Introduction and Previous Correspondence (We Have Been Through This Already)

My second favorite PayPal policy is the 21 Day Payment Hold (referred to as 21DPH when I’m feeling lazy).  It might seem odd that I have a list of my favorite PayPal policies taped over the pictures of my three least favorite grandchildren (just kidding Isabella, Madison, and Olivia although I do really wish you were boys), but when I say I live, breathe, and die PayPal I’m not kidding.  If you’re unfamiliar with the 21 Day Hold, I have covered the topic in unnecessary length at PayPal 21 Day Payment Hold – What It Is And How To Deal With It.  In short, when the 21DPH is activated, PayPal holds most or all of a seller’s payments for up to 21 days.  While the payment is “on hold” the seller is unable to withdraw the funds or use them to send payments, pay for shipping, etc.  As we can all imagine, this is quite upsetting to just about everyone who is hit with the hold.

Why, Why, Oh Why???????????????

PayPal processes well over 60 billion dollars a year from almost 200 million different accounts.  Although the great majority of PayPal users are legitimate humans with legitimate addresses, bank accounts, and credit cards, there are also many accounts created by users wanting nothing more than to defraud and steal from as many people as possible.  The defrauding of others often costs PayPal a great deal of money.  By my last count, there are 3,913 different ways of defrauding eBay buyers using PayPal.  When a seller has withdrawn all of their funds to their bank account and closed the bank account, PayPal has no immediate way of accessing the seller’s funds.  PayPal may choose to refund buyers who are defrauded, even when PayPal can’t recover the funds from the seller.  I have on good authority that this process is called the “Pot Of Gold Refund Ceremony.”  Although I do have camera phone footage of this ceremony taking place, I am unfortunately sworn to secrecy and cannot provide the footage at this time.  By holding a seller’s payments until PayPal can verify the buyer has either received the item or is happy with it, PayPal is in much less danger of having to refund buyers from their own pocket because the money is available in the seller’s account.

The general consensus is that PayPal holds payments in order to collect interest.  It is true that PayPal has access to more than three billion dollars at any given time and payment holds will only increase that amount.  However, I believe the real reason that PayPal is expanding the 21DPH (21 Day Payment Hold) is because eBay has recently moved dispute resolution from PayPal to eBay.  Previously, with PayPal disputes, PayPal would usually hold the buyer’s payment once a dispute was initiated.  This guaranteed that PayPal would have access to the seller’s funds and was not in any danger of performing the “Pot Of Gold Refund Ceremony.”  With eBay Dispute Resolution, PayPal does not hold the funds of a specific transaction that is being disputed by the buyer.  This gives the seller time to withdraw all of their money from PayPal.  EBay will still refund the buyer if they win the dispute, even if eBay is not able to recover the funds from the seller’s PayPal account.  Thus, PayPal is holding on to more sellers’ payments in order to lessen the chances that a seller will drain their account and not reimburse eBay and PayPal for the cost of the dispute.

Not Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!??11!

Yes, you.  The rumor is that all sellers will be subjected to the hold policy soon.  Many sellers, some of whom have 100% positive feedback numbering in the thousands, have been complaining that their accounts have been hit with payment holds over the last few days.  Before December 2009, most sellers that had 21DPH were either new or low volume sellers or had low Detailed Seller Ratings.

According to Paypal, they hold payments for sellers who meet any of the following conditions:

• You have been an eBay member for less than 6 months, and you sell an item for more than $100, or
• You have an eBay feedback score of less than 100, and you sell an item for more than $100, or
• You have a Buyer dissatisfaction percentage^** 5% or greater than 5%, or
• You have an average Detailed Seller Rating (DSR) of less than 4.5, or
• You have received fewer than 20 Detailed Seller Ratings in the last 12 months, or
• You are listing your item in a high-risk category such as gift certificates, video games, cell phones, computers or consumer electronics.

Paypal will stop holding payments if you meet these criteria:

• You have been an eBay member for 6-months or more, and
• Your total Feedback score is 100 or greater, and
• Your Buyer dissatisfaction percentage^** is less than 5%.

