Storage Auctions
The Marketplace => eBay => Selling Venues => PayPal => Topic started by: rulesforrebels on October 25, 2013, 02:01:44 PM
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lol, okay just wanted to vent. As usual going to roll with the punches and make it through this but long story short I get a call yesterday from Paypal Merchant Risk Department. Worried I was going to get shutdown. not that bad but pretty bad. They tell me my business in the past 60 days surpassed my entire year last year and that I'm in a high risk industry so they are going to immediately seize $10,000 from my account and hold 30% of my monthly incomming payments and hold for 90 days. In August I did $220,000 in sales. That's $55,000 they are holding plus the $10,000 they took up front.
We are a small business, we constantly are turning over money and inventory. This potentially could end my buisness, however the one saving grace the paypal people said they dont want to destroy my business they are willing to work wth me but I'm going to have to bring some more cash into the business or raise prices.
It sucks.
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They tell me my business in the past 60 days surpassed my entire year last year and that I'm in a high risk industry...
In terms of eBay, PayPal and Amazon, HIGH RISK means any items that are either favored by counterfeiters or have proven to be a problem for them in the past.
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The following is a copy and paste from a thread you posted on Sept 28, 2013 about the wisdom of raising one's limit on eBay.
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I never reached my limit while selling stuff from storage auctions but I wound up basically falling into a good source of merchandise that sells well on ebay consistantly. I was running into problems where I couldn't sell as much as the demand was because my limits were too low. I now have a 3.5 million dollar limit and don't have that problem. Even though I will probably never hit these lmits I still continue to get them raised. Also an FYI for anyone doing big stuff on ebay. Once you do over 250k in a month they will often hold up to 20% of your money each month for chargebacks and disputes. If you have high limits they wont do this.
For most people you'll probably never hit these limits yet I thought the same thing and am now glad I have the lmits I do. It costs nothing and takes 2 minutes to make the phone call so my attitude is why not do it.
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I guess you need to do some tweeking on your high volume sales given your original post in THIS thread. ;D
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This potentially could end my business
I trust you pointed out to them, that if this action destroyed your business they would be liable for a major lawsuit!
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I'm going through the same thing right now except they're holding 20%. We've had to tighten our belts a bit but we live well below our means so we'll get through it.
So, these products your selling...I assume you're getting them from a wholesaler. Are there any other products that you could get, but don't sell, that might sell as well? If so, hook a brother up! ;D
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Very curious what you are selling......
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Rules, you're drop-shipping right?
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Very curious what you are selling......
If you had just sold $220,000 in a month (with a net according to RFR of about 10%) would YOU let other people here know what the product line was ? I know I wouldn't and that's why I never asked him. He won't tell anyone here about it that's for sure. ;D
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Rules, you're drop-shipping right?
In another thread he said he was personally packing and shipping up to 50 items a day, so I don't think he's drop shipping....at least not in total.
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That sucks to hear Rules - but I'm glad you HAVE that issue. It's like when my mother said when her and my dad were haven to write $26k checks to the IRS and stuff from the company we had formed. It sucks to do it but it's good that we have to do it.
Keep up the good work.
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If you had just sold $220,000 in a month (with a net according to RFR of about 10%) would YOU let other people here know what the product line was ? I know I wouldn't and that's why I never asked him. He won't tell anyone here about it that's for sure. ;D
Yeah, I guess I wouldn't tell either. Mostly I can't fathom the work involved if not drop shipping. I would imagine it's something pre-boxed that just requires slapping on a label but even so....
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Suddenly Paypal is holding my funds too. I didn't get the courtesy of a call or even an email.
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The following is a copy and paste from a thread you posted on Sept 28, 2013 about the wisdom of raising one's limit on eBay.
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I never reached my limit while selling stuff from storage auctions but I wound up basically falling into a good source of merchandise that sells well on ebay consistantly. I was running into problems where I couldn't sell as much as the demand was because my limits were too low. I now have a 3.5 million dollar limit and don't have that problem. Even though I will probably never hit these lmits I still continue to get them raised. Also an FYI for anyone doing big stuff on ebay. Once you do over 250k in a month they will often hold up to 20% of your money each month for chargebacks and disputes. If you have high limits they wont do this.
For most people you'll probably never hit these limits yet I thought the same thing and am now glad I have the lmits I do. It costs nothing and takes 2 minutes to make the phone call so my attitude is why not do it.
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I guess you need to do some tweeking on your high volume sales given your original post in THIS thread. ;D
movieman, ebay selling limits are entirely different from paypal account limits. you can have an ebay limit of 100 million dollars but that doesn't mean paypal can't put a rolling reserve on your account.
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I trust you pointed out to them, that if this action destroyed your business they would be liable for a major lawsuit!
no lawsuit, it's their website and their payment platform they reserve the right to do anything they want at anytime basically. honestly its my own fault for putting all my eggs in one basket in that i only use one payment platform. problem being in my industry its tough to get people to allow me to do merchant accounts. i've looked into propay, wepay, google wallet, etc and others.
obviously paypal is best for ebay and you have to have it. i could deal with the reserves if it was just ebay but my website also uses paypal so essentially all my money is going through paypal. im basically going to look for a new merchant processor and keep my ebay business going through paypal and do my website and phone orders through some other platform.
i hear even regular credit card merchants are starting to do these reserves. on the plus side the paypal women said to a point her hands are tied she has to follow policies but she did say keep my account in good standing and if im having money problems reach out to her and she'll try to help us out. i think in a month they are gonna reslease the 10k and then just hold the percentage.
