Anyone else get payment hold with no reason and a nutty response as to why it happened?

[hilunde_0]

Funny story-I sold a VSH tape in 12/6. It was pretty cheap so the money isn't the issue. I got on chat with customer service and first I was told it was because I was new. I'm not new. Then it was my selling frequency. I asked how many days a seller had to sell an item for it to trigger a payment hold & was told there was no set time. Then was told ebay encourages sellers to upload tracking & send on time. I did that and I use Ebay's shipping labels. Then I was told about the dispute policy. I've never had a dispute. I asked to speak to a supervisor b/c it doesn't make any sense. All I want to know is what I did to trigger a hold. The supervisor said I did nothing wrong & at first he made it sound like holds were random & then said there was no way to avoid them. I asked if it was random. He said no. I asked what policy this was and whether it was happening to all sellers. He said there was a change in policy and now all sellers have holds. What? lol

I'm not mad about the money. I'm not mad at all. It just doesn't make any sense. LOL

What the hell is happening at Ebay?

[hartungcards]

"What the hell is happening at Ebay?"

eBay is experiencing an annual increase in system activity during this period, which is causing processing delays.

[adamcartwright]

@hilunde_0 

Strange situation.

If I were you, I would reach out to customer service through social media.

I've had a good experience with the AskeBay account on X.

Send a direct message "I'm a seller and I have a problem."
They will respond with a link for you to verify your account. You do not need to put any of your identifying info into your message.  They will start assisting you once they see that you have used the link to log into your account.

Others have used Facebook and Instagram for this purpose, but I've always used X. 

[hilunde_0]

Meant for Hartungcards: If it was, that's all they had to say. lol. I don't get the run around they gave me. 

[hilunde_0]

if it was, that's all they had to say. lol. I don't get the run-around they gave me.

[angelno_13]

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@hilunde_0 wrote:

 I got on chat with customer service and first I was told it was because I was new. I'm not new. Then it was my selling frequency. I asked how many days a seller had to sell an item for it to trigger a payment hold & was told there was no set time. Then was told ebay encourages sellers to upload tracking & send on time. I did that and I use Ebay's shipping labels. Then I was told about the dispute policy. I've never had a dispute. I asked to speak to a supervisor b/c it doesn't make any sense. All I want to know is what I did to trigger a hold. The supervisor said I did nothing wrong & at first he made it sound like holds were random & then said there was no way to avoid them. I asked if it was random. He said no. I asked what policy this was and whether it was happening to all sellers. He said there was a change in policy and now all sellers have holds.

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I suspect the eBay Risk Assessment system is similar to the Best Match system, in that it is a complex statistical anaysis of dozens (if not hundreds) of factors about the seller, the buyer, and the listing. All sellers are subject to the risk assessment system, but that does mean all sellers will actually have holds placed on them.

Customer support can't tell you why a hold was placed any more than they can tell you why one item was placed in front of another in Best Match. 

But if you call and insist on an answer, they will give you one in order to get you off the phone.

[ebooksdiva]

All sellers do not have holds. That statement is just ridiculous. 
Your payouts are probably held because you sell infrequently. 2 sales in September 1 in October and one this month. 

[hilunde_0]

yeah....so that sounds like it was random. I doesn't make a whole lot of sense is what I'm saying. 

[itsjustasprain]

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@hilunde_0 wrote:

Funny story-I sold a VSH tape in 12/6. It was pretty cheap so the money isn't the issue. I got on chat with customer service and first I was told it was because I was new. I'm not new. Then it was my selling frequency. I asked how many days a seller had to sell an item for it to trigger a payment hold & was told there was no set time.

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All those reasons you listed were just their boilerplate replies because they can only guess and read answers off their screens at you.

I doubt that the videotape sale had anything to do with it. I would suspect that your $1500 listing of a vintage photo album is what got their attention as it is way higher than any of your other listings. I think your $32 listing is in 2nd place and then all your other listings are less than that.

So Ebay is concerned that if the $1500 item sells and then the buyer wants to return it for a refund then a hold will ensure that the money for a refund will be available. I do not think the hold is going to go away anytime soon as long as the $1500 listing remains up (but of course I am just guessing based on what we have seen here in the past). If your other sales continue as usual then they may lift the hold anyway.

[hilunde_0]

Yeah, I asked them how many days a seller had (because I've gone longer without making sales) and the rep said there was no time frame. I mean, I asked point blank and the rep said she couldn't confirm that was the reason.  All I was asking them for was what I did wrong to avoid holds and couldn't get an answer other than --"you didn't do anything wrong"  and it happens to all sellers.

....it was an absurd conversation. lol

[tobaccocardyahoo]

@ebooksdiva probably has it right - your infrequent sales make you a candidate for holds if anything brings your attention to an Ebay Trust and Security bot.

You are not getting an accurate reason for why because Ebay does not disclose the specifics of why you were targeted to either you or to customer service.

It might be a complex or a simple algorithm but low sales activity is a component. And that is based on looking at the sales histories of sellers who have come to this forum to whine or vent about their holds.

Further complicating the accuracy of what you heard from customer service is that the same offshore workers may be answering questions about multiple Ebay sites and the rules are not identical on all of the sites.

It is conceivable that some Ebay site has holds on payments to all sellers. And it might become contagious. Others have been told that everyone has a hold.

[12345jamesstamps]

Infrequent seller is the reason why...talk about a hold on items not even expensive and there is still a 30 day hold.

Need to sell multiple items every single month for no holds.

You can call customer service reps and get a different answer every hour on the hour.

[hilunde_0]

That would make sense. I wouldn't have no problem with that, but they didn't say anything about it. I mean, it's not that big of a deal, but the responses from the reps were nuts. I could ask them at some point, but I think I'll wait to them a break from my rapidfire questions. 

[angelno_13]

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@hilunde_0 wrote:

That would make sense. I wouldn't have no problem with that, but they didn't say anything about it. I mean, it's not that big of a deal, but the responses from the reps were nuts. I could ask them at some point, but I think I'll wait to them a break from my rapidfire questions. 

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They do not know the answer.

The details the risk assessment algorith are above their pay grade and exceed their technical understanding. 

If you continue to ask them for an answer, they will continue to give you answers that are inaccurate. 

When you finally get an answer you are satisfied with, it will still be inaccurate. 

Even if they knew the answer, they would not tell you. eBay is not going to give sellers information to help then evade eBay's risk assessment system. 

[hilunde_0]

That's weird. I've gone longer than this last span without selling. But...whatever. It was a ridiculous conversation. It was the funniest thing to happen on ebay in a while. It doesn't top the time a customer gave me a bad review because USPS didn't deliver it to the spot that was most convenient  for them. That was a doozy.