[78-L] eBay payment held hostage by buyers!

[Alan Bunting]

Well, I can certainly confirm that e-bay in the UK does this kind of thing. On one of my recent purchases the seller e-mailed me to ask if I would post feedback so that he could get his money from PayPal.
 
When I queried this with him, he sent me PayPal's e-mail to him.

In this case, the item which "posed the greatest risk of fraud" was a spindle of CD-Rs.

Alan Bunting
 
"You've received a payment, detailed below. We've placed a temporary hold on the funds for this transaction.
eBay and PayPal are working together to make it safer than ever to buy on eBay. One of the boldest steps is to identify transactions that pose the greatest risk of fraud and holding the payments from sellers for a period of time to help ensure that the transactions go smoothly.
We'll release the payment for the eBay item if either of the following occurs:

The buyer leaves you positive feedback on eBay.
It's been 21 days since the payment date and you haven't received a dispute, claim, chargeback, or reversal on the transaction being held
Additional hold period
 
If you receive a dispute, claim, chargeback, or reversal on the transaction, we may hold the payment until the problem is resolved.
Learn more about the PayPal policy on payment holds for eBay items.
We will notify you by email when the funds are released. You can also check the status of the hold in your Transaction History."
 
 
--- On Tue, 27/1/09, Michael Biel <mbiel at mbiel.com> wrote:

I am suspicious of Stephen D's seller saying that PayPal would be 
waiting to see Stephen's buyer feedback before paying. Feedback is 
optional. And since payment is the ONLY requirement of a buyer, the 
seller should give seller feedback as soon as payment is received in 
order to expect feedback from the buyer. In fact, that should be the 
rule -- seller gets feedback only after they leave feedback for the buyer.