Or

• Your average DSR is 4.5 or greater and
• Your have received 20 or more DSRs in the last 12-months
• Your buyer dissatisfaction percentage is less than 5%

PayPal doesn’t know you (unless you’re Buy.com), they don’t know your business, they don’t know how you operate, and they don’t know whether or not you’re plotting to screw(definition 22, thanks Henrietta) them.  Unfortunately, past behavior is not necessarily indicative of future behavior.  Many “good” sellers have gone “bad” over the years and PayPal and eBay have no idea who’s on first, let alone which sellers will snap at some point.  You’re not going to be able to convince them that you’re a nice Christian woman either.

On top of that, it really doesn’t take much to owe PayPal money and one does not necessarily have to set out to defraud others to be put in a position where “screwing” PayPal seems like the most logical solution.  Neither eBay nor PayPal Dispute Resolution is “fair.”  In fact, I think it would be fair to characterize them as decidedly “unfair” because buyers “win” just about every single dispute, no matter what the merits of the dispute may be.  There may be 3,913 ways to scam buyers, but there are more than 15,412 ways to scam sellers.  It is not uncommon for eBay to force a seller to refund a buyer’s payment in full even though the buyer has received the item or has not yet returned the item.  If eBay refunded $250 to the buyer for an item they did not return, would you then willingly reimburse PayPal $250, even though you were completely screwed out of both the item and the payment?  The answer is sometimes “No.”  PayPal does not want to put itself in a position where the seller has any choice in the matter, which is why they are expanding 21 Day Holds, possibly to every single eBay seller.

Whining

The most common argument against the hold is that once my item sells and my payment is received it becomes “my money.”  Technically, this is both true and not true whether the payment is held by PayPal or not.  The payment is not really yours until the buyer decides they aren’t going to open an item not received or item not as described dispute or otherwise wants to return the item.  At any time, for any reason, a buyer can open a dispute on any eBay purchase.  It doesn’t matter what the return policy is on the listing, or how accurate the listing is, or anything else.  All (unless you’re Buy.com) eBay sellers are at the mercy of the buyer.  This is true whether or not a seller’s account has payment holds activated.  Just because you are able to withdraw the money into the “safety” of your bank account does not mean Paypal will not remove the funds from your bank account if they deem it appropriate.  You agree to let them do this when you add your bank account to your PayPal account.  For this reason, all PayPal payment s are “on hold” until the buyer allows the seller to keep the payment issued.  Dealing with the 21DPH may be an unsettling hassle at first glance, but as I will explain later, it is relatively easy to get 95%+ of your payments released within 7 days of receiving them.

Misunderstanding

The biggest problem surrounding the 21DPH is that many sellers simply don’t understand it and certainly aren’t expecting it.  PayPal has never been particularly good at explaining policies and it is in their best interest to keep policies such as this “hush hush” so people aren’t aware they exist.  Imagine if there was a gigantic warning screen on the eBay home page that said, “PayPal will deny access to any funds collected on every single item sold on eBay for up to 21 days.  Any shipping costs will come out of your own pocket.  You may not withdraw funds or use them for any purpose until PayPal decides to release them.”  This is the Hold in a nutshell, but PayPal doesn’t want anyone to know that’s how it works.  Unfortunately, like any other secret, it only makes finding out about it that much worse down the line.

PayPal has changed the wording of the email sellers receive when a payment is on hold several times.  For one reason or another, each version gets more and more cryptic and the details become more and more unclear.  The email reads as follows:

You received a payment from eGovernator, Meg Whitman

This money is being temporarily held in your pending balance. It will be held for up to 21 days. While it’s being held, it won’t be available for withdrawal.

We’ll move the money to your available balance after 21 days as long as your buyer hasn’t reported a problem. It may be available sooner if we can confirm that the item was delivered or, if this is an eBay item, your buyer leaves positive feedback.

To get access to this money more quickly, please process this order right away and communicate with your customers early and often.

As you can see, PayPal does not explain the reasoning behind the hold or what specifically the seller can do to get their funds released sooner.  On top of that, there is also a nice dose of misinformation added for good measure.  Communicating with the buyer “early and often” will do nothing to get “access to the money more quickly,” unless the buyer leaves positive feedback.  Processing the order quickly may speed up the process, but as I explain in the next section, unless the seller prints their label directly with PayPal the funds may not be accessible until day 22 either.  PayPal has no idea when buyers “report a problem” to the seller directly.  PayPal will only continue to hold the funds if the buyer files a dispute with PayPal, which they would do regardless of whether or not the funds were originally on hold.

