More ebay/Paypal tricks.

[S.R.Custom]

A few days ago I sold a Lee reloading press on ebay, and the buyer sends the funds via paypal. (He has to, ebay no longer allows sellers to accept money orders for payment. It's not "safe" they say.) Anyway, instead of getting the buyers money, I get this email...


You've received a payment, detailed below. We’ve placed a temporary hold on the funds for this transaction.

PayPal and eBay are working together to make payments for eBay items even safer. Because we want both buyers and sellers to feel confident about sending and receiving payments through PayPal, we may temporarily hold payments for items sold on eBay.

Make sure to ship the item right away, so you'll have access to the funds sooner. We’ll release the hold in 21 days...


And why would they do this? I dunno, so I go to the PayPal website to find out their policy on arbitrary witholding of funds. Money quote:


To increase marketplace safety, we may hold payments that seem risky. Here are some common reasons for holding payments... [non-relevant stuff deleted] ...You are listing your item in a high-risk category...

So the next time someone tells you that "Ebay/Paypal isn't anti-gun; their lawyers make them do it for liability reasons," do me a favor, see if you can slap the stupid out of them.

[Jon K]

Thanks.........good to know, my items are "high risk". I will make sure I list elsewhere.

Jon

[Springfield]

If I sell something on e-bay, and the buyer wants to send me a check/MO, and does, how in the world would E-bay know?

[Calamity Jake]

I bought some lead off of ebone a about a month age. After winning the bid I pm'ed the seller, ask if I could send MO over paypal? yes!!

Every thing went smooth, seller said he would take care of ebone for payment received.
Haven't heard anything bad from seller.

[S.R.Custom]

If I sell something on e-bay, and the buyer wants to send me a check/MO, and does, how in the world would E-bay know?

More importantly, how does a seller make it known he accepts money orders? There seems to be some filter that looks for the words "USPS," "money order," etc in the description and stops the listing process with a warning when you submit...

As for why I was using NannyBay to sell a press in the first place-- I was using them to sell other stuff (read: crap from the basement) and decided to list on ebay out of convenience. Don't you know I won't do that again. :???:

And they wonder why their earnings and stock prices are down. :roll:

[Sprue]

If you have a PayPal account set up....... guess what?

Just as Alexander Haig once said " fill in the blank", ( substitute "We are" for "I am" )

[anachronism]

Refuse to ship until you are paid. Let the buyer know that you are doing it, and why you are doing it. If they cut you off, so what? You still have your merchandise & certainly being banned from e-bay is no loss. Losing paypal is no loss, they aren't secure anyway, they just pretend to be.

The only time I got screwed online was through e-bay/paypal. I ordered some trading cards for my sons birthday & paid through paypal. The seller didn't ship, and didn't answer my e-mails. After 10 business days, I file a complaint. Paypal nails him & he ships the order & all is well. Right? Wrong. I received the cards, and they were counterfeit! You're only allowed one complaint per transaction, and I used mine up when he didn't ship. Paypal wouldn't even talk to me after that. I was out the money, & didn't have a decent present for my son in time. That was my last paypal transaction. By this time, the guy had packed up his tent & was out screwing people under a new screen name.

[leftiye]

I'd email them and say that I don't ship anything unless I've recieved payment. Further if they think they have the right to withhold money that is in no way theirs, ask if they'd like to test that in court. Ask them if they can say "class action."

[NSP64]

Just let it be a free market, don't use ebay. I haven't since they got rid of gun stuff ( 3 yrs?) I know they still sell some gun stuff, but in my book if you restrict some stuff you've restricted it all.

[yarro]

The have the right to hold your money because you agreed to it when you opened a paypal account. It is in the agreement that is subject to change at any time. They have the right to seize all the funds in your account if they think a single transaction is suspicious too They do so all the time. You would then be out the money for months or forever. If that is not enough for you, they are rabidly anti-gun. All the crap they pull is to hold your money for as long as possible so they float your money in an investment pool and pocket the earnings.

