Hey, eBay: Show Me My Money!

You mendacious jerks...

Today, a screed about eBay.

After 26+ years of diligent selling, I get an offer from eBay for 50% off the final value fees fees for single cards that sell for over $1,000. Sounds great. I put up a $40K card and it sells. Rather than applauding it, eBay treats me like a crook and a shnook. I will explain.

Before eBay would let the sale go through I had to provide them with my picture ID (driver’s license image) to prove I am me. Nevermind that I have been on the platform buying and selling since 1998, they have my tax ID because I get 1099s, and my sales are rising every year: NOW I have to prove who I am? OK, I will give them a mulligan on that one. Maybe they wanted to ensure that they have the right guy for tax paperwork that they’ve already been sending for years?

I prove my identity and my funds go on hold until the authenticator (PSA) authenticates the card. Fine, no problem. I love the Authenticity Guarantee for just that reason. No more bad buyer shenanigans; once the card reaches the authenticator and is passed, I am guaranteed payment. I get the card to PSA in a few days (BTW, registered mail costs a bloody fortune but it is the only fully insured way to ship a card worth over $5,000), and my part of the deal is done. The card arrives Monday and passes easily and is on the way to the PSA vault in a day. I am told my funds are available. Yay! Not so fast, hold the happiness. When I try to get the money, this is what I get instead:

“We wanted to let you know that because of some recent changes in your selling activity, we are reviewing your account to make sure it’s secure. There’s nothing you need to do, but until we finish our review, you’ll see a temporary hold on your payouts. We understand this may be frustrating, but reviews like this help keep our marketplace safe for everyone. We review accounts for many different reasons. For example, if you’re a new seller and don’t have an established selling history, if there’s a big change in your selling patterns, or if you have an increase in customer claims or late deliveries….You’re welcome to continue to buy and sell while we review your account.”

What a load! New seller? Nope. 1998. Customer claims or late deliveries? Nope, top rated seller. Changes to my personal data or bank info? Nope. Gotta be the fact of the big sale. But think about that for a nanosecond and that excuse falls apart. If there is a real issue with the account, why can I continue to buy and sell on that account? If there is any genuine question of fraud or of an account being compromised, you’d think a complete account freeze would be merited.

I am nothing if not a pain in the ass, so I called in and got the chatbot/AI runaround for several minutes until I could get to a person (alleged). For what it is worth, here is a verbatim transcript of my chat with eBay Customer Service’s two representatives. I omitted the AI chatbot nonsense I had to get through to get there. The chats themselves are Kafkaesque enough:

• AsBahar: Hi, thank you for contacting eBay, this is Bahar with eBay Customer Service. Please allow me a moment to catch up with your contact reason. Hello Adam. I see you opened this account 26 years ago. Thank you for your loyalty. I hope you are doing well, what can I resolve for you today?

• AW: My money is on hold. The card sold has already been authenticated and sent to the PSA vault under the eBay Authenticity Guarantee. I have already provided my tax ID and my picture ID. The money is not going to a different account. There is no reason for a hold and I want it released immediately.

• AB: I understand that you would like to get the hold released from your payments, am I correct ?

• AW: Yes.

• AB: I would be glad to assist you further with your queries related to payment holds. Please allow me two minutes to review the details.

• Thank you for waiting patiently. I would like to share that your payouts are on hold while we conduct a periodic performance review. These reviews are common with most sellers accounts. As we are now a payment processing platform, we are compliant with payment processing laws which require us to conduct these periodic reviews from time to time.

• AW: I am aware of the excuse. It is false. Unacceptable.

• AB: I would like to assure you that this process is automated and does not take longer than 5 days.

• AW: Again, not true. The funds were on hold since last week and there was ample time to review.

• AB: I am able to see the performance review has started today, the funds were held earlier awaiting delivery confirmation. Both the holds are not related.

• AW: They amount to the same thing. When will the funds be released? I am a top-rated seller. There is no performance issue.

• AB: The funds will be released automatically after 23rd March once the review is completed.

• AW: And if the review is not completed?

• AB: I would like to assure you this is an automated review that complete automatically within 5 days, you can continue selling items as usual. You do not need to do anything from your end.

• AW: What is being reviewed, specifically?

• AB: It would be difficult to say exactly what is being reviewed, as the reviews are conducted by a different team.

• AW: I take that to mean that there is no basis for the review. If you cannot explain it, it is nonsense.

• AB: Please stay connected while I transfer you to my specialized colleague who will assist you further with your performance review related query.

• Mohammad Umam: Hi, thank you for contacting eBay Customer Service, my name is Mohammad. Please allow me a few moments to catch up on your conversation so far. To make sure I understand and can best resolve this for you, you have contacted us regarding payout block and you wish to receive the payout, is that right?

• AW: Yes.

• MU: Thank you for clarifying this. I'll be more than happy to help, let's see what we can get worked out for you.

• AW: OK.

• MU: As per the process this review will get completed automatically within this given 5 days time that is till March 23. Rest assured that we will surely try to get it done at the earliest possible and will notify you over email once it is completed

• AW: Nonsense. I have never had this before.

• MU: Yes, that's why it here now. I certainly understand that as a seller you expect the payment to get paid soon and you can surely wait in this given meantime till this review is being completed. As once it is completed, you can surely go ahead and ship the item after you have received the payments.

• AW: The item has already been shipped and authenticated under the eBay Authenticity Guarantee program. Not an acceptable answer.

