Has Ebay Gone Too Far?

I decided that I wanted to sell my AT&T Tilt on Ebay in order to buy an Iphone. Of course, I decided the best place to sell it was Ebay. I listed my Tilt and sure enough it sold. However, to my surprise Ebay shocked me with a new policy.

Ebay and Paypal, have this new policy that if a seller doesn’t fit a certain set of criteria they will freeze your earnings in your Paypal account. What is so frustrating about it is that the seller has no control over meeting the criteria. I have always been a good Ebay seller. I have a rating of 64 and have never had a complaint. But yet, now I’m being treated like a criminal. The criterion Ebay has decided on is the following:

If you do not have more than 100 feedbacks and you are selling an item over $100 they will freeze your money in Paypal and force you to ship off the item without ever receiving a dime! They don’t even give you access to the cost of shipping.

The policy states they can hold your money up to 21 days! Am I the only one that thinks this is crazy? Their reasons for this new policy is allegedly protecting buyers from scammers. However, this makes no sense to me. Paypal has access to your bank accounts and/or credit cards. How is freezing the money in your account going to make it any safer for buyers? Buyers have always had the ability to get their money back and report any scams. Isn’t this a job for the legal system and not freezing the funds of innocent sellers?

As I was researching how others felt about this new policy I found a very interesting article. Apparently, Ebay is running a test campaign for all Australian buyers that the only payment accepted is from Paypal. US citizens beware this policy will probably be showing up for you too soon enough.

So now if you thought you could avoid having your funds frozen in Paypal, avoiding Paypal’s horrible customer service, or paying Paypal’s exorbitant fees you were wrong! Now Ebay has agreed to give Paypal a complete monopoly over all their transactions. Unfair competition anyone? You can read the Australian article here…http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,23515926-15306,00.html

All of these changes have pushed me over the edge. I have always been unhappy with Ebay, but it was never enough to drive me away from occasionally selling products. I’ve had it and will not continue to give Ebay my support or my money. Ebay, if you are listening you have lost a great deal of respect with these new policies.