NEW SELLER ON EBAY ! HOW LONG WILL PAYPAL HOLD MY FUNDS FOR ?

kimbobs
Contributor
Contributor

I am a new seller on ebay and have just set up a paypal account to manage my transactions only to find that paypal are gonna hold my money because i am a new customer , why do they do this and how long will they hold my money for ?? some pls help 

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Soundwasteland
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I agree with others here. This is ridiculous. I’ve proven to be a good buyer and a good seller. Of the 10 items I’ve sold, 5 were positive reviews, One was negative, one hasn’t reached the customer yet and so no feedback yet, and the others weren’t reviewed at all, but the buyers chose to keep them. I’ve got 71 positive reviews in the last 12 months, 0 Neutral, 1 negative. I’m at a 98.5%. You can’t please everyone and I even refunded $10 to the one negative buyer and he still gave me a bad review. I’m waiting on hold for $57 and I shipped it within an hour of selling it with proof of Tracking numbers and that was two days ago. The payment is still on hold. This was a big bundle and I paid and shipped with USPS Priority Mail. That was $20 of my own money for the shipping and I paid PayPal their cut. After I get the money, I’m done with this business model. I was hoping to pay my EBay invoice soon and at this rate, I’ll have to spend more money to pay that rather than take the $10 out of my PayPal from this transaction. There’s also a highly sought Wii game that sells out fast on EBay and it’s annoying to see copy after copy being sold because of this hold. I understand that the buyer should be protected, yet I believe that the seller should also be given leeway here. The seller shouldn’t have to wait until the item is delivered to get the money, the money should be allowed in the seller’s wallet once the tracking numbers are attached to the item.
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kernowlass
Esteemed Advisor
Esteemed Advisor

@Soundwasteland 

 

If you have only sold 10 items and already have 1 negative than to be fair that is not good.

Also you may have 71 positive reviews but as most of them must have come from buying and not selling then it doesn't really count does it.

After all as a buyer you can't get given a neg or neutral review, you can only ever get a positive one or not have one left at all.


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Soundwasteland
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Excuse me ? My sales are worth nearly $200 combined. I got a negative one from one guy cause he was claiming that it didn’t work correctly and yet I had it and tested it extensively. Just a few months prior, I paid $60 for it. I sold it for $28 and he wanted a $10 refund. I gave him the refund as I heard that PayPal always sides with the buyer. I wasn’t happy at all making $18 on it, not including shipping I had to pay for. So I was like there it is and he left me a negative review for “rude” behavior. I fail to see how I should have to make sure I stay at 100% as that is fairly difficult. People are going to be people. So I’m sitting at nearly a 99% and that’s not good ? Especially when I shipped everything on the day of the sale or the next day and I’ve had majority of positive feedback. I don’t do this for a living, I sold retro stuff and that’s a niche market. This recent sale will be my final one, I’m not a business and I shouldn’t be expected to sell 100 stuff or whatever. 11 as a private seller is good when the majority of the feedback is good. I was going to get three games with my money and now I’ll have to get two, cause the highly sought Wii game cheap copies are all sold out cause I couldn’t buy it in time thanks to the hold.
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AnnikasAttic
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Contributor

Just an update to this so we are established ebay sellers now with 100+ feedback and over 5k in sales but hey guess what Paypal still hold our funds.

Its now become a huge problem from last month when we defaulted on our business rent - we tried to transfer 2 days before our rent was due and we had the dreaded common 'transfer is being reviewed this can take up to 72 hours' message. And guess what it took 72 hours, our rent bounced in our bank and we were charged interest and had the phone call from the landlord questioning our future at the premises. We also were unable to buy food for two days as 100% of our income is now from our online shop. I was disgusted when i called Paypal customer services who lied to me and told me it was my own bank who held the money!!? After i sat there in tears because we could not even buy food, i explained this and also that i had a 5 week old baby and were were desperate to know why paypal were holding thousands of our hard earned wages. The staff do NOTHING about this problem nor can they access our accounts, its a complete joke and i have now had to resort to opening a case with the financial ombudsman. Its the worse , lowest and most unreliable system we have ever used we are now considering closing our online shop just because of how annoying it is trying to use paypal. Just now another transfer held, the worse bit is we get the held message AFTER transferring the money - no warning or option to cancel so the money just vanishes for a few days its as if the whole system was designed just to annoy the c@@p out of anyone who uses it. Oh well another evening giving Paypal the worse reviews i can think of across the internet.. 

