Seller claimed she can't check my payment?

namie

O.G.
Sep 27, 2007
1,916
307
Am I unlucky or what? My two purchases from eBay this month seem to be full of problems. The first one was wrongly shipped to another country by USPS. Seller has since refunded me the money, case closed.

Now my second purchase. I paid immediately in less than 10 hours from close of bidding. Paypal showed my transaction had been completed. But two days later, I still did not receive any news from seller regarding her sending the bag. After my email, she told me she could not view the funds I sent her because Paypal is checking her account. I even sent her print screens from my PP a/c, showing clearly that money had been sent but she wanted to wait for it to be shown on her account. She explained that under EU regulations, PP will conduct random annual audit of Paypal accounts, and had requested that she sent them her ID for PP to conduct their checks. This is EU's audit to prevent illegal money transfers.

I don't even know if this is true. It has been 6 days since I paid. Should I believe her? PP had replied me stating money is definitely with her. She is not a new seller. She has more than 40 feedback and 100% positive. All mentioned about fast delivery of goods, in addition to other comments.
 
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I understand why you're worried and I am sorry your last purchases seem to be goign wrong in all kinds of ways!
However, in this case I must say I would not worry too much yet. As you stated she is an experienced seller with positive feedback! And her saying that PP is checking something might sound weird (I never heard of it) but IMO it sounds possible and I don't see why she would be making this kind of thing up... Also, I can see why she would want to wait for the payment to be on her account.
When was your last contact with this seller?
 
She last updated me on the issue yesterday. I am thinking of waiting till the 7th day from my date of payment, before checking with her again. She said she has sent a copy of her ID to PP and PP told her it would usually take 2 - 3 days to do their checks.
 
I've never heard of "random" audits. I can't imagine why PayPal, whose hands already are overflowing with fraudulent and/or suspicious transactions, would assign its limited resources to "random" checks. Makes no sense to me.

Maybe this is a payment review (see below), and the seller is not calling it what it is.

You need to figure out whether or not this person is lying to you. I would call PP again and speak to someone else, perhaps even a supervisor, to find out for sure if there's such a thing as a "random audit" or if there's anything else going on with her account that could be affecting your transaction. You say: "PP had replied me stating money is definitely with her." Could the money be "with her" but on hold, frozen, pending, in her Reserve Account?

As far as I know, the seller has seven days from payment to ship the item in order to meet the postage requirements for Seller Protection.

In any event, if you don't receive the item, you can open an INR dispute that the seller will lose.



4.3 Payment Review.

Payment Review is a process by which PayPal reviews certain potentially high-risk payment transactions. This may be because PayPal has the reasonable suspicion that a buyer’s Payment Instrument and/or Account are being used in relation to Restricted Activities (as set out in section 9) or for other reasons as determined by us in our reasonable discretion. If a payment is subject to Payment Review, PayPal will:

1. execute the Payment Order initiated by the buyer;
2. in PayPal’s discretion, immediately upon such execution restrict the buyer’s Payment Instrument;
3. place a hold on the payment, meaning the funds are held in the seller’s Reserve Account;
4. provide notice to the seller to delay the shipping of the item purchased by the buyer; and
5. conduct its review of the payment.

PayPal is not in possession of all the information necessary to place the funds at the seller’s disposal in the seller’s Payment Account until the Payment Review is complete and PayPal has found the payment to be in order. Where a Payment Review finds problem with the payment, the payment will be reversed and the funds returned to the buyer from the seller’s Reserve Account. All payments that complete Payment Review are still subject to being reversed under the terms of this Agreement but will be Seller Protection Eligible if they meet the Seller Protection Policy requirements. PayPal will provide notices to you by email and/or in the Transaction History tab of your PayPal account. A payment subject to Payment Review is a review of the payment only and is implemented to reduce the risk of PayPal users receiving high risk transactions. A payment subject to Payment Review is not a review nor a representation by PayPal as to the commercial dealings or character or reputation of a party to the payment transaction and should not be considered as a lessening of the respect of any person.
 
I have had two instances where the buyers payment was "under review". I called paypal and was advised this was for my protection because the payments were suspicious. I'm glad they did that because one of them was attempted with a stolen credit card. The other ended up being ok. It only took a a few days for each to be investigated. Both my buyers were in the U.S.
 
i've never heard of random audits but it sounds like I have a similar feedback profile to your seller and I have had my paypal account audited under EU anti-moneylaundering regulations. As a seller, once you are in receipt of over a certain amount (I think it's round €1,300 but don't quote me on the exact figure) your account is automatically audited and you are asked for additional ID. It is a huge pain. Maybe this is what is happening?

Another possibility is she is waiting for the funds to transfer into her bank account.

I would not worry too much yet - 6 days is not very long.
 
I've never heard of "random" audits. I can't imagine why PayPal, whose hands already are overflowing with fraudulent and/or suspicious transactions, would assign its limited resources to "random" checks. Makes no sense to me.

Maybe this is a payment review (see below), and the seller is not calling it what it is.

You need to figure out whether or not this person is lying to you. I would call PP again and speak to someone else, perhaps even a supervisor, to find out for sure if there's such a thing as a "random audit" or if there's anything else going on with her account that could be affecting your transaction. You say: "PP had replied me stating money is definitely with her." Could the money be "with her" but on hold, frozen, pending, in her Reserve Account?