How To Turn the 21 Day Hold Into The 7 Day Hold By Just Doing It Right

The easiest way to get a payment hold released is by proving that the item has been delivered to the buyer.  Simply print shipping labels with PayPal and PayPal will automatically release 95% of payment holds two days after the Delivery Confirmation or tracking number shows that the item was delivered.  PayPal does not automatically release holds if the tracking or delivery information is manually added to PayPal or eBay.  This means that if you go to the Post Office to pay and ship packages and then come home to enter the tracking information, PayPal will not  release the hold because their system cannot track these packages automatically.  You can call PayPal and request them to release the hold on those payments, but I always recommend printing and paying for labels online with PayPal because it’s cheaper than the Post Office and easier to keep track of all the shipping information in one place.  Since shipping Priority Mail usually takes four days or less, you should be able to get most payments released within seven days of receiving payment if you diligently ship packages as payments are received.

PayPal will also release payments if the buyer leaves positive feedback.  First of all, do not require buyers to leave premature positive feedback before shipping an item or wait 21 days to ship the item so the payment will be released prior to shipping.  Many uneducated sellers try to do this and it will only lead to negative feedback and probably a quick eBay suspension or limited PayPal account.  I do not recommend hounding buyers to leave positive feedback either.  Although it is the quickest way to get a payment hold released, many buyers find emails from sellers requesting feedback annoying and few people who were not going to leave feedback will leave it after receiving a message begging them to.  Your feedback may also suffer, as an email might remind a buyer how much they hated the item and decide to leave negative feedback instead.  As I explain in my previous guide, the best way to ask a buyer to leave feedback is by sending them an email asking if they are satisfied with the item (without mentioning feedback).  This reminds buyers about the transaction and they are likely to leave positive feedback.  Plus, it shows that you care about the buyer so your Detailed Seller Ratings should improve as well.  Still, don’t expect a lot of responses because buyers who leave feedback generally do so quickly anyway, and those who do not leave feedback will not leave it, even if you threaten the lives of their children (been there – done that – do not recommend).

PayPal holds are also based on each eBay account, rather than the PayPal account as a whole.  For example, you are allowed to open as many eBay accounts as you want.  If you have been selling on one account and have 1,000 feedback and perfect DSR ratings and open a second eBay account to sell with, it is likely that the payments received on that second eBay account will be held as though you are a new seller.  This does not mean that you will receive holds on all of your eBay accounts; it simply means that PayPal doesn’t realize that the payments are coming from a trusted account.

Conclusion

The Twenty One Day Payment Hold looks like it’s a policy that will only expand to more sellers in 2010.  The policy is most upsetting because PayPal does not explain why the policy is in place or specifically how sellers can get their funds released as quickly as possible.  The bottom line is that PayPal does not want sellers to get their funds released any sooner than the full 21 days.  Sometimes I don’t think PayPal fully appreciates the implications of its policies.  Sure, PayPal might gain 1% interest on a few more dollars, but that pales in comparison to the hardship caused by holding excess funds from families that have to pay 35% interest on a credit card bill because PayPal arbitrarily decided to start holding payments for three weeks.  Their indifference is as absurd as it is appalling.

The Promise

For something like two years now, eBay has been promising to add functionality that would allow sellers to pay for and print shipping labels directly from the eBay website.  It is now finally possible, although it is not the default method and there is little information available about how to set it up or make it work.  Luckily for eBay, there are thousands of Mom and Pop auction blogs written by disgruntled auctioneers that really have nothing better to do than explain things for them.   PayPal has been promising to add Small and Large Flat Rate Box options to its own website for years as well.   While they still haven’t done that (lol), it is now possible to pay for Small and Large Flat Rate Box shipping labels from eBay.  Beggars can’t be choosers I guess.  There are several advantages and disadvantages to using eBay to print shipping labels when compared with PayPal or USPS’s own Click’N’Ship service.  Here we go.

