Gotta Love The PayPal Policies

I've not sold nothing on eBay in over a year it seems like so the other about 2 weeks ago I sell 6 VG200 gateways for 100 bucks. That's good except it takes me 2 weeks to receive a payment from the guy.

Now eBay has placed a hold on the funds telling me to ship the item with my own money which will cost about 35 bucks while they hold the money until I receive a positive feed back or 3 days after a delivery confirmation and If I receive a negative feedback but no claim dispute created i have to wait the full 21 days to receive the funds and I highly doubt the guy will leave immediate positive feed back if it took him 2 weeks to pay me.

So I'm going to have to pay for the shipping which is 35 dollars out of my own pocket for the time being, wait 5-10 days until its delivered and wait an additional 3 days for delivery confirmation because I've never in my eBay account history received a positive feedback the same day they received the package.

So I contacted PayPal expressing my concern that the seller has to spend additional money to ship an item just to receive the money he sold the item for and asking why PayPal does not release a percentage of the funds for shipping while they hold the actual amount the item was sold for and a supervisor informed me "Well sir you should consider it as an investment.."

Then of course I stopped the guy in his tracks and I said something along the lines "no no no, with an investment I get interest, I get return, I'm paying out of my pocket to ship and item which has already had the shipping paid for and PayPal is receiving an Interest free loan from the seller while they hold onto funds of millions of PayPal accounts, this is not an investment, this is raping the seller in the @$$."

I guess my question is; When is Paypal gonna ship me a jar of Vaseline, because I'm seriously getting raped in the @$$ here by this buyer protection/seller **** drilling policy.

Any who figured I'd just blow off some steam. Feel free to post your comments or concerns with the not so new annoying paypal hold policies.

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Comments

cisco_trooper

Yeah, it kinda sucks. Vote with your wallet and fire paypal. Sell to local sellers with cash via craigslist, etc.

Kasor

That's why I cut out all the online selling and buying. PayPal is a wipe off

msteinhilber

The changes they made to the policy a year ago or so are pretty bad for sellers if you ask me, they really did intend to reach out and basically say "hey buyer's, you have NO risk whatsoever, come on over" and they did a good job of that I suppose.

I used to list anywhere from 30-75 items a month depending on my inventory on eBay. That number was reduced significantly shortly after the policy changed. I didn't have to worry about the holds since I had meet all of the requirements to avoid that, but what really irked me the most was not being able to leave negative feedback for buyers. This resulted in a big increase in two types of buyers. Those that do not adhere to the auction guidelines and would take far too long to submit payment, or would purchase with an American account and then demand shipment to a country I do not ship to. The other type were people who bought product and it either was not for their application or they caused damage to their equipment. Since I deal primarily in aftermarket performance car parts (mostly forced induction parts) as well as used technology items, there is a big margin for buyers not reading properly or making assumptions and buying the wrong item or in the case of the car parts they think a stock engine can handle a turbo setup good for 200HP+ or so and leave me a negative. No thank you.

Ebay doesn't seem to realize there are bad buyers too, not just bad sellers.

mgeorge

So apparently when your listing an item and you check that buyer pays for shipping and you specify the amount you expect the buyer to pay for shipping right?

But!!!, If your item is electronical and sells for more then 100 dollars the payment is automatically held by PayPal that is if you use PayPal.

Then they tell you to ship the item using your own money and you'll get it back in 10-20 days

So I guess the question is, "How much do YOU want to pay for shipping?"

So let me make a simple example, lets say I sell 5 items that sell for over a few hundred dollars and they are electronic, lets say Marshall 1960A 4x12 Speaker cabinets since I play music alot, These items typically sell between 500-600 used + 100 shipping because they are huge and weigh nearly 80lbs when packed.

If I were to sell 5 of these cabinets, this would mean I would have to pay out 500 dollars to ship the items to receive the $2,500 dollars that I sold them for, and I'd have to wait 10-21 days?

How would you feel if you were in those shoes? Having to pay $500 dollars from your own finances to ship items that have been sold and you wont get that $500 till 10-21 days later.

