Well it's official...

My wife opened a personal PayPal and an eBay account in an effort to sell off some odd parts from my business and also some old stock from my mothers store.

She sold several items and completed the transactions in an excellent manor, however PayPal sent her a notice stating that their new Policy is to hold any and all payments for 21 days.

Here is the letter I helped her write up and post on eBay-

We are no longer accepting PayPal due to a Hold Policy that was conveniently initiated on our account AFTER we registered and listed over 25 items!

We feel that much like anyone who performs a service or sells an item, that said funds should be available to us rather than sitting in the PayPal coffers for 21 days. Asking sellers to pay out of their own pockets for shipping in addition to sending the merchandise while PayPal sits on funds is not only unfair, it should be illegal. How PayPal can legally withhold funds for shipping an item is beyond me.

We can accept PayPal, however as mentioned any payments held will result in an immediate refund. I have never in my entire life been asked to sell an item and then wait 21 days for the payment. Our Visa and MasterCard processor clears funds within 24 hours and we feel PayPal should be required to perform as good if not better. eBay belongs to us members, so lets all work together to ensure the eBay experience is fair for both buyers and sellers!

Listed below is a portion of the e-mail set to us AFTER we listed over 25 items,

------------------------------------EXCERPT E-MAIL SENT BY PAYPAL --------------------------------------
Hello Brandee,

Your payments will be held in a pending balance

We're writing to let you know about a change to your PayPal account.
Starting Nov/29/2010, money from payments you receive will be placed in a pending balance for up to 21days.

By doing this, we're making sure that there's enough money in your account to cover potential refunds or claims.

Even though you can't access the money right away, please ship orders quickly and communicate with your customers. After 21 days, you can withdraw money from each payment as long as the customer hasn't filed a dispute, chargeback, claim, return, or reversal.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As a buyer you may feel the above is acceptable, however put yourself in the sellers shoes and ask yourself if its worth having to beg for your money long after an item has been sent. Please keep in mind the SELLER has to pay out of their own pocket for shipping since those funds are also held!

Any new items we list will no longer include PayPal as a payment option, and thus will not contain this long disclaimer/rant. Id be more than happy to take down all my listings prior to 11/29/2010 providing I got a refund for listing fees but do you think eBay will agree to that?

PayPal is putting sellers in a position to look bad, and even worse this hold could potentially affect others you do business with on eBay. This is a rotten thing to do this close to Christmas, as many small eBay sellers such as myself simply will not agree to the terms above after the fact.

Please remember the notice above was sent to us AFTER having spent almost a week listing 25 items! Amazing that eBay that was once known as a marketplace for the small guy is now turning into a retail outlet forcing the small guys and girls out! As a buyer you should think about how this PayPal policy will affect you.

This might be more information than you want to know, but it may explain problems you may have had in the past. If eBay and PayPal are going to switch up their terms after the fact and not refund my listing fees then Ill be more than happy to pay their listing fees with this disclaimer attached to all the listings posted prior to 11/29/2010. Go ahead eBay/PayPal, take my pound of flesh as you have from my husband for many years. Enjoy your holidays sitting on mine and many others money!

Due to this policy ALL PAYPAL SALES ARE FINAL AND SOLD AS-IS WITHOUT WARRANTY. Now how is that making the marketplace better? And given the all sales final with no refunds stipulation how can they still sit on my money?

In 2006 the CEO of E-Bay Meg Whitman sent this letter to my husband and everyone else for all I know asking people to fight the big telco companies! These people have NO SHAME!

- LETTER SENT OUT TO ALL EBAY MEMBERS BACK IN 2006 FROM MEG WHITMAN -

Dear (name removed),

As you know, I almost never reach out to you personally with a request to get involved in a debate in the U.S. Congress. However, today I feel I must.

Right now, the telephone and cable companies in control of Internet access are trying to use their enormous political muscle to dramatically change the Internet.

It might be hard to believe, but lawmakers in Washington are seriously debating whether consumers should be free to use the Internet as they want in the future.

Join me by clicking here --(link removed)-- to send a message to your representatives in Congress.

The phone and cable companies now control more than 95% of all Internet access. These large corporations are spending millions of dollars to promote legislation that would allow them to divide the Internet into a two-tiered system.

The top tier would be a "Pay-to-Play" high-speed toll-road restricted to only the largest companies that can afford to pay high fees for preferential access to the Net.

The bottom tier -- the slow lane -- would be what is left for everyone else. If the fast lane is the information "super-highway," the slow lane will operate more like a dirt road.

Today's Internet is an incredible open marketplace for goods, services, information and ideas. We can't give that up. A two-lane system will restrict innovation because start-ups and small companies -- the companies that can't afford the high fees -- will be unable to succeed, and we'll lose out on the jobs, creativity and inspiration that come with them.

The power belongs with Internet users, not the big phone and cable companies. Let's use that power to send as many messages as possible to our elected officials in Washington. Please join me by (link removed) right now to send a message to your representatives in Congress before it is too late. You can make the difference.
Thank you for reading this note.