Advantages:

• It’s possible to pay for and print labels for Small and Large Priority Mail Flat Rate Boxes as well as USPS Express Mail International Flat Rate Envelopes.  It is still impossible to select these services when using PayPal.  All other shipping options that are available on PayPal are also available on eBay, including Media Mail and First Class which are not available at USPS.com.
• There are fewer boxes to fill out and fewer screens to click through, especially for international shipments when customs forms are required.  This makes it the fastest way to print a single label.
• It’s a much cleaner interface.  PayPal has boxes, words, pop-up screens, and options splattered all over the screen.  Not so with eBay.  It’s easy to turn off and on receipts and choose whether or not to display postage costs for each individual label.

Disadvantages

• Printing multiple labels is not as fast or efficient as with PayPal Multi-Order Shipping.
• The options and differences may take getting used to.  Some users do not find it easier or faster than PayPal, especially when printing more than one or two labels.
• It may be difficult to keep track of where tracking information is stored and which website is used to void or reprint labels, especially when eBay, PayPal, and USPS.com are used.

Bottom Line

Using eBay to print labels for Small and Large Flat Rate Boxes may be a life saver for many.  I have heard countless stories of people trudging to the Post Office in order to ship a Small Flat Rate Box because they can’t use PayPal and are unaware it’s possible to print and pay for a label at USPS.com.  Unfortunately, since eBay label printing is turned off by default, many of these same people will still be trudging to the Post Office to stand in line unless they scroll through to page 42 of Google results to find this tutorial.  It’s not our fault they’re not AuctionCopers though, right?

Requirements

1. EBay account
2. PayPal account with valid credit/debit card attached
3. A Sale
4. Either disable pop-up blocker or add shiptrack.ebay.com to your allow list if necessary

How To Turn On EBay Label Printing

By default, clicking “Print Shipping Label” next to a transaction in “My eBay” will take you to PayPal to print the shipping label.  Printing labels within eBay must be manually enabled.  Luckily, it’s a cinch once you know what to do.  Go to My eBay and mouse over, but don’t click, the account tab and then click on “Site Preferences.”

The fourth option down on the next screen is “Shipping Preferences.”  Click “show” on the far right to see the following options.

You will see a variety of goodies here, many of which I have covered previously.  You will want to check the box “Yes” after “Pay for shipping and print U.S. Postal Service labels on eBay” and click “Apply.”  That’s it!  Enabled!

Shipping Label Walkthrough

Now go back to an item sold and click the “Print Shipping Label” Button next to an item that needs to be shipped.

You should now be redirected to a page similar to the following, rather than PayPal.

Here, it’s possible to select the service and package type, including the coveted Small and Large Flat Rate Boxes.  If you select “package” it will ask the weight, but not the dimensions of the package.  If you select “large package” then you will need to fill in the dimensions.  Once a package size and service is selected you will need to click the “calculate” button before you can proceed to the next screen.  The button is hidden underneath the drop down menu pictured above, but will be plainly visible once your selections are made.  You can then select whether or not you want a receipt to print or the postage price hidden by clicking the “Change” button next to “Additional Options.”  I can’t think of a purpose for the receipts since all of the information is stored online in various places.  Since I offer free shipping, I usually choose to display the cost, although it’s unlikely anyone notices.  If you charge $20 to ship a one ounce package then I would recommend hiding the cost.

The cost of shipping will then be visible at the bottom of the page and look something like the following picture.  It is also possible to check a box here that will automatically bill PayPal for all of your labels in the future.  Selecting this box means you will not have to log in to PayPal every time you print a label on eBay.  I would suggest checking it.  When you’re ready, take a deep breath and click “Pay and Print.”

Since this is (probably) your first time printing a label on eBay you will have to log in to PayPal.  If you checked the box on the previous screen, you will also have to agree to PayPal’s billing agreement to debit your account each time you print and pay for a shipping label.  The agreement looks like this, which you will see after logging in to PayPal on the usual screen.

Click “Agree and Continue” and you should be redirected back to eBay and your label should be available for printing in a window similar to PayPal’s.  If no window appeared then it’s likely that your pop-up blocker blocked it.  After printing, a screen that is also similar to PayPal’s will present itself.

From here you can do pretty much anything you could do after printing a label in PayPal.  You can click the “Print Packing Slip” button to see the item you’re supposed to ship.  You can just close the packing slip box once you make a note of the item.  I do this a lot because I’m always forgetting what people bought due to my limited brain power.  I’m not sure why PayPal and eBay stopped displaying the item purchased on the label confirmation page.  They used to display it and then decided to stop one day.  You can also reprint or void the label if necessary.

