EBay and PayPal can both kiss my ass. (Yes, I know EBay owns Paypal.)
Last weekend I sold about $1,500 in used amateur radio gear. I restore/refurbish vintage amplifiers and radio equipment and sell it online. I've been on ebay over 4 years, have a stellar rating of 100% and more than 100 successful transactions. Never had a complaint with either EBay or Paypal, until last weekend.
Three of my transactions had their payments put "on hold" pending successful confirmation by buyers that they had received what I sold.
PayPal said it was an EBay policy for "suspcicious transactions" such as three of the 6 that I had listed, all of which sold on the same day. When I asked them what "suspicious" meant, they ran down a generic list of reasons, none of which applied to me (ie: more than 100 transactions, 100% seller rating, etc..)
After 15 minutes of arguing with Paypal, I finally was bumped up to a "Supervisor" who tried the same line of bullshit on me. At that point I told them to look at my rating, the merchandise I'd sold, and the fact that I'd never had a complaint in 4 years. They didn't budge.
Finally I said "You know, I have the email addresses and phone numbers of each of my buyers, I keep records of my sales. Tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to contact each one of them and tell them that since Paypal has put their payment to me on hold, I cannot ship their equipment. I'm then going to tell them they can send me a Postal money order for their equipment, and that I'll ship when I receive their money that way."
I then explained to the PayPal "Supervisor" monkey that he was putting more than $150 in fees to EBay and PayPal at risk by not having the common sense to see that the policy DID NOT APPLY to me as NONE OF THE CRITERIA he stated I met.
After being put on hold for another few minutes, I was politely informed that "as a courtesy, PayPal would release my money that evening." They did while I was on the phone with them.
After confirming the payment was released, I informed the affected buyers that PayPal had rectified the problem and that their equipment would ship the next day via FedEx. It did, and I provided their tracking numbers.
I received positive reviews from each seller "Better than Expected" and "packed really well" along with "great service and communication" among the comments.
After confirming each buyer had received their merchandise, I closed both my Paypal and EBay accounts. I removed all bank account and credit card info. from Paypal and closed my EBay account.
If they're going to put the screws to their most reliable, dependable sellers then I want nothing to do with them. Their "holding my money for 21 days" for "suspicious transactions" just put me right over the edge. I work for a Bank, when someone puts cash in an account it's available right away, not 21 days later! And since when did Amateur Radio equipment become a "suspicious transaction?"
Given EBay will now only let you use PayPal or ProPay as acceptable forms of payment and their listing and transaction fees cost me just over $150 on $1,500 of equipment, my opinion is that both EBay and Paypal can kiss my ass. I'll sell my equipment on QTH or CraigsList. Much less hassle, and both are FREE.
Buh-Bye EBAY! Your service and your company suuuuuuuuuck.
It looks like EBay (has and is) attempting to muscle in and destroy the competition, namely, Craigslist:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2009/tc2009126_989136.htm
Lot’s of history and bad blood between these two...
you should read this ebay thread on the 21 day paypal hold it is very interesting .... :)
Soon everyone but the buy.com ebay diamond sellers will eventually have the 21 day hold .
Of course buy gets to list for free , and have their ebay listing’s be at the top of the ebay search page etc ...
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/topic/Seller-Central/21-Day-Hold/520175743&start=150
And we can't have that happen, now can we?
/s