-yarro

[August]

Paypal does this when the buyer pays with a bank transfer of funds. It's not the same as when a buyer pays with money in their account or with a credit card -- in those instances seller is paid immediately.

This has always been Paypal's policy. Nothing new.

I don't ship until the payment is verified and posted to my account. YMMV

[HangFireW8]

Speaking as an eBay seller...

eBay is struggling with a shrinking market, which means there is no longer a never-ending supply of newbies to be fleeced. Just more and more people who know the drill and eventually end up leaving because it just gets too painful.

So, they end up tightening the reigns on the remaining players, who then leave as well.

What eBay wants to do is clear, because they have announced it. They want to leave the flea market business and getting into the mass market seller business. In doing so, they offer:

1. None of the unique items that flea markets and occasional sellers offer,
2. Offer power-seller friendly items, that is, mass market Chinese made goods you can buy anywhere, and
3. Offer you none of the buyer protections of Visa & Mastercard offer because frequent buyers are forced to use paypal/bank draws after hitting their annual limit.

In addition, they dropped over a Billion on Skype and still haven't made it back.

You can guess how this business model is going to work out. The best smaller sellers left for Yahoo Stores 2 or more years ago, and the gun-friendly sites have finally reached critical mass. eBay's days are numbered, unless they manage to re-invent themselves, they will be going the way of Sun Microsystems and other relics of the dotBomb era.

-HF

[S.R.Custom]

Paypal does this when the buyer pays with a bank transfer of funds. It's not the same as when a buyer pays with money in their account or with a credit card -- in those instances seller is paid immediately.

This has always been Paypal's policy. Nothing new.

I don't ship until the payment is verified and posted to my account. YMMV

Many times I've had to wait a few days until the buyer's money posts from his checking account; that only takes a few days, and PayBay makes it a point of telling the seller NOT to ship until funds do post. Not a big deal, and like you say, nothing new.

But this is something else. PayPal has, for want of a better term, hijacked the funds and is holding on to them for 21 days and/or until the buyer posts positive feedback and tracking indicates the package is delivered. They're saying you WILL ship the goods IMMEDIATELY, but we won't pay until we're satisfied things are hunky-dory. A forced escrow, so to speak.

And it happened again today with another sale-- a bullet mould I was selling for a friend. I'll be refunding these folks their money with an explanation why, and if this is truly what NannyBay wants like HangFireW8 says, then I will be only too glad to help them achieve their goals. Their stock once traded at $58/share. It closed today at $18. Heh.

[VintageRifle]

Lets see, a person sells and item on ebay. Paypal is used and the buyer pays the seller for the item and shipping. Paypal then holds the funds until the item is shipped and the buyer receives the item.

Hmm, seems a bit odd to me. Hold the funds to ship the item and the funds that paid for the item. I guess you could just let the seller know that it can take 21 days or more for the item to be shipped because paypal refuses to transfer the funds to allow the item to be shipped and paid for.

[Firebricker]

Sounds like holding back thousands of transactions for who knows how much $$$ might be
for the sake of gaining intrest off somebody elses money. FB

[Lee]

Not to flame, not to hijack. Don't misunderstand, I don't care for ebay either, and their selections have been dwindling, while their "stores" are increasing. And the bargains are disappearing.
But it also irks me that if I visit a site, oh say Cast Boolits", bid on an item for sale, "win" it, the seller expects me to send my good money FIRST, then I wait to see if I bought "JUNK".
See, I don't understand why myself and the seller can not ship SIMULTANEOUSLY upon completion of a gentlemens transaction.
After all, my sending a worthless check is no different than my receiving a stone wrapped in paper.
And please, look at the deadbeats section. There are just as many who "didn't receive/received junk" complaints as there are "non payment" complaints. Actually I'll bet a LOT more.
Just an observation.......................

[S.R.Custom]

Just got hit with a third hijacked sale, this time for a set of S&W grips...

They're not being consistent with whatever the hell they're doing... I had two molds for sale, only one got hijacked. I had three sets of grips for sale, only one was hijacked. And the proceeds for the press... for a measley $30.00.


