PayPal Payment Holds

[Amanda411]

Hi All,

There has been a lot of talk recently about when and why PayPal holds funds in a customer’s account.  Many of these questions are answered on our Payment Holds page found at https://www.paypal.com/paymentholds and a recent post on the PayPal blog at  https://www.thepaypalblog.com/2010/02/paypal%e2%80%99s-ed-eger-on-reserves/.  However, I do want to provide some clarification on a couple of points . 

Some of you are concerned that PayPal will be applying holds to all sellers in the future.  I’ve checked with our various product teams and have confirmed that there are currently no plans to apply holds or reserves across the board to all sellers. 

I’ve also noticed a misunderstanding around buyer feedback and when we will reverse a payment.  Some postings state that a payment will be reversed if the buyer doesn’t leave feedback or leaves negative feedback.  This is not accurate.  A buyer’s Positive Feedback is one way we will release a pending transaction to the seller.  However, we will not reverse a payment just because the buyer doesn’t leave feedback or leaves negative feedback. 

Some of you have posted that PayPal held your funds because you didn’t sell enough to meet a certain minimum dollar amount.  In deciding whether to hold funds, we review many factors including transaction activity, business type, and customer disputes.  We do not use a minimum payment volume as a threshold for when payments should be held. 

One last thing to remember.  Just because your payment has been held, it does not mean that it will be held for the entire 21-day period. Your payment may be released if we can confirm satisfactory delivery of the item or your buyer leaves positive feedback after delivery. So, processing your orders in a timely manner and communicating with your customers is key.

Amanda

[WashingtonArmry]

Amanda,

             As a long time but infrequent PayPal user both paying and receiving I  have to say that the holds are inconvenient, Here are my suggestions for you. 1) because some of us are selling items because we "have to" and don't have much of a reserve please do not hold the shipping funds but instead place them into the useable amount so we can pay for shipping (I use the paypal shipping so that I can track orders more easily) this was a serious problem when I first started selling because I lost my job.

            Second and this would only take a little programming on PayPals part. since your website is "tied" to UPS and USPS send an Email to the bidder and seller to remind them when the package has been delivered about feedback. A lot of buyers don't post feedback and they are unaware that it is causing delays in releasing our funds.

           Third, Since we can get our funds quicker please put a note on the page that payers use that explains the Feedback to funds release connection.

           The biggest thing for me right now has been the shipping problem, since I don't know what shipping will be every time I cannot always set aside the amount from the last sale. Thank you

[Worried]

I so agree- I just sold a China set for $580 -PayPal put hold- I did not have  the means for the shipping-had to borrow,so embarrassing-- I put the china on in the first place to go on a trip -now my money is held up -in the hole on shipping,praying that this woman will give me positive feedback!! If I had only know this would happen never would have sold this way--  The weird thing is not all of my payments have been placed in pending status-so who decides which is?  So disappointed and let down.

[reachout]

Dear Amanda  You clearly have not read your own criteria for PAYMENT HOLDS.  FEEDBACK SCORE OF LESS THAN 100 !!!    Three out your 8 reasons for PAYMENT HOLD clearly states the the reason for payment hold is POOR service.  Several other reasons don't apply to the vast majority of your sellers.   Any of our potential buyers would read your criteria  and see only the negative parts and would definitely assume that a seller  is dishonest.   You just don't care about the seller that may depend on paypal and ebay for second income.  You have held two of my payments recently for absolutely NO reason.  Guess what,  I lost my job recently and selling collection the I once enjoyed.  So I'm glad you have your job and can keep on talking out of both sides of your mouth.    Bob H.