Funds on Hold, seems it is something for us all to get used to

[ricarmic]

Got my first Funds on Hold on the weekend.

It was a higher than usual item just over $400.

The reason was the age old one that the buyer has to receive and be happy or 30 days one, traditionally reserved for new/returning/sporadic sellers.

I'm of course not new, I haven't had slow sales. I was away for much of July and August and my store was on Time away at that time but I've sold a lot of stuff since reopening at the beginning of September with no holds! (the buyer is a regular buyer as well).

So I figured it was time to get my moneys worth again out of my CSRs because I wanted to make sure there wasn't any dings or something on my account that I hadn't noticed that had provoked the hold.

CSR advised that these "Bot Holds" (my name for them) are going to be a more common thing, sporadic, generally for more expensive stuff, I'm not clear on whether it was $200 or more items, the amount wavered I suspect it depends on what one's normal average sales value is.

As of the inflationary slower sales world we're currently in I have a LOT more $10 sales so my average sale value will have dropped since I reopened in September so a $400 sale probably stood out more now than it would have a year ago. That's probably what caused the "Hold Bot" to tag it.

Anyway, I though it made sense to put this in it's own thread, the short version is that it doesn't matter who you are anymore, we're all going to see these Bot Holds from time to time, for larger sales. This is assuming the information I received was correct (remember this is one of the Anchor store CSRs not the regular ones, generally I've found them to be much better informed).

I do find it a bit odd that it has been implemented this way, I'm confused about what kind of abuse this random holds approach is trying to stop. (remembering that generally these extremely annoying things are a result of some sort of abuse by buyers or sellers at some time). In a situation where a large purchase is still a low % against a sellers monthly total eBay doesn't really have any risk that it's an abusive transaction, and it simply annoys the seller. The risk did not seem to be on the buyers end given that the resolution of the hold is that the buyer has to be happy for me to get my $$$ and the CSR didn't advise of any problems from the buyers side (remembering this is a repeat buyer).

[mrdutch1001]

This same sort of thing is happenin' on Etsy too>long time Etsy sellers as well as new sellers and/or ANY sellers at ANY time can have their funds withheld> Etsy calls it "reserves" , and these "reserves" can be placed on sellers' funds at any time> 75% of a seller's funds withheld for up to 90 days...

[msau4301]

Wow! Thanks for posting this and the heads up. I am surprised (though I guess I shouldn't be) that a long time seller with active listings such as yourself can have a hold randomly placed. I've been selling about eight years and like you I usually take my summers off (before my kids are too old to have anything to do with me!) My items are usually not on the higher end, I've sold a few over $100 the past couple of months but most are considerably lower ($20 to $30 is more average). This is good to know though  as I was contemplating listing a few higher priced items before Christmas and I would have been upset to have this happen for them.

So how long would the hold be I wonder, if based on delivery confirmation (the buyer doesn't always respond with feedback right away), or like you say could be the 30 days though this seems awfully unfair.

I'll be curious how "sporadic" these holds will be. I'm sure we'll see other postings. Hope yours is not long! And again, thanks for sharing.

[kawartha-ephemera]

This sort of corporate behaviour is troubling, holding $400 back from a long established anchor store seller like yourself is imo very hard to justify for all the reasons you've discussed. It seems to me Payments doesn't have a lot of faith in their account verification process if they're so concerned they feel holds like this are necessary.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@ricarmic wrote:

Got my first Funds on Hold on the weekend.

It was a higher than usual item just over $400.

The reason was the age old one that the buyer has to receive and be happy or 30 days one, traditionally reserved for new/returning/sporadic sellers.

I'm of course not new, I haven't had slow sales. I was away for much of July and August and my store was on Time away at that time but I've sold a lot of stuff since reopening at the beginning of September with no holds! (the buyer is a regular buyer as well).

So I figured it was time to get my moneys worth again out of my CSRs because I wanted to make sure there wasn't any dings or something on my account that I hadn't noticed that had provoked the hold.

CSR advised that these "Bot Holds" (my name for them) are going to be a more common thing, sporadic, generally for more expensive stuff, I'm not clear on whether it was $200 or more items, the amount wavered I suspect it depends on what one's normal average sales value is.

As of the inflationary slower sales world we're currently in I have a LOT more $10 sales so my average sale value will have dropped since I reopened in September so a $400 sale probably stood out more now than it would have a year ago. That's probably what caused the "Hold Bot" to tag it.

Anyway, I though it made sense to put this in it's own thread, the short version is that it doesn't matter who you are anymore, we're all going to see these Bot Holds from time to time, for larger sales. This is assuming the information I received was correct (remember this is one of the Anchor store CSRs not the regular ones, generally I've found them to be much better informed).

I do find it a bit odd that it has been implemented this way, I'm confused about what kind of abuse this random holds approach is trying to stop. (remembering that generally these extremely annoying things are a result of some sort of abuse by buyers or sellers at some time). In a situation where a large purchase is still a low % against a sellers monthly total eBay doesn't really have any risk that it's an abusive transaction, and it simply annoys the seller. The risk did not seem to be on the buyers end given that the resolution of the hold is that the buyer has to be happy for me to get my $$$ and the CSR didn't advise of any problems from the buyers side (remembering this is a repeat buyer).