Sounds like holding back thousands of transactions for who knows how much $$$ might be
for the sake of gaining intrest off somebody elses money. FB

Actually, I'm starting to get the feeling it's more sinister than that. What with their stock price tanking, shrinking profits, layoffs etc., I'm thinking they're out of money and have resorted to writing themselves a lot of little 21 day loans at our expense... :-?

[nicholst55]

Just say NO to fleabay and playpal.

[jhrosier]

Just got hit with a third hijacked sale, this time for a set of S&W grips...
....

Sounds like they are trying to drive the sellers of evil gun stuff away without raising a firestorm of protest by an outright ban on evil gun stuff sales.

Jack

[jar-wv]

I had several items I sold on ebay. Leftover contractor stuff from back when I was in business. They held up my funds for a few days also. Then when there were no holds on the money I was only able to get $500 of it at a time. Took me over 3 weeks all told to get all of my money out of paypal. I've noticed paypal also seems very eager to get everyones bank accounts linked to them. No way would I do this. I have a few more things to sell and I'll probably end up using ebay again, merely because I don't know of anyplace else with the volume of buyers.

jar

[lavenatti]

I've had unauthorized payments made from my paypal account 3 times. I have to admit, as I was sending paypal an email they were already notifying me of the problem. I sent emails to the people who recieved the funds, two overseas people returned the money immediately without paypal having to lift a finger. The guy in Florida who received my money had an address a block away from the "ship to" address requested on the payal payment.

Paypal was vehemently against prosecuting this guy, I let it go because they fixed it but I never leave a dime in my paypal account anymore.

I almost never sell anything on ebay anymore and I have a hard time trusting paypal.

[dakotashooter2]

I've only payed through paypal once. The other times I have emailed the seller about paying by MO. Ebay has eliminated the other options in the payment section of the listing but many sellers will still put payment alternatives into the general description area of the listing.

[theperfessor]

I picked up a number of used molds on ebay several years ago and never got burnt - but I always paid with a MO. As soon as they started requiring everybody to pay via PayPal I stopped shopping there.

Since this is a family oriented site the only comment I can make is screw 'em both. I'll buy from people on this site and go to Gunbroker if I can't find it here. I won't loan them my money for three weeks to make up for their exploitive business practices and political correctness.

[mag44uk]

Here in the UK on ebays site you have to offer paypal. You dont have to use it as you can offer to take other forms of payment without issue.
I listed an item saying no paypal and got slap on the wrist from them!
Earlier this year I paid for some dignostic gear amounting to the equivalent of $1900.
Seller stiffed me and a few others.
I got the whole lot back as I had fortunately used payapl!
I almost used my company check book to pay and would have been screwed had I done so.
Still on the fence over ebay and paypal.
Tony

[leftiye]

Yer lucky! Paypal (here) only honors their guarantee if the seller agrees to it and returns the money. NOT GOOD!

[NoZombies]

I don't buy or sell that much on evilbay, but when I do, I find their policy to be hit or miss with holding funds... the only one that really stands out to me is the 21" monitor I sold last year... well, I sold 2 of them, the first one, no problem, money delivered ASAP, and monitor shipped... to the philipines no less! the second one I sold, shipped to a guy in the states, and they held the funds until the 21 days was up. arrival didn't matter, positive feedback didn't matter, they simply held the funds for 21 days.

Screw Ebay and PayPal, they're jerks, anti-gun, and about as liberal as they come... now if only gunbroker didn't suck so bad, we'd have a different option for auctions... someone needs to come out with a secure pro-gun online payment option.

[klcarroll]

Actually, I'm starting to get the feeling it's more sinister than that. What with their stock price tanking, shrinking profits, layoffs etc., I'm thinking they're out of money and have resorted to writing themselves a lot of little 21 day loans at our expense... :-?

I think you've "hit-the-nail-on-the-head"!!!! .......Even the most rabid anti-gunner likes money far too much to scare away business simply for the sake of "principles"!!

(....Because if the "anti-gunners" REALLY had any "principles"; ...They would realize that they are fighting AGAINST the Constitution!!)


Kent