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I have posted a few times in here... I've been a victim of the 21 day hold TWICE, sold on ebay for over three years, was fire-bombed from a single seller, restricted and now I'm GONE! POOF! I Would love to sue them for this, as it was totally uncalled for. I can't appeal, and basically am selling everything that's loose on Craigslist to make my bills for this month. I really wish there were some humane alternative to this madness... going to get some cheap rot-gut and shoot pool at the corner dive! Been a long day. *sigh*   ... View more

In the words of Tennessee Ernie Ford "I owe my soul to the company store". ( I know, he didn't write it!)   This was a true story of  indenturing or "slavery" in the 20th century. Basically workers worked in a coal mine and bought all of their goods from the company store in the "coal village" where they lived. The store charged them interest and allowed the workers to become so indebted that they could never pay it off and spent their whole lives there. "another day older and deeper in debt"...   This was eventually stopped by unions and by the feds and eventually the companies were forced to be kinder. The GOVERNMENT AND WORKERS actually had to man-up to stop the cruelty of large organizations!   Paypal and Ebay are doing the same thing. In my case I was put on "the hold" because 2.17% of my buyers in a given month left me a DSR less than 3 stars. In the next month I had to ship from my own pocket, something that was nearly impossible for me and I suspect truly impossible for many thousands of sellers. So the logic is, or ILLOGIC is, to ensure you ship faster we will hold all of your money and make it impossible for you to ship on time or at all. The punishment for the crime is to make you a bigger criminal. And on a larger scale, this is what they are doing. They talk about security for the buyers, and neglect the sellers. The real problem is that sellers are being fleeced by unregulated thieving buyers with no recourse, and on the back of it Ebay and Paypal fine us for getting negatives and poor DSR's left by cruel scammers who stole from us in the first place. This makes for a "no-win" situation that a seller must stay in for months or years, until the the loss of their account or the sweet release of death allows them to finally stop. It was illegal then, and is, even now, as it's being done to middle-class folks! Instead of making Ebay "more secure" they have caused widespread fraud directly traceable to this policy. When a seller sees the writing on the wall... he will get as much money as he can and close up shop! Close his bank acct, and let Ebay hang for the fees they want to charge. Meanwhile buyers won't get their items and will think that it was because of some dishonesty on the sellers part, not that he was forced out of business and also to commit fraud. This is the worst thing I've ever been privy to. I hate being in the middle of it,  but I want to do something about it. I will try   If I were a lawyer or just knew the mechanics to file a class action suit, I know this would be a winner. You can't indenture people like this, even if they need the work, even if they click the "I agree" tab on their application.   Stay ANGRY! And be pro-active. ... View more

The policy that got you was the new DSR policies. And even though your DSR's may be high or "perfect" You may in any given month receive some low ones (3 or less stars) and if  "your have more than 1% low dsr's  for domestic buyers in the "item as described" or more than 2% in the other areas, you can get the CLAMP (or the 21 day hold). Supposedly also neutral FB and other factors apply, but most of the people here can answer their questions by checking their sellers dashboard. This is a VERY unfair policy because one seller who buys a few Lp's from me can put my account in the tank BY THEMSELVES!... %1 in the item as described is also very low when a person who has 99%+ feedback has a good record... ... View more

