I think Pay Pal just lost a customer.

A little something nice in my inbox tonight.

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

Starting 1/8/2012, 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.

I have been a PayPal client for a long time, like over 10 years, cranked a bunch of transactions through it both ways. I have never-NEVER- had a dispute. My eBay rating is impeccable. And they send me this E36 M3.

they are going downhill. I had my account frozen until I changed my password and "Checked" my contacts to make sure they were correct.

Never had a problem in 10 years... why now?

Sounds fishy, like maybe someone has hacked your account and wants a head start?

I'm in the middle of my last PayPal transaction, I think. After this month, I'll be done with them for good. Right now they're in their death throes, and they're taking customers down with them.

Dwolla
Square
Google Checkout/Wallet

Aside from the eBay monopoly, there's pretty much no reason to use PayPal anymore.

I wondered about phishing etc so I closed IE, reopened and then logged onto my PP account via their page. Same message on my account page.

I'm seriously considering Google Checkout as a replacement. I don't have anything going on eBay at the moment, but if I do get anything going soon I will delete PP as a payment option and post this email as the reason why.

alex wrote: I'm in the middle of my last PayPal transaction, I think. After this month, I'll be done with them for good. Right now they're in their death throes, and they're taking customers down with them. Dwolla Square Google Checkout/Wallet Aside from the eBay monopoly, there's pretty much no reason to use PayPal anymore.

So....I went to the Squareup.com site. 1st thought after seeing the image on their homepage? Hookers now take credit cards.

alex wrote: I'm in the middle of my last PayPal transaction, I think. After this month, I'll be done with them for good. Right now they're in their death throes, and they're taking customers down with them. Dwolla Square Google Checkout/Wallet Aside from the eBay monopoly, there's pretty much no reason to use PayPal anymore.

I haven't used paypal in ages, but this doesn't surprise me since their parent ebay has gone down the crapper. I still use ebay but they are far from my first shopping stop.

Send them an email and let them know you aren't happy and if they don't do something about it, they'll lose you as a customer.

See what happens.

Email I sent tonight:

'I have been a PayPal customer for a long time, like over 10 years. My eBay rating is impeccable. I have never-NEVER! had a dispute. I have run probably $25,000 through my account, through both eBay and non- eBay transactions. I imagine PayPal has made a profit from that, as I would expect.'

'Then tonight 1/8/2012 I received an email telling me that due to a review of my account until further notice any payments I receive will be held for up to 21 days.'

'This is unacceptable. There are too many other methods of getting paid for me to allow you to play with my money for 21 days.'

'Since eBay is probably the largest online auction site out there I may have no choice but to continue to use it. '

'However, unless this unfair restriction is removed from my account I will remove PayPal as a payment method and post the body of the Email I received as the reason why.'

'I expect a prompt reply resolving this issue.'

We received the same notice several months ago. Same with us, perfect feedback, no problems whatever. Solution? We don't do Paypal anymore. Period.

Paypal asks a buyer who disputed an instrument's authenticity to destroy an antique violin.

I warned you about having me send you that money for that "deal"

They just decided you weren't making them enough money so they want to draw the interest for that 21 days. Luckily there's more than one way to skin a cat.

MitchellC wrote: Paypal asks a buyer who disputed an instrument's authenticity to destroy an antique violin.

WOW....

Just wow...

Someone at Paypal needs to get strangled.

Toyman01 wrote: I warned you about having me send you that money for that "deal" They just decided you weren't making them enough money so they want to draw the interest for that 21 days. Luckily there's more than one way to skin a cat.

Heh. Real problem: they linked you to me and some of your bad karma seeped into my account.

cwh, I don't blame you. The tone of the whole thing just aggravates me: 'We will hold your money because we think you might rip someone off even though you never have before.'

Trans_Maro wrote:

MitchellC wrote: Paypal asks a buyer who disputed an instrument's authenticity to destroy an antique violin.

WOW.... Just wow... Someone at Paypal needs to get strangled.

That's freakin' amazing.

I've had a PayPal dispute, as well, a few years ago.

I sold an item on another forum. Two months after sending the item, and verifying it was recieved (UPS makes that easy), the buyer claimed she never recieved it. Big run-around with PP, sending them copies of the UPS info, copies of message board transactions where she said she loved the item, etc.