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kernowlass
Esteemed Advisor
Esteemed Advisor

@AnnikasAttic 

 

Withdrawals are 2-72 hours in the U.K.
https://www.paypal.com/gb/selfhelp/article/why-is-my-withdrawal-on-hold-faq2990




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zh3n
Contributor
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Just to touch on this PayPal/eBay hold thing reading through all the comments to figure out why mine are being held. I don’t sell often on eBay and quite frankly, I don’t intend to but I’ve purchased quite a lot. I don’t have an online business like one or two of the commenters said they do on here which, if you do and funds are still being held if you’re constantly selling and/or doing business using either platform, that’s ridiculous. IF the circumstances are terrible then, that’s a different story but to hold someone’s funds because they took a break for whatever reason, baffles me. Anyways, I get the buyer protection for new or infrequent sellers like myself but once you’ve established a rep then, why continue and allow for the process to be restarted if the person doesn’t sell for awhile? Not everyone sells things regularly or as a business. If that person has issues with sales and buyers complain a lot THEN I see this happening. My funds are being held now. The package has been sent, label printed via eBay shipping, with 2 day priority shipping and tracking. It said I won’t be able to get my funds until the 26th. I feel bad for those that depend on this and use these platforms for a living and sometimes go through these issues. Good luck!
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kernowlass
Esteemed Advisor
Esteemed Advisor

@zh3n 

 

Funds are normally released earlier when tracking shows the item as delivered + 1 day.


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AnnikasAttic
Contributor
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I have had this problem for over six months now and all paypal tell me is its a good industry standard business model.. so good Paypal that our business never managed to take off because of these holds. The 'released when delivered' is total lies, the amount of times i have had to spend an hour at a time on the phone to paypal or ebay is beyond a joke now. The so called business model that also holds postage on 20 items so i have to spend £350 of my own wages to cover and hope that paypal release the funds in time to pay our business rent. The business model that refunds buyers who scammed us and filled in their own courier collection slip even though i pre warned paypal and ebay several times what was happening.. Its an awful system just designed to only profit paypal who dont give two ***** about its customers and will do anything to hold money in its accounts for interest. Our account has now been frozen for...guess what? sending money to someone who had an overdrawn account unknown to me, bye Paypal your an absolute joke, fully plastering this all over social media for the 50th time in the hope that more ppl see through your lies.

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stashroomtoys
Contributor
Contributor

Having dealt with this issue myself and having spoken with reps from both eBay and PayPal, I can tell you that it is indeed in place to protect the company(s). Neither company cares about it's customers one bit outside of the fact that we provide revenue to them. PayPal states that it isn't a financial institution, rather a "security company" and therefore isn't bound by any federal regulations set forth to financial institutions in regards to funds on hold. I have been told by several PayPal representatives that the company can place a hold on funds, lock access to existing funds, and restrict account access for any reason it sees fit because it is "policy".  During my conversations with representatives from eBay, I have been told that eBay has this policy in place to help make us successful sellers. They say this knowing full well that placing funds on hold actually prevents us from being successful by making it virtually impossible to process orders in a timely manner. We must accept this because there isn't another alternative. eBay does not allow any other company process payments other than PayPal (or itself when its new system goes live). 

 

That being said, I may have found a work around. I have been able to process shipments using the funds on hold if I process the shipping label through PayPal rather than eBay. I need to have a slight balance (have done it with as little as $1) available in PayPal and it won't tough the balance, only the funds on hold. I'm not sure if this works for everybody, but it has worked for me. If I have a $0 balance in PayPal, it won't process the label.

 

Hope this helps.

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JIRO1
New Community Member

I have money held in my paypal account and it wont let me process a postage label using those funds which means I now have to pay out of my own pocket for the postage because the funds are held! So the buyer has paid postage but I cant access that money until I have paid out of my own bank to post the goods! Surely they can allow you the postage money to post the item!! 

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