Amazon payments - withdrawl to bank ?

Question

i have recently opened an amazon account and have sold an item , they have paid through amazon payments . I have tried withdrawing the funds to bank and it wont let me , it says i have to wait almost two weeks but yet they still expect me to post the item without giving me the funds to do so

the item is rather large and will cost about £12 or more to send , the buyer has also asked for special delivery which will cost even more and i dont have much money this week

is this normal for amazon not to release funds for 14 days - i can find nothing in their faqs and guidelines , why do they do this? surely they should give you your money once goods paid for and they dont charge the buyer enough postage either , i think he paid about £4 postage not nearly enough

i just want to know why they are holding my money

Answer 1

Yes, it is normal (think about it - if they released the money before the customer received the item, what's to stop criminals from 'selling' a lot of high cost items, collecting the money and running ?? ... as happens, for example, on eBay/PayPal)

Amazon Postage is a bit of a pain HOWEVER they clearly state the 'standard' postage allowance .. so you need to set your prices to include any extra postage ..

For example, I believe they allow about £2.75 for books ? however posting 'signed for' over 1kg will cost you about £5 .. so if you are selling heavy items you need to add the extra £2.25 postage into the price you are asking.

If the customer has asked for 'special delivery', I believe you are entitled to ask them direct for the extra postage ...