To hell with paypal

[walter23]

I sold a low value item on ebay this week and when I received payment I got a notice saying paypal would hold the payment for 21 days.

After an angry phone call to them I found out that it can be reduced to as little as 3 days if you provide a tracking number for the shipment, or until the buyer leaves positive feedback (24 hours after that).

This begs the question; what if I was hard up for money, sold an item expecting to ship it with the money the buyer provides, and then was unable to ship because of this nasty surprise?

Besides, this seems like just another one of those bank policies where they get to hold money for a period of time and therefore have additional capital to invest, etc.

Disgusting. The price of monopoly. More and more companies are being run like they are payday loanshark services or something.

[Matt Miller]

I agree completely. Paypal sucks, especially for the seller.

[Doug Dolde]

I never ship until the payment clears.

[Frank Bagbey]

Read all the horror stories and the out of court settlement Paypal made at Paypalsucks.com or Google it.

[Steve M Hostetter]

I see paypal as a virus that infects your computer and then your bank account

[Ted Stoddard]

I agree as well that so called paypal court settlement was a f%^^^^%% joke... my 2 cents....

[walter23]

I never ship until the payment clears.

Yeah, exactly. That's a really good policy, and paypal has effectively shut down your ability to make that decision. You could ship something and then also be out the money because of some dishonest buyer filing a dispute. I feel uncomfortable shipping this out without having actual money in my posession, but that's my only option (other than refunding the money and possibly getting a negative feedback from a rightfully annoyed buyer taking out their frustration on me).

[neil poulsen]

I would make sure that I had a tracking number, the receipt, etc. of shipment.

Paypal has its positives. For example, I recently sold a reduction lensboard at 7pm a week ago last Sunday. Payment was received by Paypal by 9pm that night and I shipped the item the next morning. Buyer had the lensboard in his hands by the following Thursday.

Using a money order, the seller would have asked for my address. Maybe I could get back to him in a day or so. Then, buyer would send a money order that it make take a couple of days to get. I receive the money order, and then I would ship the item within a day or so after that.

That's several days difference to complete the transaction. The faster the money's received, the faster the seller can ship, the more likely that seller can receive positive feedback.

[Paul Kierstead]

The problem Paypal is trying to address is the very large inequality of power in the transaction. In the traditional transaction, the buyer pretty much has to put all the trust on the seller, cross their fingers and pray. Now I am sure that sellers like it that way -- it is largely a zero risk transaction for them -- but it certainly puts a lot of people off of buying from unknown sellers. So Paypal, in order to encourage buyers (and hence profits), is re-balancing the equation somewhat, where they act, essentially, as a sort of escrow service.

They only withhold on certain transactions, apparently considering seller history and the item in question (it seems they watch out for certain categories prone to fraud). And, as noted, there are ways to shorten the waiting period.

As a buyer, I like it. As a seller, it does, of course, concern me, but so far I have not run afoul of it. As a seller I do like that Paypal gives a lot more people the peace of mind to buy from me.

As to monopoly; hogwash. There are a ton of ways to sell stuff, and only one of them involves eBay and Paypal.

[Alan Rabe]

Same experience I had. see http://www.largeformatphotography.in...ad.php?t=45734
Buyer never left feedback. Took the full 21 days