30 day payment holds with no explanation
Summary: gamenrepair discusses an issue where eBay reinstated a 30-day payment hold on their account without explanation, despite a perfect feedback history. They mention inheriting the account, restructuring it under a new LLC with eBay's approval, and having almost $9,000 on hold. krazzykats and christworks express concerns about the account's transferability and potential policy violations. gamenrepair clarifies the legitimate transfer process they went through, providing detailed timeline and documentation. christworks suggests the hold might be due to high-value sales triggering eBay's fraud prevention measures and advises checking eBay's payment holds page for more insight.
I inherited this eBay account from the prior owner, and he had a couple negative feedback. I spent months shipping things on time and getting perfect feedback and we're now up to 100% positive feedback with hundreds of transactions in the last few months.
I understood why eBay put a "30 day after delivery" hold on payments initially, but then we cleared that and they were paying within a couple days of delivery for several consecutive weeks, still with no issues at all on our account.
Then a month ago, they reinstated the "30 day after delivery" hold with no explanation. Even worse, when I call customer support, they offer no specifics either. They say "wow your account looks perfect, I don't understand". One agent blamed it all on AI algorithms that no one controls.
I now have almost $9,000 on hold and this is really feeling like a burden. Has anyone else experienced this (I do see other accounts posting on here, so I don't think I'm alone). Is there any way to resolve this? I'm waiting it out again, but I'm afraid in another month or so they'll just slam the hold on my account again.
Even worse, every time I click on the Payments page, they pop an ad for me to take out a loan from them, lol! I just want the money I earned.
Hope someone can help, thanks!
christworks
·2 weeks ago · Edited@gamenrepair eBay accounts are non-transferrable except in limited circumstances, like if the account was set up as part of a structured business (LLC or S-Corp). You say you "inherited" the account, which leads me to think someone died and you took over the account.
By you running an account that belonged to another person, you are in violation of eBay policy. This could impact your ability to open a new account under your name. If I were you I would not sell another item under that account.
You are going to be a world of mess when tax time comes around. If the person who had that account is no longer living, eBay has likely been notified which is why there is a hold on the money. Legally they can only release that money to the estate of the person it belonged to. If the estate has been closed out, it may have to be reopened or else the money will eventually end up in the state's unclaimed property....after a couple of years of inactivity. Depending on how much money has been made on the account since the person passed, the IRS could open an investigation into why a dead person is making money.
Oy. What a mess.
Edit: I looked at your store so I see it is a family run business. Hopefully the eBay account was set up through that structured business so that the business entity owns the account. I hope you will come back and share some details on this.
gamenrepair
OP2 weeks agoI purchased the inventory and IP for this business, but set up a totally new LLC. I was aware of ebay policy (and had some other concerns due to the previous owner's business practices) so I talked to ebay support before making a single new sale under this account. I verified with them in advance the new LLC and they assisted me in restructuring the existing account under my new LLC, federal ID, bank account, etc. This took quite a lot of time (almost 4 months) to navigate with multiple levels of ebay support.
I have written documentation from ebay of this process. I assure you this is not the source of the payment hold. I cleared this all before listing a single item.
I understand the confusion from my casual use of the word "inherited". Does this help clarify the situation?
gamenrepair
OP2 weeks agoA little more detail on the timeline if it helps.
I created the new LLC and bought the inventory/IP on Jan 1, 2026. It took me until May 2026 to sort out the account transfer to my LLC/ Federal EIN with eBay, at which point we started listing items.
The 30-day hold was in place then, which eBay explained was part of my account transfer. They essentially started the clock over on my account and treated it as new for the next 90 days. In late July, we started getting payouts each week and the probation period was over. For the next 3 weeks we got payouts as expected, we achieved Top Seller status, all was good.
Then mid-August with no warning or explanation they put the 30-day hold back on. I called 3 times and talked to 3 people at ebay support and none of them could explain it.
christworks
·2 weeks ago@gamenrepair
Thank you for the additional details. I appreicate all the work you went through to properly transfer the account. I still believe that could be part of the issue. eBay isn't known for tellling the right hand what the left hand is doing. In other words, something could have easily slipped through the cracks.
Other than that, looking at your 90-day sales history, you did have a $800 sale on August 20, which would be around the time your payouts stopped. That is almost more than twice your 2nd highest sale during that period. Electronics is also a category ripe with fraud and eBay will place holds on sales that are higher than normal for a seller. I do wonder if that has triggered a 30-day hold. If so, it should clear up in the next week.
This page discusses payment holds. At the top there is a blue buttonyou can click that will take it to your specific holds. If you click on the blue botton, what does it say on that page?
gamenrepair
OP2 weeks agoClicking the blue button, it shows me a list of my items that are on hold. None of them show a particular reason. My oldest held transaction is from Aug 8 and says it should clear tomorrow (Sep 17). All other transactions since then also reflect the 30 day from delivery expected release date. For example if I look at things sold Sep 4, it shows an expected release date of Oct 9.
My hope is that it plays out like last time which is as soon as I hit that first release date (Sep 17) then new sales will revert to the normal 2 or 3 days from delivery hold. I just have to wait out through the end of October to get fully caught up on old payments.
krazzykats
·2 weeks agoHow did you inherit the account? eBay doesn't normally allow account transfer to another person, even after death.
You cannot assign a beneficiary to an eBay account.