New payment system is a fiasco

[nrob1982]

I made a BIN sale on Friday. Buyer paid immediately and within minutes he and I had agreed by message that I would deliver item as he was only a 30min drive from me. The terms of sale had specified either courier OR personal collection. I delivered item on Monday as arranged but the buyer had not been sent either a qr code or a six digit code. 
I handed over the item and returned home - to discover eBay is insisting my funds will be held for 14 days because there is no tracking in place.
I spoke to an customer services agent named Heidi and explained that eBay has failed to send a  code and seems to have unilaterally decided that the items must be posted/couriered despite the either/or regarding delivery. Heidi apologised and said if I asked the buyer to message me confirming delivery she would ensure the hold period on funds would be changed to two days - as per eBays terms and conditions for personal delivery. I did so and the buyer sent a message confirming delivery. The next day I checked my account. Funds still on hold until February 22. So I spoke to another customer services agent, Niall. He was very pleasant but said I should have been told to ask the buyer to leave positive feedback thus proving satisfactory deliver. Niall said if I did this now he would personally ensure the on-hold period would be changed to two days. Two days later, (today, Thursday) I checked my account. Funds still on hold until 22 February. So I phoned AGAIN - and spoke to a third customer services agent, Joanna. I outlined the story so far. She apologised and put me on hold while she made inquiries. She then came back on the phone and said she will sort it out and either ring me back or email me to confirm. Fours hours later and no phone call or email. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that eBay’s customer service agents are either a) incompetent or b) deliberately misleading me because they realise the new payments system is broken and cannot be fixed. 

[andha-21]

Damn. You gave a customer your item without getting a QR code?

You had better hope they are honest because if they aren't you've probably lost your item and money.

[rob_deas]

time to go back to Gumtree

[artemisia1558]

I agree, customer service agents are incompetent and often don’t have a clue. They just end up wasting one’s time and take the Micky in the process.

[*vyolla*]

If you allow a buyer to have their item without handing over the code it really does throw a spanner in the works - if the buyer selected collection in person at checkout when paying then they should have been issued with a code, and items should not be handed over without getting that code from the buyer. Chances are the code is sitting in their email spam folder. 

I can see that this would confuse most eBay reps, looks like they tried to find a workaround but, without the code, there wasn't one.

Without proof of delivery it does say in eBay's guidance page that funds will be held for 14 days. It's a shame that none of the eBay reps referenced that.