Bizarre extended (30 day) payment holds
Summary: tcel_uk, a top-rated seller on eBay, expressed frustration over inexplicable 30-day payment holds being placed on transactions initially promised to clear in two days. Despite contacting eBay's customer service multiple times, they received inconsistent responses, and at times, rude dismissals. tcel_uk was able to have some payments manually released by managers, but eBay ultimately warned them not to continue inquiries. Other participants shared similar concerns, indicating this is not an isolated issue. Suggestions included filing a formal complaint and avoiding reliance on chatbots for support.
Strange situation on eBay for us this last month re payments from customers. We are a top rated seller in the electronics dept, have been for closing in on a decade now.
This month / today when we get an order, our individual payments from buyers are being advertised as 2 days to clear after delivery (annoying enough but the new norm / standard we are told).
We send out the order, it gets delivered.
Then we notice the payment clearance date for that order shifts to 30 days.
At the very least it seems disingenuous to advertise that the payment will be a 2 day process, and then move the goal post after we complete the transaction.
It has been doing this for the past few weeks now, possibly longer.
We currently have 7 individual sales, for example, in our payments section from customers.
We checked their payment status first thing yesterday AM, all saying order delivered and payment due to clear August 1st, August 2nd etc. Great!
We kept checking as the day went on yesterday and they gradually all kept moving to now saying August 29th and 30th?
We even anticipated this might happen and wanted to ensure no further sales we got in that day would trigger this - so we put the shop on holiday mode to prevent new sales. And it still happened (payments from delivered sales changed from 2 days to clear, to 30 day extended holds).
I must say also that these quoted extended dates in the payments section also thankfully are sometimes not carried out.
Like we can wake up the next day and suddenly the funds will be in our available balance - for a payment that was showing as an extended hold. Hopefully we are pleasantly surprised tomorrow!
We have raised this "issue" with customer service and leadership multiple times and to say we get mixed messages and signals from them as a whole as to why this is, is an understatement.
The first thing they do all say is that there is no review or restriction on the account - and that this is the solely the payments system / "how it works now".
First line customer services tend to be not much use at all on the subject. And are actually quite rude at times. Bluntly saying this is the date you will get the money. There is no issue. So just deal with it. One guy even told me to stop calling!
Typically a manager is more sympathetic with us when we speak to them and we get told this is an "issue" that they are getting all the time at the moment, particularly for UK businesses. Possibly teething issues with the recent changes to the payment system. There was even some implication this is a site glitch / tech issue but I am pretty sure this is not the case.
The managers (usually) acknowledge that our account is not just in good standing, but is a top rated account and extended holds should not apply to us. And they then (sometimes) release the funds manually for transactions when we ask nicely. It seems only managers have this ability and they will do it once its passed that original 2 day post delivery window.
We really are pulling our hair out at the moment with all this. Please tell us we are not alone??
theelench
·1 week agoI've bumped the "All payments on hold..." thread as it might be of interest. Unfortunately the Related Discussion from June '25 is no longer available, but then I've never yet found an earlier discussion that IS available.
One of the reasons why I stopped selling (as a private seller) was ebay's increasing use of payment holds on private sellers at any and every opportunity. It seems to me ebay is continuing its drive to get payment holds after every sale accepted as the new normal.
Etsy tried it and had to backtrack, IMO ebay is just being a bit sneakier. No announcement, just putting it out regularly that it's coming to all business sellers, muddying the water by then lifting the holds. Until suddenly they don't. Job done and a few more billion for ebay in accrued interest.
sheba-knows-best
·2 weeks agoI agree that message thread is utterly shocking presumably it was from AI - a chat bot. Not from a human? Please OP! Request a callback from a human. Just get onto the help bot and keep typing need to speak to human. Need to speak to agent. Then show them this thread and reasonably explain that even if they cant reverse decisions - you should be able to speak to a human - and you should be able to contact ebay about this matter.
tcel_uk
OP1 week agoIt actually got worse and I later received what looks like an official warning not to call in about this issue again. (I haven't done so too for what its worth - I am scared I will get banned!)
You really could not write it.
A positive update re the status of my payments though, they look to be now in my Available Balance. No particular reason or interjection from eBay it seems. Certainly not from CS whose interactions will last long in the memory with me.
My advice for anyone reading this thread in the future going through the same and in despair:
Do not take any "payment release date" as gospel.
This means when you see a relatively good encouraging payment release date of 2 days, do not bank on it actually being this.
And equally do not despair either if it says 30 days. As in my experience the payments can just pop up in your Available Balance the next day.
Expect no reason or notice given for these timelines. Despite how important we business owners know this is re our own cashflow and day to day operations.
