I HATE PAYPAL!!! Reserves are killing my business!!!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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! 

Very curious what you are selling......

Rules, you're drop-shipping right?

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

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....

Suddenly Paypal is holding my funds too. I didn't get the courtesy of a call or even an email.

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.

*******

I guess you need to do some tweeking on your high volume sales given your original post in THIS thread.

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.

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.

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.