Making money with ebay/paypal just got even harder

[AZGolf]

So does anyone else here make money with an ebay business, or use PayPal to collect payments for their business? I am by no means an ebay businessman but I've probably sold $2000 worth of goods over ebay in the last 8 years or so. I have a 100% positive feedback rating and haven't sold anything in over 6 months. I use PayPal regularly to pay for random stuff and make charitable donations. To my knowledge I've never filed a complaint nor ever had a complaint filed against me, yet I just got an email from PayPal basically accusing me of being a scammer and they will no longer let me access my money without a 21-day waiting period:

We're writing to let you know about a change to your PayPal account.

Starting X/XX/2012, money from payments you receive will be placed in a pending balance for up to 21 days. By doing this, we're making sure that there's enough money in your account to cover potential refunds or claims.

Even though you can't access the money right away, please ship orders quickly and communicate with your customers. After 21 days, you can withdraw money from each payment as long as the customer hasn't filed a dispute, chargeback, claim, return, or reversal.
The money may be available sooner if:

We can confirm that the item was delivered.
Your buyer leaves positive feedback. (Applies only to eBay items)

This change isn't necessarily permanent. We'll review your account every 35 days and re-evaluate if we should continue to hold your payments. If we decide to stop holding payments, we'll email you to let you know.

Why are my payments being held?
We reviewed your account and determined that there's a relatively higher than average risk of future transaction issues (such as claims, or chargebacks, or payment reversals). We understand that it may be inconvenient to have your payments temporarily held but please know that we didn't make this decision lightly.

Before deciding to hold payments, we consider many factors. These factors include account and transaction activity, the rate of customer disputes, the type of business a seller runs, average delivery timeframes, customer satisfaction, performance and history.

Questions? Let us know
We understand you’d like to have immediate access to the money you receive and we’re here to answer your questions about this change to your account.

For more information and tips on what you can do to avoid having your future payments held, please see our Frequently Asked Questions. To speak to a Customer Service representative, log in to your PayPal account and click “Contact Us” at the bottom of any page.
Thanks,
PayPal

So has anyone else gotten one of these emails before? I'm not sure how upset I should be given the fact I haven't sold anything via ebay in a long time and have had a $0 balance for at least 6 months now. As such, right now there's no funds at risk of being frozen since I have no funds in the account. Still it's frustrating since you practically can't use ebay if you don't use PayPal.

[bubbagti]

So has anyone else gotten one of these emails before? I'm not sure how upset I should be given the fact I haven't sold anything via ebay in a long time and have had a $0 balance for at least 6 months now. As such, right now there's no funds at risk of being frozen since I have no funds in the account. Still it's frustrating since you practically can't use ebay if you don't use PayPal.

I have gone through the same thing. I recently have been selling things on ebay after many years of solely being a buyer. I had all of my received funds held in Paypal until they had proved that the item I shipped was received by the buyer. I think it is a ridiculous response to deter scammers and dishonest sellers.

I have been an ebay member for 9 years. If I wanted to scam buyers this surely is an elaborated plan to do such. Holding my money until I can prove conformation of delivery is unnecessary. The rules to undue this restriction for ebay sellers is just as ridiculous also.

[Vision33r]

You must be new because this actually good for the customers. A lot of times, some scammer would sell something. The customer gets either a brick or broken product and then Paypal can not refund the buyer because the seller already pulled all their funds out of the account.

I have over 11k+ feedback and I get my money in/out of paypal daily.

Once you make enough repeat transactions and they will lift the withdrawl limit.

The real problem with ebay/paypal is the combined fees are very high. Unless you make atleast 20% profit, there's very little profit to keep small time sellers on ebay.

[Harv]

Calm down.

This is temporary. They'll lift the 21 day hold after a short period of time. It happens with everyone. You just finally got your notice.

[AZGolf]

Well I contacted them and got a response back. I've been both an ebay and paypal member for a lot of years but apparently I don't have enough account activity. They said that I need to sell a rolling average of 20 items per 6 months in order to no longer be subject to the hold. I've only sold like 30 things in the last 8 years so obviously I did not meet their definition of a regular seller.

[Mister MK4]

paypal sucks. is this news?

[mk5wantabe]

Do the math, if they hold all payments for 21 days and with what they claim is over 80,000,000 members world wide think of the amount of money they have sitting collecting interest.

Paypal every day locks some 5000 accounts with balances of $5,000 or more, once this happens your account is locked for good, they then hold these funds for 180 days before allowing you to have it back.
Do the math on that amount of money collecting interest. All the while they will never give you a reason for closing your account, just saying they no longer care to do business with you.

[HI SPEED]

I sold 10 original iPads on eBay within a week of launch. I almost had a heart attack, when I got the same letter, and my $5-6,000 was suddenly inaccessible. I emailed them shipping invoices, and a few days later they lifted the hold.