As far as I know, the seller has seven days from payment to ship the item in order to meet the postage requirements for Seller Protection.

In any event, if you don't receive the item, you can open an INR dispute that the seller will lose.



4.3 Payment Review.

Payment Review is a process by which PayPal reviews certain potentially high-risk payment transactions. This may be because PayPal has the reasonable suspicion that a buyer’s Payment Instrument and/or Account are being used in relation to Restricted Activities (as set out in section 9) or for other reasons as determined by us in our reasonable discretion. If a payment is subject to Payment Review, PayPal will:

1. execute the Payment Order initiated by the buyer;
2. in PayPal’s discretion, immediately upon such execution restrict the buyer’s Payment Instrument;
3. place a hold on the payment, meaning the funds are held in the seller’s Reserve Account;
4. provide notice to the seller to delay the shipping of the item purchased by the buyer; and
5. conduct its review of the payment.

PayPal is not in possession of all the information necessary to place the funds at the seller’s disposal in the seller’s Payment Account until the Payment Review is complete and PayPal has found the payment to be in order. Where a Payment Review finds problem with the payment, the payment will be reversed and the funds returned to the buyer from the seller’s Reserve Account. All payments that complete Payment Review are still subject to being reversed under the terms of this Agreement but will be Seller Protection Eligible if they meet the Seller Protection Policy requirements. PayPal will provide notices to you by email and/or in the Transaction History tab of your PayPal account. A payment subject to Payment Review is a review of the payment only and is implemented to reduce the risk of PayPal users receiving high risk transactions. A payment subject to Payment Review is not a review nor a representation by PayPal as to the commercial dealings or character or reputation of a party to the payment transaction and should not be considered as a lessening of the respect of any person.

I have had two instances where the buyers payment was "under review". I called paypal and was advised this was for my protection because the payments were suspicious. I'm glad they did that because one of them was attempted with a stolen credit card. The other ended up being ok. It only took a a few days for each to be investigated. Both my buyers were in the U.S.
I've never heard of reviews of sellers' accounts. It's buyers who would have the opportunity to send fraudulent payments, thus it's usually a buyer whose account is being reviewed.

Since your account is showing that the payment was made, the seller's account should have had the funds credited. In cases where the buyer's account is being reviewed, the funds aren't debited from the buyer and they aren't credited to the seller until the review has been completed.
 
Paypal has replied my mail. They can't tell me anything about whether they are conducting checks on her. But they said since my account showed "Completed", the funds are definitely in her account.

I am so beginning to feel scammed. Seller has not been replying my mails. I observed that whenever I contacted her about the status of the bag using eBay, I don't get a response from her. But she is always very fast in responding if I contact her via her yahoo email account.

If I don't hear from her by Wednesday, I'm opening a claim.
 
It sounds like her eBay account messages go to another site besides her yahoo. So contact her on Yahoo AS WELL (duplicate the message) and SAVE EVERYTHING.

Now, I still don't think you should be feeling scammed. She might not ship until she can take the money from her account (which she can't do right now if she's being audited).
 
i've never heard of random audits but it sounds like I have a similar feedback profile to your seller and I have had my paypal account audited under EU anti-moneylaundering regulations. As a seller, once you are in receipt of over a certain amount (I think it's round €1,300 but don't quote me on the exact figure) your account is automatically audited and you are asked for additional ID. It is a huge pain. Maybe this is what is happening?

Another possibility is she is waiting for the funds to transfer into her bank account.

I would not worry too much yet - 6 days is not very long.

I can confirm that. :yes: I'm in the EU as well and the same thing has happened to me after I started selling some of my bags on eBay. If you hit a certain amount of received payments (I don't recall what amount it was, I thought around 1000€ :shrugs:) they will freeze your account and ask for a copy of your ID. I think it took about one week in my case to be re-instated again. :yes:

It's all due to anti-money-laundering laws here in the EU. Banks have to be able to provide ID and address of each customer that has an account, while Paypal isn't a bank per se it falls under the same regulations because it's handling a lot of money as a transfer service.
 
Paypal has replied my mail. They can't tell me anything about whether they are conducting checks on her. But they said since my account showed "Completed", the funds are definitely in her account.

I am so beginning to feel scammed. Seller has not been replying my mails. I observed that whenever I contacted her about the status of the bag using eBay, I don't get a response from her. But she is always very fast in responding if I contact her via her yahoo email account.

If I don't hear from her by Wednesday, I'm opening a claim.
If I were you, I'd copy and paste all the yahoo messages into her ebay messages and let her know you're doing that. Say that "for both our protection, I'm contacting you through ebay messaging as well as through your yahoo email account and I'd appreciate it if you would respond to me through ebay."

This way, your attempts at contact and getting your item are documented in ebay. If it is a scam (which I'm not sure of at this point), you'll have no way of proving any of what she said if it was only through email.

Now, I still don't think you should be feeling scammed. She might not ship until she can take the money from her account (which she can't do right now if she's being audited).
The only time a seller can withhold shipment of an item is if the buyer paid with an e-check and it needs to clear. Otherwise, a seller must ship within the timeframe she states in her listings or at most, within 7 days of payment.

OP, what does the listing say regarding how quickly the seller ships?