Do not expect eBay CS to be either knowledgable or helpful on this. In fact brace yourself for them to be quite rude and dismissive. Training to blame?
sheba-knows-best
·1 week agoBlimey. I am shocked. I'm also perplexed at the two issues - site manipulation and recontacting - they seem to have bundled together. Whilst I don't blame you not risking being in touch again, it is a warning to me, to NEVER use a chat bot. Always go to humans/voice, as I can't help feeling the 'issue' judged by a CS is less likely to be judged as pure repetition.
I dunno, I can't help feeling this is AI gone feral...
4_bathrooms
·1 week agoThe stated policy mentions nothing about "continuous recontacts regarding the same issue" nor anything remotely similar to such action. In fact, the whole concept of a "Violation of the eBay User Agreement policy" is utterly bizarre to me as any user violating the User Agreement is, well, violating it and is therefore subject to the actions and/or sanctions that are already laid out in said User Agreement.
Undeterred I decided to examine the User Agreement itself to see if there was anything in the "Using eBay" or "Abusing eBay" sections that covered how the "contact eBay" process could be used or what would constitute abuse. I came up completely empty-handed again.
You have clearly received a threat from eBay not to contact them about the issue again. Presumably this means you also cannot file a complaint about eBay payments; a complaint you could have taken to the Financial Ombudsman Service if you were not happy with eBay's response. Well, you can but eBay might just decide that you are "a risk to the eBay community" and permanently suspend your ability to sell regardless of any decision the FOS made for ignoring their prior warning.
So, in future it seems anyone with a complaint regarding payout holds that is not covered by any of the reasons given here should immediately file a complaint rather than using any other method to contact eBay about the matter. I'm not sure if that threat you received was authored by AI or not but it seems eBay can now make the rules up as they go along.
tcel_uk
OP2 days agoThanks for this reply. And yes this was our interpretation too, that there was no policy breach from our interactions with eBay - and that the agent had misapplied this policy (having read it here in full) in issuing this warning.
Quite reckless really from the agent - and again insulting to us, a long term business on the platform.
tcel_uk
OP2 weeks ago · EditedEbay are now even warning / threatening me to not get in touch and even ask them about this issue from now! Seems almost totalitarian.
What sort of treatment is that for one of eBay's longer serving businesses! Please look at our feedback, we are actually one of the good guys on here and we are being treated like some piece of dirt.
So disappointed in them for how they are handling this. As if we have no right to be upset or ask questions when our payments have been moved without warning from 2 day holds, to 30 day holds - with no explanation from them.
* the reason we are continuing to get in touch is one the importance of the matter to us, and secondly the fact that we are getting mixed messages and signals from the guys we speak to there. We are getting payments released manually from them (sometimes) - so obviously we would try to call back and achieve the same outcome.
Likely giving up now and letting this play out - whilst also reassessing our place on this marketplace.
appletree23
·2 weeks agoEbay couldn't give a monkeys about long standing good performing sellers, who knew.
tcel_uk
OP2 weeks agoYep silly me for thinking otherwise really
appletree23
·2 weeks agoThey treat us like dirt tbh, you'd think when you have 100% feedback and tons of satisfied customers we'd be treated better as upstanding sellers, but no, sadly this is never the case.
the_book_seekers
·2 weeks agoIf customer services provided consistent, believable responses it wouldn't be necessary to repeatedly call them back. I think its awful for the agent to make threats to try and stop the calls.
sheba-knows-best
·2 weeks agoThere have been lots of threads over the past year on this exact issue. I recall everyone agreeing it was completely random. You seem to be (by my memory) the only one to get some managers to manually release funds.
https://community.ebay.co.uk/forum/business-seller-board-12/topic/all-payments-held-until-delivery-confirmed-for-all-business-sellers-as-of-now-with-no-warning-49202/
@typo_lee seemed on top of this
tcel_uk
OP2 weeks ago · EditedThanks for this reply - definitely along the same lines as what I am experiencing. Although my case seems to be different in that my individual sale funds clearance time keeps changing! I could even live with them going from say 2 day clearance, to 3 day to 5 day etc. Some sort of sliding scale. And with some kind of heads up or notice of these.
But to go from an advertised 2 day hold per individual transaction on the sale page, to then randomly 30 day ones on that same transaction, after delivery, seems ridiculous. The lack of communication or explanation for these holds is also so irresponsible from eBay. It makes cash flow and planning stock purchasing very challenging.
bzmotman
·2 weeks agoYou could try initiating a formal complaint.
Search Ebay help for "How to file a complaint to eBay Commerce UK Limited about payments".
tcel_uk
OP2 weeks agoThanks for the reply - will take a look.
Gosh its quiet on these boards these days isnt it.
sheba-knows-best
·2 weeks agoIt sure is. A double whammy, I think, of these new boards and a horrendous summer for most.
the_book_seekers
·2 weeks agoThe number of open threads on this board is falling and quickly. The last time I took note it was around 250, now down to 146.