Hallo, I’m new here and have just made my second sale. Seconds after my Folksy notification I got a notification from Paypal as below:
'We’ve placed the money on hold because we believe this transaction may involve a higher risk than usual. The money will appear in your pending balance and will be available after the order has been fulfilled as long as no claims are raised by the buyer or any issues arise with your account.
Here’s what you can do to get access to your money more quickly
Provide shipment information
Add a valid tracking number and your money will be available 1 day after the carrier reports the shipment has been delivered.
Update the status of your service or virtual product sale
If your item doesn’t need to be shipped, (e.g. e-ticket or piano lessons) update the order status and your money will be available within 7 days after verification.
I have made one sale previously and did not get such a notification. First sale in the region of £32, this sale in the region of £70. I do not quote that I will use tracking, and it is not included in my postage price, so I have no idea why this is deemed by Paypal to be ‘high risk’. I have sent it tracked and I am now about £4 in excess of my postage charged to the customer. Does anyone have any ideas?
Thanks
It could be because you are a new seller. They may hold onto your funds to ensure the customers gets the order, more [here](http://If its marked as completed in your Paypal account then you have paid. The fact its pending on the SELLERS end is between him and paypal as he is a new seller. He is supposed to send your item promptly (trackable to prove delivery) and then his funds are released when tracking shows the item as DELIVERED + 3 days. He is at no more risk now than if he had the funds in his bank account. The hold is to protect PAYPAL from new sellers that don’t refund buyers in the event of a dispute. If that happens Paypal refund the buyer under buyer protection and Paypal would then limit the sellers account and chase them to pay those funds back to Paypal. Tell him if he refuses to send then you would have to file a dispute for ‘non receipt of item’ and that would impact on his paypal account as such an early seller and the time the ‘new seller hold’ lasts would be extended OR he may not be allowed to sell…)
How long have you had your PayPal account? A new account with a high value transaction will trigger a hold on the payment until you have delivered the order to the customer and they don’t raise a dispute over it. This is pretty standard for PayPal to do until the account has an established trading history.
I had exactly the same experience with my last sale. I am guessing it is because it’s because it is the highest sale price I have ever had. I have now waited 13 days and the money is still on hold. Delving deeper into paypal it seems the wait can be up to 21 days.
I think it is appalling that paypal can decide off its own back that “you” could be an unreliable seller.It even made me consider reducing the amount of stock on my shop. The only good thing I could come up with is that because of lockdown I am not making a lot of expensive stock otherwise I would need that money to but new materials.
Thanks for your speedy response. I’m a bit confused by what you say - I am the seller, my customer has paid, it is marked as pending in my Paypal account. I have now managed to put the tracking number on my Paypal account and following that they say they have sent an email to my customer to say it’s shipped and have given him the number. I am a new Paypal account holder, so they may simply be being cautious with me, but it still doesn’t alter the fact that I had not intended to send by tracked post and did not quote for that in my postage terms.
Thanks for your quick reply Poppy Kay Designs - I think you are probably right. I am a Folksier of about 3 weeks standing, and have had a Paypal business account for the same length of time, so maybe it’s a newbie thing!
It’s definitely a newbie thing. Don’t take it personally, once the tracking shows the item is delivered they’ll remove the hold. You might get a few of these until you’re established, please don’t worry
Thanks Chris. Yes it is a good wheeze for them to hold on to money longer. I have had a personal Paypal account for centuries - well perhaps not that long… so they know darned well I am reliable. But it’s probably some computer in the sky that applies the rule to newbies if they have a high value sale - but it would be good if they had made that clear from the outset.
I had similar when I first started selling on the main auction site.
Other one I’ve had a few times on that site are transactions where it looks like the customer has paid, but they haven’t. Paypal transaction says they have paid by ‘e cheque’ and that it should clear by a certain date. Best I can work out this one happens in certain circumstances when the customer doesn’t have funds in their Paypal account. Nearly got caught out on this one a couple of times - sometimes they eventually pay and sometimes they don’t.
Don’t know what happens on Folksy when this one arises, but hopefully they have something in place so the sale can’t go through without the funds are in place and they seem to have resolved the old Folksy issue of orders without any attempt at payment.
The price its quiet high ,thats the reason why they consider to be a high risk ,but on the future if you aint got any claim they will not put your transaction in pending .
Thanks for flagging up the other issue too. Paypal sent me an email to say that they have released funds, which is what they undertook to do as soon as they had confirmation that the buyer had signed for his tracked parcel. In future I think I will ignore Paypal’s request to provide tracking information and send by Royal Mail in the usual way and see what happens. Perhaps I will get their approval for good behaviour eventually!
