Ebay holding all payments until upto 2 weeks of delivery

[cultman]

I'm hoping someone can answer my query here as ebay haven't been much help. 

At the start of last month ebay started holding payments on all items I've sold through my business account until anything between 3 days and 2 weeks of delivery confirmation. 

I thought this was something that was only brought in recently for private sellers, so had a look through the latest ebay announcements to see if they had rolled this out for business sellers as well but couldn't find any reference to it. I then had a look through their help section and found a couple of pages relating to payments and payment holds but couldn't find anything relating to business accounts having holds put on payments until delivery confirmation. In fact, it states "It typically takes 1 day from confirming the buyer’s payment for the sales proceeds to appear as Available for payout". 

I've contacted ebay and the only reason they could give me was that they do this for 'new or infrequent' accounts but I've been trading on ebay since 1999 and although don't sell huge amounts through ebay, still sell roughly 50 items each week and am a top rated seller with nearly 50,000 feedback. On telling them this, they said they would put through a complaint on my behalf which would hopefully remove the payment hold but I received a message from them just a hour later saying the complaint had been closed as they had given me sufficient information and that if I had additional concerns I should contact the Financial Ombudsman Service. 

I would like to ask, if any other business sellers have had this issue, where all of their payments are put on hold until after delivery confirmation of orders? 

And if this is not the norm, can anyone explain why they have placed these holds on to all of my orders? Is it something to do with my account that I can fix? Is it temporary or permanent?

Hoping someone has the answers as since 20th May I've sold around £1,500 and only had £45 paid out to me despite having delivery confirmation and receiving positive feedback for a number of the sold items.

Many thanks

[therenewalworkshopltd]

This kind of thing is usually because Ebay think that there is some kind of issue, or that your stats are poor etc.

I presume that you have checked everything?  A significant amount of returns etc?

This didn't happen to happen around the 20th of the month did it?

Double check all the email's that you have received from Ebay.  Check your junk folders, though you should have it on the Ebay account anyway.

[cultman]

Thanks for your response. That at least gives me hope that they will remove the hold at some point.

The only message I've had from ebay is a message saying they are putting the payments on hold but they didn't give any information as to why. They just included a link to a page on Payment Holds which didn't explain anything.

I've had zero returns in the last month and eveything on the account seems in good standing. See below:

Transaction defect rate

0.00% 0 of 472 transactions

Late delivery rate

0.52% 2 of 385 transactions

Cases closed without seller resolution

0.00% 0 of 472 transactions

Returns rate

0.00% 0 of 472 transactions

[cultman]

Thanks for your response. That at least gives me hope that they will remove the hold at some point.

The only message I've had from ebay is a message saying they are putting the payments on hold but they didn't give any information as to why. They just included a link to a page on Payment Holds which didn't explain anything.

I've had zero returns in the last month and eveything on the account seems in good standing. See below:

Transaction defect rate

0.00% 0 of 472 transactions

Late delivery rate

0.52% 2 of 385 transactions

Cases closed without seller resolution

0.00% 0 of 472 transactions

Returns rate

0.00% 0 of 472 transactions

[masonskingsshop]

Given the reply you've given suggesting your account is in good standing this would be the time to contact eBay and ask them for more information. 

Anything else from us is just guessing. 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

I agree, support is your only real option here I'm afraid.

[cultman]

I have contacted ebay already on three occasions and they haven't given me a reason. Twice they have told me that it is because I'm a new or infrequent seller, which I'm not and the other time they told me that it was their new policy and is the same for every business account. 

[therenewalworkshopltd · Accepted solution]

You haven't maybe just updated to Ltd?

You effectively become a brand new entity then, so it's a possibility.

But you need to get past 1st level support and try and speak to one of their managers at least.

I think that those you have spoken to, are just telling you a pile of rubbish...

In other words, they don't know and it sounds good!  🙂

I can however assure you that it's got nothing to do with policy and it is not the same for every other account.  Perhaps one of the mods here can take a look for you.  Can someone tag them please, can never remember their names.

[cultman]

Thanks. I will contact them again to try and find the answers. 

At least I now know that it isn't the standard policy so there must be a reason for it. It also gives me hope that they will remove the hold at some point. 

Many thanks for your help.

[theelench]

I must admit this is only a guess and a very, very long shot.

For how long have you been selling multiple lots of unused banknotes ?

I ask because I vaguely remember, during the changeover from paypal to MP, that there was some problem with coins and banknotes sellers.  If I remember rightly there was a bit of talk about the possibility of selling them on ebay becoming impossible.  It all blew over.

Did your problems begin after the 4/5 when you sold two lots of QE II banknotes ?

Could it be that whatever the problem was with MP was sorted to enable you to keep selling, but with a few extra restrictions in place?

Could this even be some sort of precaution against the money laundering / counterfeiting that we here so much about (but I've always thought was a bit of a joke?)

[cultman]

Thanks. It maybe a long shot but it sounds very much like something ebay would do.

We've sold coins and banknotes every now and then on ebay over 26 years but not regularly as we mainly sell them through our physical shop, so this is definitely worth looking into.

I think it must to be something like that. There has to be something on our account or something we have sold that has flagged up for some reason. 

Now I know it is not a new policy, I will contact ebay again and try to find the answers so I can rectify whatever the issue is. 

Thank you everyone for all your help.

[theelench]

Sorry I can't be more precise but it was years ago.  Yes, ebay does tend to go 'above and beyond' sometimes and a some flag might still be on your account that the sales of multiple notes could have raised.

You can search the boards by 'Content' of posts to try to find out more, but I must admit when I've tried it the results can be none too good 😞

[cultman]

I contacted ebay again today to try and get to the bottom of it but they were absolutely no use over the phone. Just trying to fob me off and say whatever comes to their head at the time.

I therefore tried a different route and sent an email to them. I have now received a response stating that the reason for the hold is confidential! 

I give up with it now. I really can't understand why they can't tell me the reason for holding my funds. I'll give it a month or two to see if anything changes and if not I think it will be time for me to close the ebay side of things down. It's not ideal but ebay is becoming more and more difficult to trade on and the customer support has really gone downhill in recent years. 

This is the response I got when asking for them to clarify why the holds had been put on my account:

"Many thanks for your reply, I'd be happy to clarify your concerns.

In regards to me not specifying reasons for this hold being placed on your orders, until we can confirm delivery, this is due to detailed information being internal and confidential.

I would direct you to our Payments Terms of Use - section 7; here, it details cirucmstances where we may hold funds, with a little more detail than our Help and Contact page link I sent previously:

https://pages.ebay.co.uk/payment/2.0/terms.html#article-7

Many factors are taken into account with our Transaction Hold policy and the information available within our Payments Terms of Use and our Help and Contact pages are the breath of information we share with our sellers.

If you can understand, some details of our internal systems are required to be kept internal due to the risk of users cirucumventing our systems in the future.

I trust I have clarified your query but if you do have any further questions in relation to the above our Customer Service team is available and are best placed to assist with real-time guidance.

Kind Regards,

Tracy

eBay Payments Complaints Specialist"