ebay.com introduces 'Funds pending' for new/poor performing sellers

[*wheels*]

http://pages.ebay.com/sellerinformation/news/fundsavailabilityupdate.html

Highlights

* If you have a Standard or Above Standard performance rating and an established selling history, or you're an eBay Top-rated seller—you'll see no difference from what you experience today. Funds will be available when your buyer pays.

* If you have a limited selling history—90 days or less from your first sale, 25 or fewer sales transactions or $250 or less total sales since your first sale—or if you have a Below Standard rating in your Seller Dashboard, your buyer's payment will first show as pending in your PayPal account. Funds will be available 3 days after eBay receives confirmation of delivery when you upload tracking information, or 7 days after your latest estimated delivery date if you don't upload tracking but mark the item as shipped. If no shipping information is provided to eBay—you don't upload tracking information or mark the item as shipped—funds will be available 21 days after the buyer pays.

[*Yibida*]

The interest they make on the pending payments is a total scam !!

[tellomon]

I still don't understand why anyone would want to stay with this eProblem Child.
'Nuff said.

[low-enghooi]

I still don't understand why anyone would want to stay with this eProblem Child.
'Nuff said.

Because business is about problem solving. The more problem the better for the business.

There are also people who enjoy the headless turkey dancing and the dead man walking show. They just can't help themselves. They must stay.

[ernest_price]

What about "item pending" for poor performing buyers

[Roo]

Is this actually legal?

With-holding funds just because someone 'might' be dodgy?

I think we will hear a lot more about this in the near future.

It really makes it hard for any new sellers...enough to probably send them away.... 

[chookcity]

First of all this is ebay USA. So it should not affect us here.
Secondly I think it's a great idea to keep scammers and serial bad sellers at bay.
The only down side I see is why would you send with a payment pending and not in your account. Are they guaranteeing the payment as long as you send with tracking or do you have to claim against seller protection and wait even longer for your money?
Otherwise "All Good" by me. 

[*CountessA*]

For people using eBay as a venue for selling their precious collectibles because they can't afford to pay the electricity bill, this is unworkable.

As you say, it's eBay.com for now... and I hope we don't see it here. I would like a better way of dealing with potential scammers, because all that this is doing is withholding money from people who may not be able to afford to post until they receive their payment for an item, particularly if the postage is a killer.

[*FluffyDuckee*]

I can appreciate the comments about it may stop scammers etc, from the point of view it would prevent out and out scammers from opening account after account if their intent was to scam.

But it is also yet another inconvenience and obstacle that would turn some new sellers off.  It makes no difference to buyers because they have the ability to claim through Paypal now and if a claim is made the money is then withheld. 

[low-enghooi]

This is called "escrow payment" and is very, very common way of protecting the buyer. Many ecommerce site has been using this for years and people who use those site are happy. It exist long before the day I first know what ecommerce is.

Ebay is a late comer here.

https://www.escrow.com if you are interested to find out more about this thing.