My main problem with PayPal is how pro buyer they are in all scenarios. As a buyer you could order a $10,000 watch claim it was fake and then ship back a fake one. If they were I another country you would have no recourse, and PayPal would most likely side with the buyer and refund them.

It was enough of a puckering experience that I skipped the ipad2 eBay honeypot. Also I don't know how people make money on there. My gross profit over retail was over $1000 but I only took home enough to cover my 16 gb iPad.

[AZGolf]

The real danger is that PayPal is a bank, really, but because they don't get classified as a bank they don't have to follow many (although still some) of the laws that apply to banks. IMHO, there needs to be an alternative to PayPal that doesn't have such a loose grasp on the notion that the money belongs to the account holders, not to PayPal. All it's going to take is for a US Senator to get his PayPal account frozen and you'll see the law change.

[unimogken]

IMHO, there needs to be an alternative to PayPal that doesn't have such a loose grasp on the notion that the money belongs to the account holders, not to PayPal.

Dwolla FTW!

[Vision33r]

What I'm worried about is the impending internet and income tax that congress is trying to impose and paypal and ebay are one of the few fighting while Amazon have already waved the white flag.

Starting this year paypal is reporting folks who received more than $20k in payments to the IRS in a new 1099 form. There is no law or provision yet that says you must report this as income yet, it is voluntary that you do. They are simply telling you that they are obligated to report it to the IRS.

Say you sold a car for $20k on ebay and you received $20k. That will get reported to the IRS.

They are also reviewing CA and NY's online sales tax mandate to see how they can implement a sales tax for all internet sales.

Pretty soon everyone will be forced double taxation. You buy something you pay sales tax, you sell the used item and have to pay income tax on it.

[mk5wantabe]

As a seller paypal will never defend you if the buyer files a claim with their CC company, you lose every time.
The fee's paypal charges are crazy, On top of all of those fee's they now hold most funds for 21 days all the while collecting interest.
The whole e-bay paypal deal is crazy, on a $100 item between these 2 companies they collect around $12.00 to $15.00 of that sale, and offer little to nothing in return for this money.

[Harv]

The whole e-bay paypal deal is crazy, on a $100 item between these 2 companies they collect around $12.00 to $15.00 of that sale, and offer little to nothing in return for this money.

They offer the worlds largest online market place. It's incredibly easy to buy and sell on eBay. All that stuff isn't free.

You have to pay for a service. eBay offers that.

[firefighterjunkie]

Also I don't know how people make money on there. My gross profit over retail was over $1000 but I only took home enough to cover my 16 gb iPad.

It didn't use to be like this. I didn't sell on Ebay for a while and then started up again over the last year. I wanted to sell some limited edition items (purses, etc) and I realized that unless I can sell the purse for double what I paid, I basically won't make enough profit to make it worth my while

I think Ebay takes 10%, paypal takes 3-4% and then there are the listing fees on top of that. So, basically you lose about 20% right off the bat, not counting the cost to ship the item.

[Brendon1098]

As a seller paypal will never defend you if the buyer files a claim with their CC company, you lose every time.
The fee's paypal charges are crazy, On top of all of those fee's they now hold most funds for 21 days all the while collecting interest.
The whole e-bay paypal deal is crazy, on a $100 item between these 2 companies they collect around $12.00 to $15.00 of that sale, and offer little to nothing in return for this money.

qft.

I haven't used either of them in years because of all the bs they started to pull. The day that eBay and/or paypal fail I will be a happy camper

[Vision33r]

As a seller paypal will never defend you if the buyer files a claim with their CC company, you lose every time.
The fee's paypal charges are crazy, On top of all of those fee's they now hold most funds for 21 days all the while collecting interest.
The whole e-bay paypal deal is crazy, on a $100 item between these 2 companies they collect around $12.00 to $15.00 of that sale, and offer little to nothing in return for this money.

I would agree with you except lately I've been on a winning streak. I've won against all chargebacks in the last 7-8 tries by foreign fraudulent buyers.

Maybe it depends on the level of ebay seller status that you are. I have a merchant acct setup and I could easily switch out to a 3rd party payment processor. I may take a hit on sales but from what I've heard from other top sellers, it's not so bad to switch.