I'm all for protecting the buyer but if PayPal actually released the amount for shipping then I'd have no problem at all but asking sellers to ship the items using their own money on the notion that they'll get it back when you get a positive feedback left for the item or PayPal verifies delivery which can take up to 3 days (in PayPal terms, it WILL take 3 days) seems a little too financially demanding on the sellers part, after all they are there to sell items, not spend money.

msteinhilber

I agree, it's a pretty bad system as it is now - bad enough where I list only a handful of items a month, just not worth my trouble anymore - and I don't even generally have to deal with any holds at all. And expecting to ship when you don't have the money in your hands is silly on their part - it's too easy for any buyer to make a claim and the policy is basically "buyer loses their money" regardless. When I do list, I do accept Paypal, but that money I received is requested to be transferred to my bank account immediately, far too easy for a buyer to unjustly file a claim and you lose your money and product and are forced to jump through hoops to try and get your product or money back.

You're not alone, there are a lot of people who relied on eBay quite heavily that I know and they now focus more on local markets instead.

Andretii

Lost $520 thanks to paypal around 2006. I'd say don't ship those items and try to sell them on craigslist locally.

mgeorge

I have sent the buyer a email saying I'd return his money and if hes interested I'll create a PayPal invoice and request the money and select it as "goods" So that I'd be able to print the shipping label and ship the item on Monday.

Of course I told the buyer if he did not agree to that then I'd have no option to open a case with eBay saying the buyer and seller mutually agrees to not follow through with the transaction.

It would be nice if eBay allowed Google Checkout, Then I'd be one happy camper.

Aldur

I can't agree more, paypal is terrible.

So I move up to Canada, confirm my new address with paypal and all that stuff that goes along with it. Then I buy a router online for about 500$ and paypal puts a hold on it thinking it's fraudulent....

Not only do they put a hold on it but they take the funds out of my credit card to boot...

I then run through all the steps to get my account unfroze, have them call me and all that jazz. Well after all that they send me an email asking for a copy of a bill to confirm it's really me and where I live....

At this point I am pissed, I understand them wanting to protect my account and all but for hell sakes, c'mon! I give them a call and talk to a guy who does release the hold on my account but this whole process took about two weeks to take care of. That's two weeks that they held my money and I couldn't use the router that I needed as a part of my lab...

Honestly in the future I'll do anything to avoid using paypal

qwertyiop

I like how there new policy protects the buyer but it screws the sellers. thats why I no longer sell anything on ebay

jibbajabba

Ah man I feel yea .. I was selling a lot over a period of four weeks in order to clean up here. A lot of DVDs and whatnot .. so .. I offered on most of the DVDs insurance .. nobody opt out for it .. Now I have a guy, who apparently, didn't receive a total of 5 DVDs (he bought like 7 of me). Oh shall I say BluRays .. Ouf of those 7 disks, 5 were BD and he didn't receive them .. so he opened a case with eBay and at the end they have refunded !! all 5 blurays... So I paid for the disks when I bought them, I paid shipping, and they removed the money again ..

Since then I am fighting with PayPal / eBay because I offered insurance, he didn't want it and what are the chances of all 5 packages going missing...

Well it is word against word and the magical word is "buyers protection" ..

Who the f** is protecting seller ? In fact, I closed both now, PayPal and eBay .. f*ng ripoff ..

EdTheLad

mgeorge wrote: »

Then they tell you to ship the item using your own money and you'll get it back in 10-20 days

So I guess the question is, "How much do YOU want to pay for shipping?"

So let me make a simple example, lets say I sell 5 items that sell for over a few hundred dollars and they are electronic, lets say Marshall 1960A 4x12 Speaker cabinets since I play music alot, These items typically sell between 500-600 used + 100 shipping because they are huge and weigh nearly 80lbs when packed.

If I were to sell 5 of these cabinets, this would mean I would have to pay out 500 dollars to ship the items to receive the $2,500 dollars that I sold them for, and I'd have to wait 10-21 days?

