Has eBay changed policy on holds for returns?

[valueaddedresource]

I'm seeing reports that some sellers are no longer having funds held when a return is opened, such as this one from @allthingssurplus 

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Payments/Managed-Payments-Time-it-takes-to-receive-funds-is-unethical-...

I'm aware of at least one other larger seller who has noticed recent remorse return request are not being held, but I'm not sure if this is only applying to certain sellers or across the board.

Is anyone else seeing this and has there been any announcement from Ebay regarding a change in this policy?

Based on the timing of these reports, I suspect it may be related to eBay's recent changes to invoicing and how sellers in Managed Payments are billed for fees.

With eBay now deducting all fees and expenses upfront from a seller's Available Balance, it might also make sense that they would want to have as much of that balance available to pay fees as possible at any given time - thus reducing the likelihood of having to wait for more sales to come in to cover fees or wait 14 days before recovering any balance owed by charging the payment method on file.

If that is the case, this could be good news for sellers too!

payments_team@ebay  tyler@ebay  can you shed some light on this please?

I know the payments team hasn't been responding much here lately, but if there has been a change to this policy, please have them add it in to one of their FAQ posts. 😊

[allthingssurplus]

The only obligations requiring reserves would be any fees over and above FVF and returns and those obligations are already have a secondary form of payment on file to satisfy the reserve requirement.  So eBay already has reserves in place on all accounts.  Yes we are entitled to know the why of it in regard to policies and procedures that's what we why we pay fees.  You will say the fees are for the wonderment of using the platform.  In part that is true.  However in order to play the eBay game we need to know the rules.  Its to the benefit to eBay that Sellers and Buyers know and understand the policies and procedures.  Currently that is not the case.

[allthingssurplus]

Its not shooting the messenger.  If eBay is going to have one of their employees field questions, that person should be allowed to respond and be knowledgeable with  the current information about any given subject.  If the person responding does not have the answer an assurance should be made by them to get the answer requested in a timely fashion.  Not I'm going to pass it on the TEAM, which in eBay speak is like going to the dead letter file of USPS.  Questions asked are needed to be answered so good, true, logical and honest business decisions can be made.  My angst in the lack on those answers is the site is costing money.  I run a business.  The goal is to make as much as you can.  When the rules of the game are being withheld or changed at will a business person just can't make plans going forward.  One decision I have made for my business is I no longer list on eBay items over $750 due to the return policy and the Seller losing most or all of the disputes between Buyers and Sellers.  If this were the stock market I would be putting a stop loss on my inventory.  Its not worth the risk.  You would think the platform would want all of your business on the site not just the lower dollar items.

[mam98031]

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@allthingssurplus wrote:

Its not shooting the messenger.  If eBay is going to have one of their employees field questions, that person should be allowed to respond and be knowledgeable with  the current information about any given subject.  If the person responding does not have the answer an assurance should be made by them to get the answer requested in a timely fashion.  Not I'm going to pass it on the TEAM, which in eBay speak is like going to the dead letter file of USPS.  Questions asked are needed to be answered so good, true, logical and honest business decisions can be made.  My angst in the lack on those answers is the site is costing money.  I run a business.  The goal is to make as much as you can.  When the rules of the game are being withheld or changed at will a business person just can't make plans going forward.  One decision I have made for my business is I no longer list on eBay items over $750 due to the return policy and the Seller losing most or all of the disputes between Buyers and Sellers.  If this were the stock market I would be putting a stop loss on my inventory.  Its not worth the risk.  You would think the platform would want all of your business on the site not just the lower dollar items.

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We will just need to agree to disagree about another thing.  Blaming Tyler will get you no where and is completely unfair to him IMHO.

As to the lack of MP customer service or the lack thereof, I've posted about that many times and you are preaching to the choir.  I've gone on some pretty long posts regarding the ridiculous state of MP customer service and Tyler can certainly attest to that as a few of my long winded posts were done on the Weekly Chat.  

[bughaus]

Just to chime in, on our account ebay stopped holding money on all returns regardless of reason around the same time they started taking all fees out at the time of the sale. We're TRS and have a Premium store account if that helps. Glad they made the change as the holding money on returns was silly. 

[valueaddedresource]

Thanks for the confirmation @bughaus !

[mam98031]

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@bughaus wrote:

Just to chime in, on our account ebay stopped holding money on all returns regardless of reason around the same time they started taking all fees out at the time of the sale. We're TRS and have a Premium store account if that helps. Glad they made the change as the holding money on returns was silly. 

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@bughaus 

Just a little tidbit in case you weren't aware.  To save a little money you can drop your store level to a Basic and save money on fees.  With the recent changes to the Store structures you would be fine.  Ebay is allowing sellers that have subscriptions for their store levels to downgrade their stores WITHOUT penalty if done before the end of this month.

Look at this announcement and see if it is a good fit for you.

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Announcements/New-zero-insertion-fee-allotments-are-now-live/ba-p/3175...

[bughaus]

That's interesting on the no-fee store downgrade - thank you for the info! The only kicker is we use the store manager pro features a bit so we'd have to subscribe to that separately with a Basic store plus we're getting ready to add a lot more listings which would put us past 1000 so it looks like there wouldn't be a big savings overall.

[mam98031]

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@bughaus wrote:

That's interesting on the no-fee store downgrade - thank you for the info! The only kicker is we use the store manager pro features a bit so we'd have to subscribe to that separately with a Basic store plus we're getting ready to add a lot more listings which would put us past 1000 so it looks like there wouldn't be a big savings overall.

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@bughaus 

Even if you did pay for that separately you'd be saving a little money each month.  Why not give it a try and NOT subscribe to it.  See if you can get along without it without negatively affecting your time or procedures.  You may fine that you will be fine without it.  But if not, you can always subscribe to it.