That’s it.  You should have a brand new shipping label to show off to all of your friends, or if you’re like me, Mom and Dad.

After The Fact

If you need to void the label you will need to do it in eBay rather than PayPal.  Go back to the transaction in My eBay, where you clicked “Print Shipping Label” and click the drop down arrow to select “View Order Details.”

From this page you can view the shipping information as well as reprint the label within 24 hours of creating it or void it within 48 hours.

Unfortunately, PayPal does not provide much information about shipping labels purchased on eBay, meaning you may have to keep track of shipping in two different places.  This is what the PayPal details shows for the label from the example above.

As you can see, PayPal doesn’t provide the address of the recipient, or really any information other than the amount paid for postage and the time the label was printed.  There is also no place to void or reprint the label.  On top of that, PayPal does not display the relevant Delivery or Signature Confirmation number on the transaction.  Only “In Progress” is listed as shown in the following screen capture, even though the item has already shipped.

There is no easy to click link to check the status of the package like there is on a label printed from PayPal.  If you want to check the status then you’ll have to click into the details of the transaction and then copy and paste the number into USPS.com.  It’s a medium sized hassle that should, but probably won’t, be fixed in a future update.

Snarky Conclusion

I have no idea why it isn’t possible to print and pay for Small and Large Flat Rate Boxes on PayPal.  PayPal and eBay representatives have been saying for years that their programmer(s) are working on it, but it appears that eBay fired whoever actually knows how to program websites some time ago.  I know improving eBay and PayPal isn’t on the top of anyone’s to-do list in 2010, but honestly folks, if I can make a banner as awesome as the one found on this website then I think I could figure out how to create a Large Flat Rate Box button for PayPal.  Just saying.

I’ll still be doing most of my label printing with PayPal, because Multi-Order shipping is just so simple and efficient.  I’m also easily confused, so trying to keep track of various labels printed in different places would be too much for my small brain to handle.  I will be using eBay for Small and Large Flat Rate Boxes instead of USPS, but just barely.

You might want to print those USPS labels this evening as rates will be increasing in the next few hours.  My estimation is around 12am EST or 9pm Pacific.  I have a detailed rundown of what’s changing available at USPS Prices Going Up, Staying the Same, Going Down in 2010.  The biggest change is that the cost to ship one pound or less Priority Mail is based on how many zones the package is traveling.  Previously, one pound or less Priority Mail was the same price no matter where it was shipped.  This makes the Flat Rate Envelope and Small Box my package of choice for 2010 for anything that will remotely fit inside of it, as the cost is the same no matter where it is traveling.  Otherwise it’s a fairly standard rate increase from USPS.  No major announcements or changes in service.

Hello and sorry I have not been with you for some time.  I know you are all madly refreshing the website for new updates and my family and I appreciate all of the emails,  phone calls, and letters we have received concerning my well-being.  Actually, I haven’t received any such correspondence, but I am sure at least one of you was thinking about shooting me a quick email and I appreciate your sentiment.  To ring in this arbitrary change of year to “Two Thousand And Ten,” I have updated the look of the website temporarily until I can find a theme as awesome as the content.  I have my doubts about whether that will be possible, but I have been assured by the “WordPress Community” that I will find a theme at least 75% as awesome.

Hopefully the (C)Han(n)uk(k)a(h) holiday brought the usual increase in sales that only the Maccabees and dreidels can provide and you are celebrating in grand style by purchasing me a bottle of midshelf liquor as a gift.  It’s tax deductible if you tack on an extra 20 bucks to your next Salvation Army donation. My overall revenue was down slightly in December, but I ended up with higher profits (don’t tell the IRS) as far as I can tell.  My calculations may be somewhat optimistic as I try to justify purchasing another 55″ LED TV for my upstairs bathroom.  It’s just impossible to tell when there will be fourteen programs on I want to watch at the same time.

On occasion someone I know will bring up this website in “real life” conversation and the comments are usually the same.  “Really awesome site bro, but most of it is just too technical.”  I try to explain that I’ve dumbed things down so much that any moron should be able to grasp the ideas, but it seems as though my attempts at dumbness are for naught.  Luckily I have been preparing content for the new year that I am sure will be just as mind-numbing as the last.  Unfortunately, arbitrary date changes have limited impact on one’s auction blogging skills.  Maybe the smash sequel to last year’s “2012″ will be “2010 – Josh’s Auction Website Gets Slightly More Popular.”  Don’t hold your breath.

