Will eBay refuse to deposit the money to you from the buyer until you mail the item?

[tricon7]

I'm going to be selling items in excess of $1K on eBay, but if eBay thinks I'm going to mail out such an expensive item without getting paid first, now that they've ditched Paypal, eBay management has rocks in their head. What if the buyer refuses to pay? What if he holds things up with bogus disputes? What if there's a glitch in eBay's system? I can conjure up many scenarios where I'm suddenly out a very expensive item and have no cash to show for it. I heard that eBay will hold your item after the buyer has *paid eBay* (not you) until they've verified that you've mailed out the buyer's item - without you getting your money first. True?

Just to be on the safe side, in my seller's notes for my listed item, I added that it will be mailed out as soon as *I* receive payment (not eBay). I don't know if eBay will consider that a valid stance or not, but I'd rather take a hit from a seller for a late shipment than be out a grand.

[chapeau-noir]

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@tricon7 wrote:

I think the phrase "when a buyer pays" should be clarified because eBay's various policies like to throw this term around. There's "the buyer pays eBay" and "the buyer pays the seller." Most of the time the term eBay uses is "the buyer pays eBay."

Yes, I did sell two expensive items on eBay recently. On the first one, the buyer sent me several messages after the auction ended, asking when I was going to ship the item because I kept waiting for the funds hit my bank account. After about a week they finally appeared, and I shipped the item. The process went about the same way for the second item, but after about five days of waiting the seller claimed that the item was a birthday gift for a family member and he needed it before that date. I had no way of knowing if that was the truth (yes, I know that there are zero scammers on eBay), so I took pity on him and went ahead and shipped it - without getting paid first. But I'm also mentioning that from now on, regardless of eBay's policies or the appeals, I won't be shipping without *me* getting paid first, not eBay.

I personally don't know any business merchant who will hand over merchandise that they're selling on trust without me paying first. If eBay holds payment for 21 days because I haven't shipped yet, I won't ship for 21 days. If I get horrid reviews, I'll just permanently move to another auction platform that doesn't insist on the seller mailing out unpaid-for merchandise first against all common sense. But I'm not selling on credit, which is basically what this is.

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No it isn't.  Understand how payment processing works.  You go into the grocery store, check out, run your debit card and see "approved", the checker gives you the receipt and off you go with your groceries.  Guess what?  The grocery store now waits until your payment sources processes the payment, about two days.  Going by your 'logic', they'd just hang onto your groceries for the two days until not only is the payment 'approved' (which means you cannot change or rescind it) but in their bank account.

That's how it works.