I hope you'll make your voice heard today.

Meg Whitman
President and CEO
eBay Inc.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THANKS FOR LETTING PAYPAL TURN INTO A DIRT ROAD MEG! Better luck next time I guess! You should have stuck with us like we stuck with you!

It makes me sick to think the former CEO would send out letters like that, and all the while be treating the small part time sellers such as myself like dirt! Holding peoples money for 21 days? WAKE UP IDIOTS! Having to beg and mess around trying to get it unlocked? WAKE UP!

Ebay and PayPal are responsible for a majority of the problems out there. I am willing to bet it is a VERY SMALL percentage of people that are really out there to scam people, and even still this small percentage should be VERY EASY to spot.

There is NO REASON eBay or PayPal should be getting in the middle of a transaction and or payment PERIOD. The seller is the Boss. eBay is just a platform aka advertisement venue. PayPal should have to conform to banking regulations. I cant tell you how many times I have seen PayPal and or eBay actually CAUSE problems by getting involved. Anymore I think it's just better to use Craigslist since there is no cost involved and they dont poke their nose in your business.

I recently asked to have ALL of my listings removed and credited since this new "Hold" policy was thrust upon me AFTER listing items. I dont feel that is an unfair request.

I think everyone should take Meg's adivce and let the people at PayPal and eBay know that sellers will not tolerate holds. They might as well change the name from eBay to Amazon!
------------------------------------------------- End letter

I advised her to paste that letter on ALL 25 of her listings in an effort to get eBay to pull her listings and issue a refund since they failed to mention any of this prior to her spending a great deal of time listing them.

To date only 8 have been removed and credited. Yesterday she closed her PayPal account and prior to closing the account they had a pre-formed list of reasons why she closed her account. Apparenly the 21 day hold was not included so she ticked the box that stated "Other" and entered in "21 day hold".

Un-real that they are permitted to do this. Back in the day when I used eBay this was not a standard practice, however often times when the balance in my PayPal account would get over a few hundred dollars they would limit the account and sit on my money with little to no explanation.

I thought maybe they were taking out frustrations with me on her, but I started reading the eBay forums to find out they are doing it to just about everyone. She is SMOKING MAD and has filled out letters to both the Michigan and California attorney generals as well as the BBB. She says she is going to wait out the end of her listings to send them out after she closes out her eBay account because if she closes her account today the fee's will be considered valid. Dispite her sending several messages to eBay requesting them to pull her listings and issue a refund they have done nothing. She then went and modified all of her listings to include the above letter along with changing the prices to all the listings to .99 cents with a local pickup for a lug nut. LOL, they sent her a nasty letter today saying that they were going to suspend her account for duplicate listings and she fired back with a letter asking why they have not responded to any of her e-mail request over the past two weeks. Still no responce.

Anyway, I couldn't help but to tell her "I told you so" but I am going to help her with her complaints (Not that I have had any luck with that so far). She has good credit, better than mine even, so she really feels that eBay and PayPal are doing something that could be considered to be illegal. Someone mentioned that within the complaints to the AG's office that we should also state that eBay and PayPal is running un-licenced escro accounts and that would give more ammo to the battle.

Any suggestions from you guys? She was just doing it to pick up a little extra holiday money. Her plans were to use all the proceedes to buy the kids some more remote control car parts such a batteries, controlers, and whatever. Seems eBay is the best place to buy the Tammya RC cars and parts since the prices are often 50% lower than the local hobby shops. Needless to say the kids have tore thru all of their tires and suspension parts, cracked a few chassis and broken all their antennas. Their battry packs are on their last legs and my oldest even cooked his speed controler. We were even considering getting the oldest a gas powered RC kit if the sales were good enough. Looks like I am going to have to figure something else out since there is no way I am going to pay hobby shop prices for these items. Sure ill foot the bill for some new tires, batteries, antenna's and a speed controller, but man what a shitty thing to do to people so close to Christmas.

Anyway anyone thinking about using eBay and PayPal should think twice. Go on eBay and read their forums and you will see first hand how outraged people are about the new policy.

Yeah...

Although Meg Whitman is no longer with eBay, in fact it appears that most of this come about when she left to pursue a career in Politics.

As much as I hate regulation, eBay and PayPal is one place I wouldn't mind seeing some. I can't say that I have shunned all regulations though, as regulations that are genuine about protecting people have always been considered a good thing to me.

If you notice PowerStroker, I have only been agienst regulations and commissions that protect these big companies from having to do right by the customer!

PayPal operates like a bank, however a bank they are not. I think PayPal being able to hide in the shadows is unacceptable, and that they should be held to the same standard, not that the current standard helped any when I got screwed by a local credit union.

Ah, anyone can get banned from a forum. I've done it here twice without even breaking a sweat.

More like suspensions then?

Well, we both know you don't have any moral high ground.