“Twenty Ten” promises to bring more changes to eBay.  Personally, I am excited that the last remnants of “eBay Live” will supposedly be hobbling into Seattle.  I plan to have you all over for a “pre-funk” before we roll out in yellow school buses to the grand spectacle which I imagine will take place at a retirement center just outside of town.  There’s always a lot of hubaloo (my word, not theirs) surrounding what eBay will do to screw us all over in the new year, as if there’s some kind of eBay death panel set up by the liberals in Washington.  I’ve heard Meg is running for governor so I guess anything is possible.  Personally, I’ll just wait it out.

Should have a few articles dropping in the coming days.  Nothing worth a movie deal I don’t think, but I’m sure at least one will be the next Watergate.  Will catch you on the flipside, Josh

Took the day off today.  Not by choice, mind you, but because eBay was broken and I don’t have anything to do other than tell people in Cyprus I really don’t ship via $1 horse and carriage.  In this case, I don’t mean broken like not conforming to what I want as I have in the past.  I mean broken like a dozen armless UPS employees decided to play “Super Bowl” with your Xbox 360 packaged in nothing but newspaper and prayer.  Normally I reserve Saturdays for playing with my IP address, buying stuff from my competitors, asking them how much shipping is to Cyprus via horse and carriage, and then leaving negative feedback.  I couldn’t even do that today though because every search I tried resulted in either zero matches or a message stating the “function” I requested was temporarily down.  At first I thought maybe all those listings I reported for bogus reasons had actually been taken down, but when a search for “expired pretzels” didn’t result in any hits I knew something was wrong.  I did what I always do when I think there’s a problem and called my mother.  She confirmed that her search for “Beanie Baby” resulted in an error and we agreed that it was unlikely no one was selling Beanies this week.  I followed up by doing what I always do and went to the internet to try to find doomsdaymongerers complaining about similar problems.

The best part of being a faceless eBay whiner with a clever URL is that there are so many people just like me.  Feels like I’m part of a real life family because we all love to complain about the same things so much we’re basically friends, if not lovers.  Today the internet was truly ablaze with hate because eBay’s own search function was not functioning properly, among various other things.

Most people found it impossible to search for items using eBay’s search on November 20^th, starting around 11am in the morning.  No matter what the user searched for, they would be greeted with either an error or zero search results.  This made it impossible for buyers to purchase or bid on items they weren’t previously watching or found via a method other than eBay’s search, like Google or via magic.  EBay made an announcement acknowledging the problems at 1:37pm on the System Announcements Board stating:

Due to errors in some of our backend systems, members may be seeing different errors in Search. This could be that “We were unable to run the search results you entered. Please try again in a few minutes” or a blank page, or simply the browser being unable to display the page.

This is also affecting the ability to access eBay Stores through search directly, and sometimes from the store URL.

Please note that we are working as quickly as possible to get this resolved. Thank you for your patience as we continue to work to resolve this.

The problems continued throughout most of the day.  Users have been reporting all kinds of issues including an inability to bid on items they could actually find and an inability to send or pay invoices.  Finally, around 11pm, eBay announced that they had found the problem and were working diligently to fix it.  Everything should be back to “normal” on Sunday the 21st, whatever that means.

Supposedly eBay is going to issue some kind of refund, but it is unclear exactly what that compensation will look like.  In reality, whatever eBay is willing to refund, be it insertion and final value fees or even some kind of “above and beyond expectations” package, will pale in comparison to the losses suffered by lower auction prices.  If you were selling an item you expected would sell for around $200 and it ended up selling for the $19.24 price it was at the day before because no one could find or bid on it then no fee refund could possibly make up for that loss.  Any eBay seller knows that the auction price can double, triple, or go up even more in the last 30 seconds of an auction.  This gaffe, probably the most serious I’ve ever seen, has no doubt caused some sellers serious money.  Granted, Saturday is not a popular day to end auctions, but that certainly doesn’t mean there are no items ending.  Once eBay realized the magnitude of the problem they should have extended the end time of the affected auctions until the next day.  Unfortunately, eBay chose not to act and millions of dollars were lost worldwide.