I finally got PP to give me back my money, after three weeks of BS.

Yeah, that pretty much soured me on PayPal.

I now no longer use paypal. I use Intuit to accept cards whenever needed, since I use it for my business. 99% of the time, I work with cash in person. I figure I come out ahead on something by the time I've worked out boxing it up and messed with shipping and all of the fees they tack on.

If I get that email from PayPal I will start selling more via PayPal or scap. EBay charges me a Commission on shipping charges. That frosts me too.

Paypal can go @#$% themselves. I bought a pair of Rayban sunglasses off Ebay that were clearly fakes. They won't even consider a reimbursement unless you ship the item back to the customer following their explicit instructions - including a tracking number, which in this case would cost me over $40. I sent them back using regular courier, supplied a receipt... nope. So, I was out the original purchase price, and the cost of return shipping. Haven't dealt with them since.

Paypal is pretty unpopular in the pro-gun community too, since Paypal prohibits firearm transactions. Label your transaction as gun-related in any way and they'll cancel it.

That's their right as a private company, but it's my right to never use them again for any of my other transactions.

Automated BS email I received today:

'Thank you for your email. Customers who contact us using this form tend to have questions around money being held from an eBay sale. In order to provide you with assistance as quickly as possible, I have included some basic information that may help you.

Many members have limits placed on their account or certain items until they confirm certain information or establish a positive selling history. These limits will help you become a successful seller, in addition to ensuring a safer experience for all eBay customers. These holds are placed to ensure that buyers, your customers, get the best experience possible while on eBay and return to purchase again.

Please keep these points in mind as to why this is happening:

• While never easy to be in this situation, this does allow us to review account activity and confirm certain information from the seller
• Limits vary by seller and may be increased based on your overall selling activity; we did not single you out
• Seller has received a payment, but the payment is temporarily unavailable and placed in their Pending PayPal account balance

I am providing some basic tips to improving your DSR (Detailed Seller Rating) and also avoid this in this situation in the future:

• Ship the item
• Obtain positive feedback from the buyer
• Develop a consistent and reliable history of selling

You will also be able to view most of your account-based limits in My eBay. Click My eBay at the top of most eBay pages, sign in to your account, then select the All Selling option in the Sell section on the left side of the page (or in the Selling Manager Summary).

You are probably wondering why this has happened to you. Let me reiterate that we did not single you out. In certain categories, for certain sellers, we limit the number of items that can be listed in a calendar month. These limits may apply to your account if:

• You registered your account less than 90 days ago
• You have not sold multiple items in this category before
• You have not sold in this category in over a year
• You have had eBay Buyer Protection cases opened for more than 3% of your total transactions in the last year

Regarding releasing the funds, this is automatic after 21 days without a case. If you are an existing seller, using an established account, positive feedback is an option to release. Regardless if you are an established seller, or new to eBay, funds are released within 3 days.

It is not ideal in your situation, so below I am including some links into eBay that may provide you with some additional information to help you understand and, more importantly, improve your rating to avoid this in the future.'

As I said, my rating is a perfect 100% including some pretty large transactions (a 13BTT engine, a Hodaka motorcycle, etc) and the best I can get is a canned BS response.

How they can act as a bank, yet not be regulated as a bank is my $milion dollar question (or about $800,000 if processed thru' Paypal :) )

This would be a useful question to ask the new Obama consumer protection guy.

paypal wrote: Even though you can't access the money right away, please ship orders quickly and communicate with your customers.

um... excuse me? I haven't received payment for goods and you want me to ship right away?

um, how about no. And also, how about I now treat all payments from Paypal like checks: You'll get your item shipped when your payment clears Paypal just like a check.

Who in the world are THEY to say you should assume a liability and ship a product immediately? Thats some real nerve.

^That's what I always do anyway.

I just received $3k for an engine.............you can bet your sweet a$$ it isn't going anywhere until the money is in my checking account.

That's what chaps my ass. I'm supposed to have money hit my PP account, they hold it, then ship something to East Bumberkeley and hope I don't have an assclown on the other end who's willing to warp this to get a freebie whatever? No, I don't think so.