PayPal pending payment

socrcoach17
New Community Member

I would like to hear from someone at PayPal the answers to several specific questions relating to the pending payment policy. I have read the various threads on this, and the relevant section of the Terms of Service Agreement, but these are questions not answered elsewhere.

 

FIrst, the background. Like so many others here, I was caught by surprise when payment was held up for an item I sold on eBay. The item sold for $455 and because it is heavy and bulky, the shipping charge was $225 (in the actual fact, it cost me more than that amount to pack and ship and I ate the difference). The winning bidder paid immediately via PayPal. PayPal immediately marked this as a "pending" payment. The item was shipped less than 48 hours after the auction closed and delivered yesterday. I supplied the tracking information to PayPal/eBay as instructed. The payment still shows simply as "pending" and when I click on "Details" I am told that status applies for another 14 days, OR 3 days after PayPal can determine that the item was delivered, OR 3 days after the buyer leaves positive feedback.

 

There is no way for me to verify that PayPal/eBay knows now that the item was, in fact, delivered yesterday. There is no way to know when and if a change in pending status has occurred. The policy is ambiguous as to whether delivery even matters for an eBay auction item, or if only positive buyer feedback will release the funds in less than 21 days.

 

QUESTION 1: If the item was sold pursuant to an eBay auction, is the pending status changed when the SOONER OF or LATER OF the two listed events occur: provable delivery or positive buyer feedback? How can I verify that PayPal now knows the item was delivered and, therefore, that the 3-day clock has started to count down?

 

PayPal positions itself as the most convenient way for a seller to accept payments, especially on eBay transactions. I was charged a $20+ fee for this transaction. I had to front the $225 shipping charge. I now have to wait an arbitrary amount of time for payment, with no feedback from PayPal as to status before or after the buyer submitted his PayPal payment transaction. In the very best case, the funds will hit my bank account two weeks from when the auction closed because of the holiday weekend.

 

QUESTION 2: Why is this good for me as a seller? You are charging me premium transaction fees, what service am I AS A SELLER getting in return for this policy and the fees charged?

 

The most basic tenet of contract law is that the parties have to agree to the terms in order for there to be a contract. PayPal's Terms of Service Agreement relating to pending payments is hopelessly vague, to the degree that I question that it constitutes a contract. It would not be a valid contract for me to say, for example, "I can do whatever I want for any reason" and for you to agree, and for me to then take your car and your house. I could argue that your agreement was stupidity on your part (which is, essentially, PayPal's response to sellers in the various threads and is vaguely insulting), but I could not defend such capricious actions in court based on that "contract." Particularly in a dependent situation like this

 

The PayPal pending payment policy does not, for example, let me know, as a seller, whether I or any given transaction are subject to being pended, what I can do to prevent it, or what specific criteria PayPal will use. PayPal relies on terms like "high risk" that clearly mean something very different to the sellers who have spoken out in this forum than they mean to PayPal. In no way would I, as a reasonable seller, read the text of the TOSA and interpret it as meaning what PayPal is, in fact, doing. You are doing things that are not reasonable interpretations that a reasonable seller would be expected to conclude are consistent with the TOSA's language. They appear to be arbitrary and capricious and unrelated to the stated policy.

 

In short, a seller "agreeing" to the TOSA can have no basis for understanding what it now turns out PayPal means by those words.

 

QUESTION 3: How does the TOSA, regarding pending payment holds, constitute a valid contract, given that you provide no way for the seller to know what he/she is agreeing to and that reasonable sellers clearly think you are interpreting this language in ways opposite to the way they understand it?

 

Given that PayPal relies on its "sole discretion," there is an implied obligation for the policy and its enforcement to rationally relate to its purpose.

 

As with so many others, there is no evidence in my case of any kind of a problem. This was a personal sale, but I own a company that accepts credit cards based in large part on my own credit history, and have had no problem with approvals for those transactions from banks, or any problems with any specific transactions. There is no history of complaints against me personally or my company, I have no criminal history, no financial fraud, solid credit rating, bank account has been verified. In other words, PayPal has reached a decision about my "risk" that is opposite what other financial institutions that provide similar services have concluded.

 

QUESTION 4: How does the pending payment discretion policy of PayPal rationally relate to actual risks to buyers, its putative purpose? What does the term "high likelihood" mean anyway - 50%? 10%? 1%? What statistical evidence does PayPal have that the criteria used are predictive of a "high likelihood" (whatever that means) of buyer dissatisfaction? Is there any such evidence at all that eBay frequency is a reliable predictor, or is this just someone's guess?

 

Clearly, this policy benefits PayPal financially. You get the benefit of interest on the funds while they are in pending status. It is like travellers checks - the financial institution makes money on the float. Therefore, PayPal has set itself up with a clear conflict of interest, between fairly interpreting ambiguous or discretionary sections of the TOSA, e.g., what constitutes "risk" to buyers, and what is financially beneficial for PayPal.

 

QUESTION 5: Will PayPal remove this conflict by paying interest on the funds held? If not, how can you claim to not have an egregious conflict of interest in your unilateral interpretation of the TOSA?