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Rules, you're drop-shipping right?
no we actually handpack all ordres ourselves just myself and my partner. one thing which does help us, we have a good relationship wiht our supplier so he'll front 20k-40k in a product and let us get him the money shortly after. not really credit but more he understands it takes time for everything to clear through paypal and get to bank accounts and sometimes allows us to flip some product before paying him back.
i have been looking into other products to sell though both through wholesale cataglogues and also looking at terapeak to see whats hot. basically electronics dominate ebay, ipods, iphones, etc.
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If you had just sold $220,000 in a month (with a net according to RFR of about 10%) would YOU let other people here know what the product line was ? I know I wouldn't and that's why I never asked him. He won't tell anyone here about it that's for sure. ;D
movieman has it right. nnobody with a good niche will ever tell as it just brings competition. i will say i dabble in silver a bit but honestly i dont mind sharing that because most people dont have the funds to get into buying and selling at a serious level and secondly its not really a secret everyone knows everyone loves silver. the margins are small so you gotta make money on volume but honestly ive seen some new sellers come to the market and rack up like 1500 feedback in a like a 10 day to 2 week period, obviously probably big shots like coin shop owners and stuff but still just shows you how well that stuff sells.
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Suddenly Paypal is holding my funds too. I didn't get the courtesy of a call or even an email.
one thing to check out is to find out if its a rolling reserve or if its jjust the standard 21 day holds. if you have a rolling reserve you should see a pretty noticable bar at the top of your main paypal screen. ill attach a screenshot to show you.
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Yeah, I guess I wouldn't tell either. Mostly I can't fathom the work involved if not drop shipping. I would imagine it's something pre-boxed that just requires slapping on a label but even so....
the work involved isn't bad. i dont sell anything prepackaged so its me counting out items and individually packing orders. obviously though certain things sell better than others so most items are the same and its easy to get into a roll and fly through them. i would say an hour or two of packign orders a night for myself probably about teh same for my partner. honestly teh biggest headache is not the packing but customers emailing and calling an hour after their purchase asking where the item is, where is tracking, people buying and then wanting to switch up their orders, etc. the customer service end is the biggest pain in the ass actually packing orders isn't too bad
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one thing to check out is to find out if its a rolling reserve or if its jjust the standard 21 day holds. if you have a rolling reserve you should see a pretty noticable bar at the top of your main paypal screen. ill attach a screenshot to show you.
No it's the standard 21 day reserve. All of a sudden, I've got holds for items when I have been selling on ebay semi-aggressively for months now.
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No it's the standard 21 day reserve. All of a sudden, I've got holds for items when I have been selling on ebay semi-aggressively for months now.
give paypal a call and report back, curious to hear why. when i talked to the lady who put the hold on my account she said it was flagged not just because of my category but moreso because the volume we were doing, i guess over a certain threshhold they look into your account. thats wierd if you dont have that info bar notifying you of a hold they should call and email you as well
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When I did call Paypal regarding the hold. They told me that it was because the items sold were listed as high risk due to forgeries. I didn't think it was up to Paypal to decide what items are more susceptible to being forged.
The items that were held was a Woodrow (Appalachian Bluegrass Instrument) and a brass trivet from Virginia Metalcrafters.. Nothing crazy..
It's not killing me that they're being held, but still.. it's principle!
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give paypal a call and report back, curious to hear why. when i talked to the lady who put the hold on my account she said it was flagged not just because of my category but moreso because the volume we were doing, i guess over a certain threshhold they look into your account. thats wierd if you dont have that info bar notifying you of a hold they should call and email you as well
Probably think you are laundering Columbian coke money to buy Russian RPGs for Islamik terrerists (misspelled on porpoise). We all live in a bad Tom Clancy novel now. :-[
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When I did call Paypal regarding the hold. They told me that it was because the items sold were listed as high risk due to forgeries. I didn't think it was up to Paypal to decide what items are more susceptible to being forged.
The items that were held was a Woodrow (Appalachian Bluegrass Instrument) and a brass trivet from Virginia Metalcrafters.. Nothing crazy..
It's not killing me that they're being held, but still.. it's principle!
okay yeah figured it was something like that. basically anytime you sell autographs, designer handbags, silver, sports memorbilia, etc stuff like that lots of fakes and counterfeits so they hold a good percentage or most in escrow unil they are sure the buyer is satisfied. even the most established seller with best policy compliance cant get around this stuff. yeah that sucks.
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Probably think you are laundering Columbian coke money to buy Russian RPGs for Islamik terrerists (misspelled on porpoise). We all live in a bad Tom Clancy novel now. :-[
lol thats funny but sadly true. ever since the patriot act and banking secrecy act and all this nonsense theres new and ever changing financial rules and it causs huge pains in the ass for legitimate businesses. this frank dodd crap is going through now and doing wires for product is becomming a huge hassle banks dont wanna do big wires, wanna shut down your account if you do wires, wanna charge you hundreds a month for some premier account you need to do wires. there was recently pretty big news about chase sending letters out to all small business customers about wires and other rules.
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Hey guys, just wanted to report back on what happenned. I was really concerned this was like the end of my business or I'd only be able to sell the first week or two of the month and then stop for the rest.
I was able to raise my prices. I also found a cheaper supplier. This allowed me to make 20% margins so what paypal is holding is my profits but not my operating cash. I did lose a little business due to the price increase but most customers stayed with me as I'm the best and most professional in my field not only my ego talking but customers have said the same. Others wait a week to ship, dont pack items as well as i do, poor communication, etc.
January 20 I start getting my holds released and then moving forward its justs profits held.
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My rolling reserve just passed the 90 day threshold, so now the funds are being released daily. I had to tighten my belt for a few months, but I supplemented my income by purchasing more storage units than usual. Now that the 20% holds are being released daily, it's almost like things are back to normal.