Hey everyone,
I'm brand new to this forum, but I wanted to let you all know what happened to me today. So today is, well yesterday was 1/17/2011. I am one of those guys who decided to go back to college at the age of 30+; for good reason, I am a US Army Veteran, and need a degree to go along with the years of working in the Software experience that I have, but the issue at hand is I have all of these Textbooks every quarter, and because, the college bookstores give you the shaft when buying back text books, I decided to sell on Ebay and get better prices. So this past week I have posted 6 of my text books.
So when I posted my first book, when I got down to the shipping portion, Ebay forced me to enter only up to $4.00 for shipping. (I learned tonight from Ebay, that this is a cap added by the United States Postal Service that a states a seller can only charge $4 for shipping on Media whether it be CD, Books, DVD's etc) I can also add other shipping options and set prices for up to 3 different shipping types whether it be "Overnight", "3 Day”, "Priority", etc., etc, etc.. Whatever... However that Standard Media Shipping must be included at a cost no greater than 4 dollars. This does not include tracking numbers or anything.
The other day, I went to the post office with my books that I am going to ship, and the cheapest I can send the first book bought is for like 8.75 which includes the special padded envelope. What this means is that the USPS has capped cost of shipping at $4.00 for media but then charges me a minimum of 8.75 to send one piece of "media". So then tonight, I receive a purchase notification for another one of my text books.
I go to PayPal to verify funds before I ship the book off tomorrow. And there is a friggen hold on funds from the buyer. This was the first time that I was presented with this "policy". The book that I sold just two days ago did not have this hold and the total purchase price was available in my PayPal account. This infuriated me, so I picked up the phone and called PayPal to find out what was going on.
So I get this nice lady on the phone, she listens to what I have to say, and asked if I had received an email between my first sale and second explaining that they were going to put a hold status on my received payments for up to 21 days. I told her "No" that I did not receive any such email. It was then explained that for my and the buyers protection PayPal is now withholding funds on New Seller accounts. I then asked why the funds from the sale just two days ago were not held then? Her answer for this was, "There was really no policy on which transaction were or were not going to have holds placed on them, however, when they received a tracking notification stating the item had been received or the buyer left positive feedback, that PayPal would then release those funds for the purchased item within 24 hours of getting that information. My question to her was " Okay, well if Ebay caps shipping of Media at $4.00 and the buyer chooses the $4.00 item, I am not going to pay anywhere from $30 to $90 dollars for shipping to have a tracking number to get my money, then I might as well of just found someone on Ebay to take my book for free and then pay the shipping myself to send it to them. Great deal for a buyer, but a huge loss for the seller. She then said well "When" the buyer leaves positive feedback... I interrupted well what if the buyer doesn't leave feedback? She then put me on hold, came back 3 minutes later and said that she was transferring me to the Finance department to have the funds released.
I wait on hold for another 5 minutes when a gentleman came on the phone, thanked me for calling PayPal, and had no idea why I was transferred to him. I explained to him everything that I just explained to representative that just transferred me, and finished my statement as, "And that is why I am now on the phone with you, so you can release the funds." His response was, “I am going to recommend the first person you talked to, for retraining, because I cannot just release the funds." As I began making the same argument to this gentleman that I had made to the first representative, he told me that there was nothing he could do, and then hung up on me. Seriously, he just hung up on me.
I immediately called PayPal back, and then got a new representative, where I had to explain the whole situation again to. This person put me on hold for 5 minutes, came back on the phone and said, I apologize for the inconvenience, but I am going to transfer you to our comments department. I said, "But!" but it was too late he was gone and once again I had hold music. At this time the very nice lady came on the phone and I began explaining my situation all over again. She said that she had no idea about the $4.00 shipping cap making tracking information virtually impossible to sellers whose materials get bought by buyers who don't mind a 2-9 business day wait for their purchased items. And understood that just because you buy something on Ebay, you are not required to leave any type of feedback either positive or negative for that matter. Which means that PayPal is just going to hold people’s money for 21 days even though items have been shipped and received. This person highly recommended that I contact Ebay about this, and let them know what was going on. She then, believe it or not, released my held funds. I told her I was not a business that I was going to sell my Textbooks after every quarter but that was it. She then transferred me to Ebay, where I was connected to a very nice rep.
I began telling this Ebay rep everything that I had been through, and then asked about this whole shipping thing. She explained to me that this was a rule put in place by the Government. The US Postal Service has sent this $4.00 cap for shipment of media that is purchased online, and that everyone needs to have the option of having their media sent by USPS, knowing full well that $4.00 does not and will not cover all media. This cap makes it more attractive to buyers of media to use the US Postal Service instead of UPS, FEDEX, OR DHL. Every time that sellers use one of the three shipping services and not USPS, it takes money out of the Governments hands. She then tried to explain to me how this 21 day hold on PayPal was for the seller’s protection, and the buyer’s protection. I then told her that what PayPal was doing was illegal. According to the Banking Information and Regulations:
Section 229.10 Next-day availability
States that the regulation requires that cash deposits, wire transfers, and certain check deposits that Congress believes pose little risk to the depositary bank, such as Treasury checks and cashier’s checks, generally be made available for withdrawal by the business day after the banking day of deposit.
Section 229.13 Exceptions
This section speaks about how if peoples accounts are always overdrawn how they can hold until funds have been completely verified, but this is a payment made by either Credit Card, or by buyers PayPal balance.
I explained to this person that PayPal was basically a bank. They offer wire transfers to other banks, they have their own debit card which is linked to your PayPal account, it all regards PayPal is a bank. I asked her to follow me, I asked this person the following question, "So lets say you call your mom, dad, best friend, husband, or whomever you wish to put in this place, and you let them know that you made a banking mistake and you need money, or you blew a tire and you don't have enough in the bank to cover the cost of a new tire, and you ask them to run to your bank and make a deposit on your behalf. So your person of choice does this, then you receive a call from this person and they let you know that your good to go that the money has been deposited into your account, lets pretend they just put cash into your account; so you go to the counter and you give the tire guy your debit card to pay for the tire, and your debit card comes back declined. So now you need to call your bank to ask what the heck is going on, because you know your 'mom' just put $200 dollars into your account. You reach your bank, and they verify that the deposit has been made, however, they are going to hold that money for 21 days just because they can."
This actually upset this Ebay rep, and she put me on hold to call PayPal to ask what the heck was going on. She came back on the phone after three minutes and was completely flustered. She then started to explain to me that I just needed to have that tracking number or proof of positive feedback to get that money before the 21 days. I then had to explain this stuff all over again, about how I am not going to pay more for shipping then I am selling my books for, and how we cannot expect anyone to leave feedback the very second they receive the item in the mail.
As far as I am concerned this action of holding our funds for 21 days is very illegal, and I am going to do everything to get PayPal to be held responsible for this. There is no reason to hold money. If people are selling fake items on Ebay, then that is fraud, and it is punishable by fines and prison time. If Buyer see that all sales are final, and no returns will be accepted (which is not my policy) and they buy an item like that anyway, then that is their deal, and if they receive an item they are not happy with, they will think twice about it next time, otherwise, they send the item back and work out refunds with the seller.
I hope someone from PayPal reads this, because I am going to sending a copy of this post to the "Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve." PayPal really needs to reconsider this policy; oh yeah and one more thing. Did you know that this hold policy for new sellers according to PayPal customer service reps is not either published to the Customer service reps or it just does not exist, because two of the 3 PayPal reps that I spoke to explained to me that the policy did not dictate who was considered a new seller, and when a person was no longer a new seller, or which transactions if any will be held for at least 21 days.
So there it is, let me know what you all think.
Beau