• MU: I do get what you are saying, however I would like to share that this is a system generated periodic performance review hold which gets conducted for all the sellers on eBay after a certain period of time and we are not singling you out in any way. I understand that 5 days is a long period to wait, however its the maximum time and we have seen this review to get completed within 1-3 days itself. I do have checked your seller performance which is in good standing so I am positive that it will surely get completed soon within this specified time.

• AW: You really expect me to believe at after 27 years on the platform, I am getting a random review now? OK, then tell me exactly what is being reviewed.

• MU: Adam, we are reviewing the security and selling history of your account as you are on eBay from a long time and the safety of your account is our top most priority.

• AW: Not true. There are no changes to the account. The same bank that gets my payouts gets this one. You already have my tax ID (I got a 1099) and my picture ID. I am top-rated. Again, tell me exactly what is being reviewed.

• MU: Adam, you have shared your personal details and bank details with us so now it is our responsibility to keep it safe in our system and to keep this details safe in the system, we need to conduct the performance reviews and other security measure to ensure the security. This is not only for you, this for all the sellers on eBay.

• AW: No, that is false as well. eBay has had all of that information for years and has never done this before.

• MU: At this level, I can only share this information with you and I assure you that all the information shared by me is correct.

• AW: You have not given me any information, just policy regurgitation. If you have no facts specific to my account, just admit it.

• MU: Adam, as I have already shared with you that this review is for safety and security purpose and same for all the sellers on eBay. On working this level, this is the only information I can share with you.

• AW: That is not information at all. If sending me the same policy statements repeatedly is all you can do, then we are at an impasse.

• MU: This is the only information I can share with you and you need to wait for the given timeline to get the performance review completed. Once it will be completed, you will be able to access your funds.

• AW: Well, then, we are done here.

The first agent has no answers except to vomit policy statements at me, so he sends me to a supposed specialist. But the specialist has no actual information either, and just repeats policy until I get tired of it and end the conversation.   

Now, at this point you may be wondering why I got into a sparring match with the eBay customer (dis)service reps and why I kept going once I realized that I was attempting the equivalent of reasoning with my cat. A fair question. The honest answer is that corporate America is increasingly looking to use vague policies and administrative reviews, algorithms and AI to identify the people who will not push back against them when they are doing something wrong, and when they find those suckers, they step up the abuse. I am disinclined to believe conspiracy theories because the proponents are typically knuckle-dragging mouth-breathing morons, bur I’ve seen this in action. Insurers are at the forefront of this stuff. That insurance CEO who got fragged in New York, his company was embroiled in a lawsuit accusing them of doing all sorts of things to delay and deny claims. I have one client with an ongoing claim for monthly long term care benefits whose caretaker noticed that the lag time between paperwork and payment was gradually lengthening due to vague administrative reviews and processing issues until the insurer was more than a month behind on payments and my client had do dip into savings to make rent at the assisted living facility where she lives. A few nasty letters on my letterhead threatening a bad faith case and the processing issues not only cleared up, the insurer paid interest on the wrongfully withheld money to head off the lawsuit and started paying on time again. I gotta assume that the same dynamic is at work with eBay. I make a big sale for the first time in 26+ years and suddenly, my account has to be ‘reviewed’ and they get to hold the money in their account indefinitely while they ‘review’ my account. My account hasn’t changed in years. Sounds to me like a test to see what I will do. If I bitch and make a pain in the ass of myself, it gets noted in the system and my payment hold will be a few days. If I shrug my shoulders and wait demurely and patiently, that gets noted too, maybe that lag is the full thirty days they have in their policy, and maybe holds are instituted every time I sell something expensive. If that sounds paranoid, well, just because I am paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t doing it.

Now, recall that second person (alleged) said “I understand that 5 days is a long period to wait, however its the maximum time and we have seen this review to get completed within 1-3 days itself. I do have checked your seller performance which is in good standing so I am positive that it will surely get completed soon within this specified time.” Come the evening of the 3rd day, I call in to vent because it makes my blood pressure go up 20 points every time I see the red “hold” notice on my payouts, especially since I have sold a bunch more cards and I cannot even use the proceeds to cover my purchases. I get the same corporate blather and lack of any credible reason for the hold, so I said, and he did not disagree, that selling a big item triggered it. Well, OK, then, I won’t make the mistake of selling another expensive item on eBay ever again. The main difference is that this agent says the review will be completed by the 25th. Wait, what? The other guys said the 23rd. I hit the roof at that point and he agreed it is the 23rd, not the 25th. He said he would escalate the matter to his superiors and I told him that I wanted him to give them a clear message: I am going to take them at face value and expect the mystery hold to end on the 23rd, and if it does not, I am going to sue, and to be clear, I am not just an eBay seller, I am a seasoned litigator: if they steal from me I am coming for them. My litigation threat probably won’t be more than a popcorn fart on my part since I assume I will get paid before I can get a complaint drafted, but it felt good to threaten to sue someone over this asinine situation.

Let me suggest what I think is the ultimate reason for what is happening: corporate greed. By the time I get access to my money, eBay will have held it for about two weeks from the time the buyer wired it to their account, a de facto free loan of nearly $40,000.00 that they can use for half a month. It doesn’t seem like much, a few bucks a day in interest paid or avoided, but with tens of thousands of customers to (ab)use by conjuring these bogus reviews and holding their money whenever they make large sales, imagine the interest that eBay can skim off. Sounds like a class action suit waiting to happen

If you decide to sell a valuable card is don’t be surprised if eBay suddenly freezes your account for no reason and holds your payout for an indefinite period.