UKC

absolutely ridiculous in my opinion. i recently sold two items one on ebay one not and put the tracking codes for postage up and the items were received quickly by the buyers. Now in what world would you sell something then wait for your money despite both sides confirming buyer receipt of product? I have waited over 17 days from the initial payment plus another three days just to withdraw my money into my bank account. i just cannot understand this policy plus i eventually had to call paypal to get them to make my funds available despite it being past the date they had set for the release of my funds.

Are they working on the premise that we are all rich enough to cope without 190 GBP for three weeks i have bills to pay and need to eat. I am a student and their anti-seller status has left me hungry as hell because like most students i have zero money.

On top of all of this they have charged me for a job i could do better myself.. with their buyer biased policies it should be the buyer that gets charged as they are the ones who get all the protection as a seller there is zero advantage of using this bizarre way of receiving funds i mean a carrier pigeon would be quicker.

In reply to Jackspratt:

I could be stating the obvious here but why not just stop using them.

In reply to Jackspratt:

Is your paypal account unverified or are you a new seller? They hold onto funds for longer if the answer to either of these is yes.

With regards to fees and protection, I think its fair. The buyer is taking the bigger risk by sending someone they don't know money, in the hope they receive their goods. If someone asked me to pay by bank transfer because its more convenient for them then I wouldn't buy.... been burnt before and will never fall for it again regardless of how trustworthy you may be.

In reply to Jackspratt:

I have done. But wanted to vent my frustrations and see if anyone else had had the same issues because the internet is awash with criticism for it yet it is quite a common way of completing transactions.

In reply to Jackspratt:

I've had one problem in over 5 years of using it several times a week (payments went out of my account, seller got an email saying he had funds, but no actual funds). They weren't quick to sort it out, but it trundled through and got fixed.

In reply to Jackspratt:

Yeah that's because they have a monopoly over online payments. Especially when it comes to Ebay.

In reply to Removed User:

True, but eBay are no longer the only player. Amazon and Gumtree are other outlets.

In reply to Jackspratt:

I'm in agreement, I jsut sold a mountain bike and paypal charged me 50 quid for the buyer's protection. Assuming that the price agreed is a fair price in the first instance etc, it sdesnt seem fair that the person paying gets no bnefit and the person benefiting pays nothing.

In reply to Jackspratt:

Paypal are annoying in a "bend over while we rape you for massive fees whilst providing some of the most annoying help pages in the history of the internet" yes. Ridiculous no, I expect they make an awful lot of money.

In reply to Jackspratt:

it is all just typical big business screwing over the little guy for a quick buck. customer service is awful these days. the customer appears a nuisance. it is the money they want not the customer but there is naff all anyone can do about it because money talks and fairness walks.

In reply to Jackspratt:

You don't have to use them. You could place an advert in your local paper or on a supermarket notice board and sell for cash in person, for example.

The reason they need to be anti-seller is that there are an awful lot more unscrupulous sellers than buyers generally.

Neil

In reply to Neil Williams:

as i have said earlier i have stopped using them but as soon as i realized. Also there are an awful lot more decent honest sellers than unscrupulous ones so their policy of punishing everyone to ensure they get the minority is a lot like in school when the whole class stayed behind because of one person. its ridiculous.

Innocent until proven guilty.

In reply to Jackspratt:

It is an a racket. EBay Inc have owned Paypal since 2002 and for the last year or so (if not longer) it has been compulsory for sellers to offer Paypal as a payment method and you can't list unless you do. Since EBay now carve off 10% of your p&p as well as 10% of your final value whilst their affiliate Paypal takes 20p and 3.4% of every transaction, if you sell an item for £20+£5 p&p assuming it cost you 15p to list and £5 to post from the £25 that hits your Paypal account you will end up with £16.30 by the time the dust settles. That works out just shy of 15% 'commission' on every sale.

Whilst I understand both exist to make money not friends I do think it would be a more equitable solution if buyers were offered the chance to opt in or out of Paypal using their judgement (as people who buy on UKC and hundreds of other forums do every day) and if they opt in then they share the fees with the seller.

Sellers are being punished, but EBay is a great resource and they know that hence why they can get away with it!

In reply to Bootsy:


You can, however, offer other payment methods. I always insist on cash in hand if the buyer wants to collect the item in person, because it's all too easy for the buyer to claim non-delivery and get a refund from Paypal. I state that in the listing and it's never been a problem with eBay. If you only want to do a cash sale then a stupidly high postage cost will put remote buyers off very effectively.

In the OP's case I'd echo craig1983's point: if you are a new seller and/or have an unverified account they do hang on to your funds for longer in case there's a problem. I've been selling stuff on eBay for nearly nine years now, including stuff that went for three-figure sums, and I'm able to request transfer of the funds to my bank pretty much as soon as the seller has paid. These days the money turns up in the bank a/c pretty quickly, too.

In reply to Jackspratt: I have to say they have been nothing but brilliant for me. I average about 10 paypal transactions per week and have never had a problem and this has been going on for over 5 years now. As someone above said if your new with paypal or not verified it does take longer.