[hugoaswho]

I stopped using flea-bay after a recurring customer decided to claim he didn't get something from me even though i had shipping proof etc. And shipped prior items to him. They wanted me to reimburse him and put a stop on my account, then they had some collection thugs company bombard me with calls to try to collect the $80 dollars. They didn't care about what I said just because I didn't put a tracking # on the package. I know I know my fault but it is no excuse for treating the customer with contempt and basically making me guilty without looking at the shipping proof etc. They just don't want to do any due diligence and basically say no tracking # then the the buyer is right and seller is wrong, but why then they dont mandate that you have to use a tracking # is beyond me...

either way the way they treated me i will never do business with them again, not to mention all the fees I've paid them over the years and had perfect feedback for over 150 transactions since 1997

[firefighterjunkie]

How do your prove you shipped something without tracking or delivery confirmation? A receipt alone could be for another item, an old item, to a different person, or even photoshopped, etc. ?

[Vision33r]

If you shipped the item without a tracking number you basically given the item away for free. Regardless you show a receipt, there's no info whether the item was delivered or not.

You have to follow the rules of the game. I've gone through a bunch of paypal issues and lost some but won more. Eventually you learn how to play the game, the key is follow their rules in providing tracking info and a receipt that includes the item listed. Finally, if it doesn't reach the buyer's hands as delivered then you better have insurance.

[hugoaswho]

I know but its the principal of their system ALLOWING people to get ripped off basiclly, yes I should have known better but it was one of the FEW auctions I did not do the delivery confirm etc. It was to a recurring buyer and I thought he was cool...

Then they basically did not want to even give me the time of day to explain what had happened or provide any proof like full address receipt and shipping date as well as PRIOR shipments to that SAME address with no issues...

The other point is that they are a monopoly that is charging exorbitant fees

dont get me wrong I bought alot of items for cheap on there (my 1500$ stove for $600..and $700 dishwasher for $250), but I got REALLY pissed off when they were basically treating me like some scammer or deadbeat after YEARS of using their site and well over 100 perfect feedback and never a single issue...

[Vision33r]

I agree from your POV, ebay is about ripping people off. They allowed both honest buyers and sellers to get ripped off by people who knows how to game their system.

What they are doing is weeding out small time sellers in favor of big businesses. They have a different dept that supports big businesses that sells on ebay.

If you open a eBay store you also get business level support.

The fees are quite high but they have discount programs for businesses, it's still better to do business on ebay than running your own website and pay for marketing to get traffic over to your site.

I can sell an item for 20% more on ebay than I do on a personal website. Eventually what I might do is run both personal site and ebay and hope that I can pull some customers over to my site. eBay will jack fees again and the next rounds they weed out the next tier of sellers.

[speaker]

I stopped using both eBay and PayPal because of the hold. I was a power seller w/ 100%, over 500 feedbacks and 6 years on. However, I had slow turnaround on multiple auctions in December because my mom went into the hospital. Everyone got their items before Christmas however as some I shipped priority when they paid for parcel post. The most anyone was overdue was ~8 days and everyone got an email telling them what was up. Most replied and said no problem but 4 gave me low DSR's on turnaround time which put the hold in place. I've not listed one item, from 10-15 a month, since then.

['dubber]

A lot of times I'll strike up a convo with the seller and we'll go underground to conduct our business. Same thing with amazon, who shoves an individual shipping charge up your ass for each item you buy at the same time from even one seller. You just have to be careful typing in phone numbers or email add'ys because of ebays auto-sniffers, they'll auto delete that info if you don't hide it, and it might set off flags or something. NEVER BEEN SCAMMED DOING THIS.

[pknopp]

A scenario I've seen happen quite a few times on eBay. Small time seller sells a few items now and then. They know to add delivery confirmation for items they can't afford to lose.

One day they get lucky and sell an item for $300. They know to add confirmation as they have done it many times but they don't know that for over $250 they have to have signature confirmation.

Now, granted, one should know all the rules for anything they are using but this is easy to miss if you have never sold a bigger ticket item. Delivery confirmation shows that it was delivered but the buyer still claims it wasn't. They get their money back. On top of that, say the seller insured it for the $300. For this amount the post office makes the buyer sign for the item but it asn't available online to the general public. (it is for postal employee's). The buyer gets his money back even though there is no question that the item was delivered and the post office isn't going to pay out because they have the proof it was delivered.

Paypal is a scammers delight.

[Vision33r]

I bought an iPad last year from a seller with 6 feedbacks and he shipped me Priority with no tracking on it. I did ask him for tracking number and he didn't reply, luckily he shipped it quickly and I got it in 3 days.

I emailed him back and told him for something over $250 if you don't put signature confirm on this thing. Consider I got it for free on his expense.

Some people would blatantly just filed a non-receipt with paypal.

Like many pro-ebay sellers have said. eBay is not a place to sell your goods safely. It's a trading place like the stock market, you win some and you lose some. The risk is there so you have to play wisely.

[triptronic]

I wanted to sell some limited edition items (purses, etc) and I realized that unless I can sell the purse for double what I paid, I basically won't make enough profit to make it worth my while

QFT!