In early December, I cleaned out my closet and sold a bunch of items on eBay. All of the transactions (a half-dozen) went through fine; the buyers paid immediately and the items shipped out the next day, and all was well. As soon as the money hit my PayPal account, I transferred it to my checking account. It should be obvious why I did that. Apart from the annoying 3-day float, that worked. The last item sold a couple of days before Christmas, and I sent the buyer three invoices and he didn't pay. I had to open a dispute-resolution case with eBay because I never got any replies. (Yeah, yeah, it was a holiday. That's not my problem.) Anyways, soon after the dispute case was opened, the buyer paid. That was when I saw the 21-day hold thing. How annoying -- after several successful sales, of more-expensive items, PayPal decides I'm not worthy. So the rules for getting your money seem to be: a) wait 21 days, b) wait for the buyer to give me positive feedback, c) wait for the item to be delivered and wait three more days. Well, the item was delivered yesterday; maybe my money will be released tomorrow or Monday. I don't want to leave positive feedback for this buyer because, quite frankly, not responding to e-mails and forcing me to go to dispute is pretty much the definition of a crappy buyer who deserves at best neutral feedback. Since sellers can no longer do that, our only option is to simply leave no feedback at all. I'm sure the buyer is waiting for me to give him feedback before he gives me the positive feedback I need to get my money. So the end result of all of this: once I get my money, I'm closing my PayPal account and will no longer do business with them. I don't sell enough on eBay to be a "Power Seller" and seriously, at this point, I'd rather take the unwanted stuff to the dump than to try to unload it on eBay. As such, the eBay account will be closed as well. Seriously, this check kiting scheme is illegal and why PayPal is allowed to continue to do it is rather astonishing. Even more ridiculous is the anti-competitive requirement that buyers and sellers use only PayPal. "Most-loved way to send and receive money?" That's the very definition of hubris.
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