Your payouts are currently on hold because your eBay account is restricted

[4_bathrooms]

I just went into Payouts and at the top in a big, red banner it states:

"Your payouts are currently on hold because your eBay account is restricted. You'll start getting paid again when your account is reinstated. Learn more"

Huh? I have received no messages nor emails from eBay to state my account has been restricted nor why. In fact, the only thing that appears to be restricted are my payouts as all my listings are still active, can be edited and I "made the sale" of an item today.

Stumped as to what is going on I checked the "Payments" tab and I don't owe eBay any money. My current seller level is "Top Rated" and my predicted seller level is "Top Rated". The last MBG case opened against me - an INR case opened abusively - was resolved in my favour on the 31st August so I can't imagine it's that.

The only thing I can think of is some messages I received last week about a collection only item. The buyer wanted to pay cash on collection - I informed them this wasn't possible as eBay no longer allows CoC as a payment method so they would have to pay via eBay. They sent a further message asking where the item was located; I replied stating I could not disclose the location unless they actually purchased the item pointing out the reason why. They sent another message "Is it ***** area just area I need" at which point I ignored them. The thing I don't understand about the whole conversation is if I (the seller) included the item location in a message I'd almost certainly receive a warning about sharing contact details with the message being blocked. Is this a one-way filter that is only applied to messages sent by sellers? Anyway, at no point did I disclose the item location in the conversation so it shouldn't be that.

I'll update this thread with any progress made through eBay's CS.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Knowing Ebay, the email you should have got will yet turn up.

It does happen for whatever reason.

But it's not necessarily because you broke a rule etc.  

Did you actually look at the link it gives you?  Lot's of reasons for it from compliance/performance to owing Ebay money.

Or it could even be that they think someone who shouldn't have, has accessed your account.

But the only way your going to get an answer unfortunately, is to speak to support.

[papso22]

That's very worrying 😟 

[santlache_sales]

Why on earth have you posted all this on here before actually speaking to eBay ?

That would have been my immediate port of call as soon as I saw something like this.

It's not like anyone on here can step in and help - ring eBay asap.

[pillarboxred]

Have you updated your bank cards lately? It can be easy to forget to go round all your sites where your cards are registered to update them. If your card goes obsolete, you suddenly become a Bad Person online and no one wants your business. Last time, I was surprised to see how many sites had my card details. It took an afternoon to sort them all: electricity, HMRC, the bank, eBay, Amazon, department stores, supermarkets, my domain vendor, my domain host and so on and on.

Also, if you business bank balance falls to a level where the system guesses you will soon go over your overdraft limit, a signal can go out you are a credit risk.

I don't want to give you any more ambiguity but a buyer needs to know the location of a Collection Only item before buying. My address is displayed on my Item View pages below the descriptions. Does this prospective  buyer know that that is where to look? If he is in the Shetland Isles, he might not be keen on going to Devon to collect a wardrobe on the roof of his car.

[pillarboxred]

I see that on your Item View pages, your location is clearly shown on a Desktop View. I don't know if it is easy to see on a Mobile View. Differences between Desktop and Mobile can cause problems with buyers who only use Mobile.

[sml192]

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@pillarboxred wrote:

I see that on your Item View pages, your location is clearly shown on a Desktop View. I don't know if it is easy to see on a Mobile View. Differences between Desktop and Mobile can cause problems with buyers who only use Mobile.

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Yes, the location for collection is right at the top of the listing on the app/mobile browser.  Seems some buyers are incapable of reading anything on a listing. 

[4_bathrooms]

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@santlache_sales wrote:

Why on earth have you posted all this on here before actually speaking to eBay ?

That would have been my immediate port of call as soon as I saw something like this.

It's not like anyone on here can step in and help - ring eBay asap.

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Here's the thing - you can't ring them! You have to type "speak to an agent" into that chatbot thing and someone from eBay calls you back. At least...that's the idea. I got the message about only an agent being able to help and an 11 minute window for a callback. 25 minutes came and went and simply put I had more important things to get on with than to wait for a call from eBay's CS that may or may not have been forthcoming (these days eBay is responsible for less than 10% of the business's turnover).

