posible to transfer funds through traditional banking channels electronically the same day. Most financial institutions can't hold customer funds without paying for the privilage. But, look as I might I just can't seem to find a button on ebay from my credit union.

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missymoo2013
New Community Member

My questions are if they put a hold for 21 days on your money, then how long does this last? Do they do  that with every Ebay item I sell? Would that also count if I got there card reader for "instant" payments on my items?

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Equitube
Contributor
Contributor

Paypal will not hold your funds for 21 days forever. It is clearly spelled out in ebay/paypals agreement. ($750 in sales, 6 mos or more as a seller and one other thing, I haven't time to look it up and provide a link now). I will begrudgingly admit that this practice does prevent at least some seller scamming on ebay, however, they should still be paying an acceptable rate of interest for the use of these monies like every one else has to.

 

They could at least throw sellers a bone and offer free money transfers or free listing fees (yes ebay and paypal are the same company now)

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thegymnast
New Community Member

I just sold some things on ebay. I shipped them, added the tracking number and got the payment. The only problem is that It's stuck in my paypal account. I dont know how to get it to my bank account. Does anyone know if it is possible to get that money?

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Denissa
Member
Member
PayPal does not always hold the money for 21 days check the tracking number if it has need delivered call Paypal tell them the item was delivered they will check it then release your money that's what they did for me
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frankyrizzo
Contributor
Contributor

To pay for shipping something that you have sold on ebay with the funds from the sale you must log in to paypal and look in your transaction history and select print shipping label 

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santarick
Contributor
Contributor

Paypal is still holding my money after 27 days. I thought it was only up to 21 days. it seems as if paypal/ebay are collecting there fees but still holding your money long after transaction has been completed. this seems to be a widespead problem with paypal. While we the sellers are out the product and shipping cost for as long as paypal wants to hold our money.

I have left feed back to paypal however i dont expect anyone at paypal or ebay to ever read it. I feel that it might be a good ideal for all sellers with this problem and it seems as if there are alot of us, to stop useing paypal and report there complants to the BBB.

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vikingvintage
Contributor
Contributor

PayPal has gone to a lot of effort to not be classified as a bank. They are a "deposit broker" and regulations for those are regulated by individual states in the US. In all states there are no regulations requiring PayPal to release these funds AT ALL within any particular time period. They could hold them for 3 months or years if they decided that's what they wanted to do. They'd have no business if they did this however, it appears there are limits when it come to abusing its members.

 

There is pretty much nothing you can do except making your sellers angry and create as a result of this policy a bad or perceptively unsafe shoppoing experience for buyer. Especially if you do not have the money to pay for shipping in your pocket. Shame really. Many people in the current economy have turned to Ebay and PayPal to make a living since the unemployment problem came in during this recession. Many cannot afford the hundreds or even thousands of dollars they would have to "put up in advance"  to cover shipping funds. (This is what PayPal says is the solution BTW) The items I sold had shipping fees up in the hundreds of dollars per item. So I had to put money in advance in my PayPal account for each of the 1000 or so items I had on eBay. Just to cover shipping costs it cost me thousands of dollars I had tied up and unusable for business purposes, even though buyers pay for shipping at the time they make their purchase. It became very difficult to do this consistantly over time, Obviously this policy making a "safe shopping experience" for buyers and sellers is a lie told by PayPal and eBay. It is a lie, plain and simple.

 

I no longer sell on eBay nor use PayPal for my business as result of this policy. I hurt too many eBay sellers. I had too many cases opened as a result of delayed shipping due to cash flow problems because of the holds. For me because of cases and complaints from customers due the cash flow problems these "Hold" problems persisted for several years. Yes... years not 90 days, years! Anything considered a risk will put you back on the "Hold" list, (A high priced item, a risky buyer, a case opend due to item not received even if caused by this policy, etc. And this decision putting you back on hold is done by software, not  the judgement of a human being). Furthermore, once you are put back on the hold list you have to start over. For buyers who sell high price items and sell under 100 items per year,  the DSR and feedback rating takes a year to clear up, so the holds can persist for years. Not just 90 days. Be Warned!!!! These policies very heavily damaged my businesses reputation.

 

I could not operate my small business using standard cash flow management since funds were delayed by PayPal. I was in and out the "hold" category for years. My accountant couldn't even figure out how to account for this for my financial records. He had to create a way to account for these delayed funds in my accounts receivables. This is non standard accounting, since no other finacial instiution does this. Only PayPal. I was audited by the IRS due to these "inconsistencies in receivables as filed" according to the IRS. It became clear to the IRS what was going on as legit and I was cleared, but again this creates problems for business acounting and I had to endure an unwarranted audit. These policies are very problematic for businesses.

 

According to PayPal VP's in response to this in the media, the money PayPal makes off putting these funds in bank accounts for 21 days or even 7 days is estimated at only around 10million dollars per day. This is a drop in bucket when compared with the tens of billions of dollars in total revenue. Or at least this is the way PayPal has justified this practice in the media. However, if I held a up a bank and asked for only $5 the amount of what I stole would not determine the severity of the crime. I would still go to jail for the same amount of time. It is the act that matters, not the value of the item stolen. The value has no bearing on the act. However, since PayPal isn't committing a crime, the victims of the policy have no remedy other than not using eBay or PayPal.

 

That's it. Take it or leave it, as they say. It may be unfair, but it's not illegal. If you do not agree with policy then your only option is to not use PayPal or eBay. If it really bothers you that much don't use either service. Otherwise, fork up the money so PayPal can make its "drop in the bucket"  profits

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