Has paypals rules changed regarding receiving payment from abroad?

Question

I have received a payment for an item i sold on ebay but it says the funds are on hold till the buyer leaves posative feedback or after 21 days with no dispute. This is actually stated on the paypal website itself, it shows the payment is there but it is on hold. Is this a new rule or a dodgy scam?

Answer 1

Both ...

The new rules are to ensure Sellers are stuck with fraudulent transactions ...

Here are the standard ways to defraud paypal (and sellers who don't know about it)

Win the bidding on some high cost item. Pay for the item by Credit Card via PayPal. Wait for item to be delivered.

Inform PayPal the item has not arrived or broken (or whatever) and you are reversing payment. Ring up your bank/credit card company, inform them you have been defrauded by the seller (item not received) and ask them to reverse the payment.

Payment is reversed .. and Paypal sticks the Seller with the loss.

.. and guess what ? Sellers are no longer allowed to leave Negative feedback for Buyers ..  so claiming goods have not been recieved has zero impact on the Buyers rating (they can keep doing it until paypal smells a rat)

Sellers who know this would remove the money from Paypal as soon as it arrived .. when transaction was reversed Paypal would be stuck with the loss .. (seems only fair .. after all the TAKE A FEE from sellers).

The PROBLEM is that the advanced scam involves BOTH Buyer AND Seller accounts (often operated by the same person).. same MO .. but now the 'Seller' is in on it .. so (in fact) there never was an item for sale, nothing is ever delivered .. the 'Seller' removes the 'Buyers' payment as soon as it's made and the 'Buyer(s)' then reverse the transaction ..

This is almost impossible to stop, because whereas 'normal' Sellers might not accept bids on expensive items from Buyers with 'zero feedback', plainly the criminal Sellers (who have set up dozens of new Buyer accounts) are only too happy to accept bids from such accounts ..

.. and (in my direct experience) neither eBay nor PayPal seem to give a toss about this .. their ONLY goal is to stick losses with the Sellers .. I once spotted a 'Seller' who had 30 or 40 'top of the range' CPU chips for sale .. and one or two bidders who had bid the outrageous 'reserve' price on ALL of them .. with a 3 day auction & every auction ending on the same day, this con-merchant  stood to stick Paypal with MANY thousands of $$$'s.... I emailed eBay & Paypal, got their standard automatic 'p1ss off' reply and watched the auctions go to completion .. I assume the 'Buyers' paid up, the 'Seller' collected the cash and then the 'Buyers' reversed the transactions ..