 

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489 REPLIES 489

thomasb93
New Community Member

I would be interested to see if there is a correlation between the financial stability of paypal/ebay and the number of "random" payment holds. If paypal are accruing interest on the held payments this would warrant a couple of measures, 1. get the commerce dept involved in the matter. 2. setup a primer showing all ebay customers/merchants how to use amazon instead.  Amazon is a viable replacement for ebay, it is a name people trust and from a public relations standpoint Bezos seems to be more concerned about his customers and merchants. Ebay seems to be just assuming that people will not do business elsewhere. There is room for amazon to gain market share.

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LSPP
Contributor
Contributor

Just a reminder to EVERYONE who's been scammed by PayPal's "Hold", the lawsuit has been filed, and the list is G-R-O-W-I-N-G rapidly with class member (those just like you who have suffered the "hold"). You need to contact the Law Firm- Freed & Weiss at: 312-220-0000 to get your name on the list as a class member. To see the complaint filed in court, visit my website at: letssuepaypal.com where I have a link to the complaint. The end result: those whom made PayPal and eBay who they are today, will be the same ones who will put them where they belong= ON THEIR A-S-S!

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IG-88
Contributor
Contributor

completely agree, this is whats happening to me at the moment. i RARELY sell on ebay, but once in awhile i'll need money to pay off bills or afford gas. I dont recall there being a new policy agreement on paypal that I accepted at any point. Now i'm waiting on a payment that i need rather soon for necessities in my life, and now i'm being told i have to wait the 21 days out. However, on Ebay you MAKE YOUR OWN RETURN POLICY as far as how many days it can last before a customer decides to get a refund or not. I could possibly accept that, as it's linked to the actual customer's satisfaction, but that's not how Paypal sees it. This fact, to me, is incredibly overlooked, and purposefully so i might add. Essentially i'm going to end up with hardly any money in my account excepting the considerably small paychecks i earn weekly. 

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trinaferg
Contributor
Contributor

Im "PENDING -CLASS ACTION"

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dave393
Contributor
Contributor

Anyone who has sold something on eBay recently has seen the set-up pages where you type in the options for your listing. I just sold something today and went through all that.

 

What I noticed is that "Pay with PayPal" has a checkbox. Supposedly, if you don't check it, you are refusing to accept PayPal (and you can avoid that "pending payment" scam).

 

NOT SO FAST! If you leave the "Pay with PayPal" box unchecked, you are on your way into the most frustrating ride of your life. The next steps are designed to discourage anyone who wants to opt out of PayPal. (Try it, and you'll see what I mean. Error messages pop up for no real reason. The options you'll need are almost impossible to find.) I tried it myself and finally called eBay support. The support person couldn't figure it out either. She had to ask her supervisor 2 or 3 times. All together, it took her about half an hour. Finally, I got it set up so I don't have to use PayPal.

 

Warning: eBay is doing everything in its power to keep people using PayPal. 

 

 

Dave

 

 

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cujivedaddy
New Community Member

I have run into the same problems. I have 9 items with Payment Pending and the buyers are newer buyers. How can I trust that the money is there. I decided to go ahead and ship out 2 items and we will see what happens. This absolutely is a mess. It has had me in tears trying to figure out what to do. I sell on here when I am desperately in need of some extra money. Now I have done my part and I expect everyone else to do theirs!

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missyvandiver
Contributor
Contributor

i have been scammed this week, call pay pal to confirm that payment was made. I also shipped out the item an now i'm out $400.00 it was a scam

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frenchwap
Member
Member

I have not used paypal or ebay for several years now. in the last 2 weeks I purchased an item for 11.49, money taken out of my bank account immediately, then I purchased another item for 6.25, that money taken out of my bank account immediately, I sold an item for 8.00, money received immediately, sold another item for 35.00, that money is "pending", sold item on 5-23-10 and money will not be released until 6-13-10, buyer received item 4 days ago and still has not left feedback, but shipping confirmed. Maybe if I had sold an item that was worth hundreds of dollars I would understand the hold more, but I sold 3 bras for 35.00!!!!!!!  

 

It seems to me that Paypal picks and chooses what to release and what to hold. Since I do not use paypal and ebay very often was not aware of new policy of holding payments.

 

After reading allot of these posts it seems to me that Paypal is **bleep**ing allot of people and their so called "buyer protection" is nothing more then a scam for them to reep the benefits. What leg do the sellers have to stand on if the buyer never pays????

 

And since I am not a frequent user I was not aware of this and shipped the item, so now am faced with possibily of not getting money for item.

 

What a joke paypal has become.

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DIMENSIONMARS
Member
Member

I will likely no longer accept paypal as a payment option for ebay, as not even counting credit cards fees, a check is much faster than 21 day holds, including mailing it to me and everything. buyers will have to wait for check to clear, and they can contact paypal if they can actually put money in my hand, so to speak if they want items sent faster. they will be notified it is due to paypal putting 21 day hold on all credit card transactions. till that is possible, there is no point going through paypal. Although I can sell items a bit cheaper so that may actually help sales.

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dlon
Member
Member

 I would like to know if  PAYPAL gave a responce to this question,

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