Anyway, threads like this often attract the attention of the eBay employees that actually interact with the boards; sometimes they are able to "take a look" and resolve the problem themselves. Other times the problem amazingly resolves itself within a day of posting a thread like this which is exactly what has happened in this case. I received a "We have sent your payout" notification earlier this morning and upon checking the red banner has disappeared just as mysteriously as it appeared.

The whole thing is bizarre. Earlier last year my payouts were "put on hold" due to a high number of INR cases - this was entirely caused by eBay's ludicrous EDDs. This was not described as an "account restriction" and I knew the reason why because eBay sent a message about it. The hold was (eventually) released when eBay "adjusted" my EDDs due to being rated "very high" in my service metrics - that adjustment meant my EDDs accurately reflected the handling time and delivery service I state so items started arriving "on time". This was no minor annoyance by any means as after 3 months the hold became a 5-figure sum but I didn't bother posting about that issue because I knew the "why" and when my payout would be released.   

This issue was different. Normally when something attracts a red banner you see the banner everywhere when you log into your account. Well...not this time; it didn't even appear in seller hub. I only noticed it because the accountant asked if I had stopped selling on eBay as she couldn't see any recent payments from eBay. I clicked into the "Payments -> Payouts" page and that is when I saw the banner. I've double-checked and there was no message, no email, nothing. The fact it stated "your eBay account is restricted" was alarming as an account restriction is typically something more serious than a payout hold. I posited in my original post that maybe it was a conversation with a "buyer" last week that had triggered it but I now realise that can't possibly have been the case as the amount that was held and the payout history indicates the hold was in place at least a week prior to that conversation taking place.

[4_bathrooms]

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@pillarboxred wrote:

Have you updated your bank cards lately? 

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No but I don't believe bank cards would have had anything to do with it. As far as I'm aware credit and debit cards are only used for purchases where eBay is concerned - any funds owed to eBay are debited from the linked bank account via the DD mandate.

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@pillarboxred wrote:

Also, if you business bank balance falls to a level where the system guesses you will soon go over your overdraft limit, a signal can go out you are a credit risk.

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There are definitely no issues with the account balance nor the company's credit score.

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@pillarboxred wrote:

I don't want to give you any more ambiguity but a buyer needs to know the location of a Collection Only item before buying. My address is displayed on my Item View pages below the descriptions.

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All items on eBay show the item location right under the "Postage" section. The person messaging knew the item location because their last message contained the town that is stated in the item location (which is different to the registered company address shown in my "business seller information" section). I stopped communicating with them because it was becoming abundantly clear they had no intention of purchasing the item via eBay and any further discussion would likely have triggered a warning from eBay which seemingly is only ever sent to sellers.

Outside of a transaction eBay does not allow any contact information to be exchanged including addresses which I would assume includes partial addresses. In fact, eBay's own policies contradict each other as their member-to-member contact policy states no contact information other than names can be exchanged whilst their offering to buy or sell outside of eBay policy specifically states names cannot be exchanged! On a different item I once received a warning about exchanging contact information - with the message automatically blocked - when I tried to send a part number in response to a query. It seems eBay thought I was trying to send a telephone number even though the number would not have been valid for any UK landline or mobile. So I don't send any details - including the item location - via messages unless the item has actually been purchased. 

[tascio1]

I received this out of the blue last August:

'We require sellers to maintain a payment method on file to pay for fees and other selling costs. Your payouts are on hold because eBay has determined that your current payment method is not valid. This can happen if attempts to debit your bank account or charge your card have been declined, returned, or eBay could not confirm microdeposits to your account'

I rang them & it was a simple task to 'add' my card on file; it had been for past 20+ years but suddenly 'wasn't'!! I never removed it but somewhere down the line, maybe an ebay bot had taken a dislike to it .......