Just a follow up... I spent two and a half hours on the phone today, talking to friendly Asian folks who couldn't help me and was tossed back and forth for a while... finally got a "specialist" from paypal to help me file for an appeal for an early review... spent another half hour with him unlocking payments that had been delivered but were still being held in one of the several glitches the system has. I got a call about a half hour later from paypal, and they said that they were releasing the funds because in light of my time on Ebay and my lack of cases filed that my account was being restored to normal. Wether it stays that way, I don't know. The DSR system is the culprit behind the problems I am having. Most of my buyers are older folks that buy records and may or may not understand the DSR system. Sometimes I work a lot in a week and can only ship one day, so consequently my shipping isn't as fast as some retirees that have a lot of time on their hands... this was the reason I was put on "21 day hold status"...   It seems like the system is loosening up a little... and when in doubt, bug the **bleep** out of them on the phone line... I can't see how this policy can be doing them any good... I have read several very sad stories like mine on this page of poor folks that are truly suffering. I hope that someone is out there reading this and can do something about it. It's a terrible hardship to sellers that are trying to make an honest living.   This is the logic I was facing... my shipping DSR was .17% below the threshold that triggers the 21 day hold... so in order to induce me to ship faster, my funds were held for up to 21 days. This is a strange policy, because I had several packages in that horrible two month period that I COULD NOT SHIP for lack of funds... were it not for my regular customers, and my day and night emailing (with a link to this forum) for damage control, AND the good faith feedback left by several people I would be out of business now BECAUSE of this policy.  I run a high volume business and deal a lot with international buyers and in the case of Lp's the SHIPPING can account for on the AVERAGE 3/4 of the payment amount. This is a fantastic amount to come up with out-of-pocket. I simply couldn't do it, and I even still have one large package in my hall waiting for the funds that were unlocked today. Compounding the problem was the fact that many of the buyers choose to NOT LEAVE FEEDBACK, causing the money to be delayed a FULL 21 days. Many of them also DO NOT SPEAK ENGLISH, so I have to translate when necessary. When I called Paypal to report these things they replied that "you can ship the items through paypal using the shipping label function and the money will come out of the held balance"... NOT TRUE... the shipping label function will only allow you to send a parcel PRIORITY INTERNATIONAL, or EXPRESS INTERNATIONAL!!!! In most cases that was 2-3 times the amount of the entire payment! AND, there is STILL no delivery confirmation!!! AAAAAAAAND the ICING on the CAKE was that in most instances that I used the paypal shipping labels, THEY DIDN'T PULL FUNDS FROM THE PAYPAL BALANCE, but INSTEAD PULLED THEM FROM MY EMPTY BANK ACCT, causing OVERDRAFTS!!! Every label represented a seperate transaction, AND a seperate overdraft from my bank ACCT... 2.95 was the average price, with a $20 overdraft charge. Multiply that times the 50 labels that I packed in that day... AND DO THE MATH!!! Last time I talked to them they were "working on that problem".  I still was able to work around all of this HORRID TWISTED POLICY though, and for that I feel like a war veteran. This was a F**ing horrible ordeal from a faceless, mindless, cruel entity that I will forever feel hostile toward. ... View more

I have been on hold now for over an hour, being passed back and forth between paypal and Ebay, hung up on, sent to ASIA and back again!   My DSR's got me on the hold, basically because I sell a high volume of records to old folks like me who don't understand DSR's or their significance, even if I include an insert, email, and warnings on my auction pages. I guarantee everything unconditionally, but still got dinged a few times in a few months.   I ship 100's of Lp's in a given week, and now Ebay has my money totally tied up in holds. I can't ship through paypal for international transactions because it would be twice the cost of the whole original transaction as they DON'T allow anything other than priority or express mail for international orders using paypal shipping. So I basically ship out of my own pocket for ALL international parcels and email them constantly regarding leaving feedback.   I've used all my saving up now and my house payment is a month late. I can't even ship the parcels I have here. My DSR's are great for this month but it will be another 15 days to wait till the next evaluation. This is the worst business i've ever dealt with. I wish I had another option. If there were another option to sell on line, there would be such a mass migration of sellers... it's SHAMEFUL!   Now I have my monthly invoice coming due... what now? Because of the lack of money I have had fewer auctions because I can't buy more stock. How many people have to be put out of business before they realize what they're doing?!?! How do they cook the books to make this look good?!?   I talk to paypal every day and the folks on there comiserate and tell me that this is all they do all day is absorb the irate words sprayed from all the sellers who are being ssqueezed out of business.         ... View more