How would you feel if you were in those shoes? Having to pay $500 dollars from your own finances to ship items that have been sold and you wont get that $500 till 10-21 days later.

I really don't see the problem.You write this as if you are footing the shipping costs when in fact the buyer is. Paypal hold the buyers cash until the buyer confirms the goods have been received, this is normal practice. Paypal are there to protect the buyer,if there was no paypal, most probably your goods would not sell.
If you cant afford to wait 2 or 3 weeks to receive payment its best you look for somewhere else to sell.
As of today my paypal account has been locked,i've got $1500 sitting in it, if it takes 2 or 3 weeks to sort i really don't care, interest for that amount in the bank for 3 weeks is less than $1.

I'm happy about the seller not being able to leave negative feedback, i bought a divx play which arrived and didn't work, i left negative feedback for the seller and he returned the favor, that didn't work did it.

EdTheLad

Gomjaba wrote: »

Since then I am fighting with PayPal / eBay because I offered insurance, he didn't want it and what are the chances of all 5 packages going missing...

Well it is word against word and the magical word is "buyers protection" ..

Who the f** is protecting seller ? In fact, I closed both now, PayPal and eBay .. f*ng ripoff ..

I do hate ebay, as a seller i haven't had any issues yet, had afew as a buyer that i got my credit card company to sort out.

sprkymrk

I gave up on both eBay and PayPal several years ago.

I vote +1 for selling via Craigslist to a more local geographic region. I have less calls/emails on stuff I sell, but the ones that do contact me are MUCH more likely to buy because they can see/touch the goods before they make an offer.

Here's another trick, for those of you that want to sell a lot. My wife sold Longaberger Baskets for a few years, so she opened a business account at a local bank and then set it up with the bank so that she could accept credit card payments. The CC Machine cost her a couple hundred bucks, and you lose 4-5% or so as a fee on each transaction, but it's worry free and hassle free. She can swipe a card or manually punch in a number, it dials out and voila! Instant deposit to her bank account.

mgeorge

I've never had any problems with eBay as a buyer, other then UPS losing one of my packages which was not eBay's fault.

I'm all for protecting the buyer and I would not mind them holding the funds used to purchase the item, but holding funds used to ship the actual item sold can be frustrating for thousands of people selling on eBay.

I guess the million dollar question is, actually hold that thought, the million dollars is placed on hold until positive feedback or delivery confirmation of the question

So how do you ship and item if you don't have the money to ship it?

What part does "buyer pays for shipping" does PayPal not understand?

I think that eBay needs to change their policy that states "seller pays for shipping and will be reimbursed after funds are released from PayPal upon delivery confirmation or positive feedback."

Tyrant1919

I sold a bunch of my Cert books via EBAY. My 2k3 core, 298, 270, 299, and another or two. Had 0 issues using Ebay and paypal.

(Oh **** a lightning storm in Texas... No long posts tonight)

rfowler

I had the same problem; if they don't leave feedback they hold the funds for 21 days and then it takes another 5/7 days to transfer the money to your bacnk account what a rip off!!!!

ColbyG

Don't know if this has been posted, but refund him $1 or something and it should release all your funds. This worked awhile ago, not sure if it still does.

Pash

Hmm, didnt know thing's had changed so much since I last sold something on Ebay using my paypal account. Seems one big hassle now, luckily these days im buying more stuff than im selling....well I say luckily but you get me.

Also, in the UK, irregardless of the medium used for a trade, we are usually protected by the small claims court in these types of disputes. I had a problem as a buyer a few years ago on Ebay, paid for goods, no goods received after weeks of chasing, threatned them with court action (although I would have to foot £50 initial costs just to get it moving, to which they would of been liable to in the end). Low and behold two days after mentioning small claims court, the full refund arrives in the post. You have to remember there are worse buyer stories out there as well but I totally agree on the sellers being protected as well, they need a fairer policy in place.

And to google checkout being used instead of paypal......that wont happen as Paypal is ebay's puppy...but again I agree.