I wrote two answers for this message. I copy the second:
Hi, I'm still waiting for your answer. The buyer paid but I haven't received the payment so far, because there is a hold on my account . What does this mean? When will you transfer my money to my Paypal account? Ebay holds back the money, therefore the buyer is waiting too... Please contact me as soon as possible!
I have never got a reply. Which is in my opinion an unacceptable behaviour from a company which charges quite high fees after transactions. Never mind! I started to search for articles regarding this "account hold". I sent the following message to the buyer:
No news from Ebay. I sent them two messages without any success (although they wrote me to contact them...). I tried to find a phone number in the Contact menu, no success. However I found some relevant information about my account hold. They write the following in an article: "If you're a new seller who hasn't established a selling record yet, we may put payments from your buyers on hold." I think this has happened in my case, because this is the first time I've sold something. I haven't received the payment, but obviously it's not your fault, so I'll send the game anyway. I'll go to the post tomorrow and inform you.
Meanwhile the buyer was waiting for the item and he kept inquiring about it. So I was stupid and naive enough to send the item without receiving the payment. However, that was partially because of my naivety. It was the first time (and definitely the last) I had sold an item on eBay. I did not get any help or information, eBay simply just did not care to send me a reply to a message they sent me to contact them.
On November 28, 2020, I dispatched the item with a return receipt, so the buyer had to sign a paper to prove that it was delivered. I asked the buyer to send me a message when he gets the item. I got the receipt (which showed that the buyer received the item on December 10, 2020) around Christmas time. The buyer did not notify me. Of course "My eBay Selling Overview" page showed: "Buyer hasn't paid yet".
On January 1, 2021, I asked the buyer to give positive feedback, because I thought eBay would release the hold on my account then. He did that and gave me the following positive feedback: Despite eBay putting a hold on the account, the seller shipped my game. On the same day I wrote to eBay once again to release the hold and transfer the money to my PayPal account. I succeeded this time and I got really quick answers to my messages. I try to summarize the essence of eBay's responses below:
What we suggests is that you try to check on PayPal as to why you still haven't received the payment of the buyer as we can confirm the payment was completed.
Upon checking here on my resource I can see and I can confirm that your funds for the item of ( 9 The Trolls In Crazyland - PAL (Nintendo Entertainment System, 1991)) was already released on your Paypal so you can check the funds on your paypal account or bank statement. I can assure that ebay was already released the funds for the particular item.
All in all eBay confirmed that
1) the payment was completed,
2) there had been a hold on my account which was released.
With this in mind I thought that the buyer was straight and he transferred the money, which is pending on an eBay or PayPal account. I could not have been more wrong! I inquired about the case at PayPal. Here is their response (at least they always replied, not just occasionally):
I have reviewed your PayPal account and I can see that on 23.11.2020 you have indeed received 2 emails regarding this payment. I can see the first email was the notification that you have received a payment with instructions on how to claim this payment as your email is not confirmed. And the second email is a notification stating that the payment for X $ (I can't post financial information but you can check it) has been cancelled as it was not claimed. Please note the buyer did send the payment and as your email address was not confirmed the payment has not been claimed and then has been cancelled.
Eventually it turned out that the buyer paid but the payment has been cancelled, so in the end he did not pay. Why did eBay write then that the payment was completed?! It was totally misleading. I was unsuspicious because the buyer was absolutely cooperative to this point. He gave me his PayPal account email address to check things and asked how he could send the money through eBay. Therefore I messaged again to eBay, but it has never been answered (just like the first time). I wrote the following:
Hi,
finally PayPal traced the payment and explained to me what had happened. I copy the relevant part of their message below:
"I have reviewed your PayPal account and I can see that on 23.11.2020 you have indeed received 2 emails regarding this payment. I can see the first email was the notification that you have received a payment with instructions on how to claim this payment as your email is not confirmed. And the second email is a notification stating that the payment for X $ has been cancelled as it was not claimed.
Please note the buyer did send the payment and as your email address was not confirmed the payment has not been claimed and then has been cancelled."
I contacted the buyer, who confirmed that the payment had been refunded to him (which he had not noticed). Now we are looking for a solution. Please tell us, how can he resend the money to me? Or to put it in another way: how can he pay for item #174478179421? By the way my "Selling" account on eBay still indicates the item as: "Waiting for payment."
Without any response - again - I tried to find a solution myself. On January 23, 2021, I sent a payment request to the buyer's email address through my PayPal account. I wrote to him before (on January 19) whether this solution is suitable for him or not. But the buyer has disappeared since January 11, 2021. That is the date of his last message. He has been ignoring my messages since then.
To summarize the case: I sent a valuable item, paid the postage, paid a transaction fee to eBay and acted straight all the time. Now I do not have the game nor the money, but paid for postage and for the "transaction". What a deal! That's how I became a victim of a fraud. Because of eBay's misleading communication I believed that everything was okay, the buyer paid and I had to wait for my money to be released. Meanwhile I was writing messages to eBay, PayPal (it was a smart idea to outsource PayPal as a separate company, now eBay and PayPal can send the clients back and forth...) and the "buyer", the 60 days passed. I can do nothing more than write my story and warn you: Don't be as naive and stupid as I was.