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Thanks for heads up on this. Sad to hear but good to know what's up on this issue. With the holds does it give some sort of tentative release date? If this is going to be some sort of regular occurance that would be most helpful. I have noticed with "regular" sales there 2 descriptors we see are processing and completed. Completion time from my observations has always been a little bit inconsistenly erratic on a revolving basis.  This is also being reported on dot com to established sellers along with re-requests for verification of identification before releases would be made. As days go on with MP I so miss "You've got funds" emails/ding from yesteryear!!!

Disclaimer on holds from ebay ca. Anywhere from 14 to 30 days

This one is a bit curious. For the highlighted ones there could be an entirely valid reason.

• Performance holds: We hold your payouts if we identify unusual activity associated with your account, such as increased customer claims, a sudden change in your selling activity, late deliveries, or negative buyer feedback

https://www.ebay.ca/help/selling/getting-paid/getting-paid-items-youve-sold/payments-hold?id=4816&st...

Again, sounds like something that should been announced officially vs bots running amok!!

-Lotz

[ricarmic]

I'm wondering if that's old text, as far as I know feedback doesn't affect us any more.

I did have a buyer open 3 INRs and then close them again on October 29th. (they are very confused I think about how the processes work, the problem may still exist but they are waiting to see at this point).

The CSR did say that they did not see anything "causing it".

See my separate thread about the "Update Account Information", I have a wonder if it is related.

My hold says estimated date of release is November 30th (I'm presuming thats the deliver by date).

[fergua3]

Troubling indeed.  I wonder if the combination of wanting you to verify your account plus the INR cases opened recently have caused the bots to freak out and put this hold on the payment. 

Whatever the case, this is bad.   I wonder if with much slower sales these days Ebay is running into cash flow problems.

[fergua3]

The more i think about it, the more troubled i am by ths change.  I had a couple of expensive items i was going to list but now, i'll sell them at the local toy shows instead.  No chance i'm giving Ebay a loan of several hundred dollars for a month.  From this point forward i won't list anything over $100 on Ebay.  One good thing about all the annoying changes Ebay has made over the years, it's taught me to be less reliant on Ebay.

More and more ebay is treating its customers like adversaries.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@fergua3 wrote:

The more i think about it, the more troubled i am by ths change.  I had a couple of expensive items i was going to list but now, i'll sell them at the local toy shows instead.  No chance i'm giving Ebay a loan of several hundred dollars for a month.  From this point forward i won't list anything over $100 on Ebay.  One good thing about all the annoying changes Ebay has made over the years, it's taught me to be less reliant on Ebay.

More and more ebay is treating its customers like adversaries.

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Possibly the next item on eBay's plate would be holding staff pay for X number of days to assist with cash flow? Anything is possible!! Wonder if there would be an uproar for something like that?

-Lotz

[ricarmic]

What happened with the hold:

Hold lift date was originally estimated to be November 30th.

The buyer received the item November 15th. Did not leave any feedback (they never do to sellers, they're a reseller).

Hold lift date revised to November 19th. (not sure when I only noticed yesterday)

Hold was gone this morning.

So it looks like it gives 3 days after receipt for the buyer to "have a problem" before lifting the hold if there's no feedback left, at least that's what happened in this case.

Hopefully I won't have any more similar experiences, however I would welcome a number of $400 or more sales to test it out!!! 😀

[rosscd57]

Ya know - it may only be 30 days that they are holding your money. But just think of all the dollars in interest that eBay can make in that 30 days and then multiply it with all the others sellers it has put on hold.

It is pretty much theft as the sellers could have made that same amount in interest if they had been paid on time.

[ricarmic]

Usually I can see the thing they are trying to protect themselves from with these odd rules. Generally these annoying and sometimes expensive rules are in place because folks found a way to abuse the pre-existing rules.

Things like this make sense if it was a "quiet" account that has all the sudden woken up again and has made a big sale. That wasn't the case for me.

I did have 3 INRs opened and closed within hours by a probably confused buyer (however just yesterday I had to refund them in the end) around that time. I'm not sure how complex the algorithm is that decides what "big" transactions to put on hold it would be interesting to know what it was that caused the bots to flag it. 

I can't imagine a "random" hold process, that doesn't really protect them from anything (although I got the impression from the CSR that it was, but I doubt they have any greater understanding of that algorithm either).

Anyway when I have other large purchases (which seem to be few and far between these days!) it will be interesting to see the "hold" pattern on them.

I guess it is also possible that the algorithm had a glitch as well, there's enough of them elsewhere these days....

Time will tell!!!

[pjcdn2005]

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@rosscd57 wrote:

Ya know - it may only be 30 days that they are holding your money. But just think of all the dollars in interest that eBay can make in that 30 days and then multiply it with all the others sellers it has put on hold.

It is pretty much theft as the sellers could have made that same amount in interest if they had been paid on time.

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Ebay has stated that the money they hold is not earning interest.