eBay US Payments Update: Funds Held Until After Delivery For "Some" Sellers
Some eBay sellers in the US report receiving confusing and conflicting information about sales proceeds being held until after item delivery, but an overlooked part of the latest Payments Terms of Use update could hold the answers.
The Payments terms update was released on December 2, 2024 and is effective immediately for accounts created on or after that date or on February 4, 2025 for existing accounts.
Liz Morton
My initial analysis was that it appeared changes for the US were relatively minor and that the major updates primarily impacted Germany and the UK - most significantly, that all private sellers in the UK would have their payments delayed until either 2 days after the tracking showed delivery confirmation or 14 days from the order date.
The Payments Terms of Use page was crystal clear that the part which referenced "private or non-professional sellers" was specific only to users in the UK.
For one thing, the US marketplace does not differentiate between private and business sellers in that way and importantly, that verbiage was listed under Section 6 for Additional Terms for Services Provided By ECUK - which is the entity that processes payments for the UK market.
So when some US based sellers have recently posted in the eBay community asking questions about why their payouts are being delayed until after delivery, many members (myself included) assumed those delays were part of existing eBay Payment Hold Policies and/or that support was simply giving incorrect information, as they are unfortunately known to do.
But curiously, these sellers say they have been told by support there was a policy change that will soon be impacting all US sellers, they just happened to be unlucky enough to be selected for the initial stages of an early rollout.
qualityrandomitems
Ebay apparently implemented a new policy that they will not release your funds until 48-72 hours after they receive delivery confirmation? This has been done under a guise of a “safe marketplace” after 30 years running. I say this is just eBay making money on overnight lending of the money they are holding…
Based on customer support feeback, apparently they are going to do this to ALL sellers?
I went from getting my money within 2 days to 7-14 days. International will take 30-60 days. I am stopping ALL international shipping options accordingly. On top of that, any refunds will not be taken from the amount sitting in hold and will hit your backup payment immediately! This is OUTRAGOUS!!
With over 80 replies so far, there was much discussion about what factors eBay may have been looking at for this specific seller - including the OP revealing that a high value claim was placed against them several months ago, but it was clearly buyer abuse and found in their favor, which should not affect their current standing and payment processing timeframes.
So EVERYONE in customer service is telling me a lie, and I'm not part of a pilot program to roll this policy out to all sellers?
I did have a seller protection case a couple months back where the buyer (4-5 months after they received the item) tried to file a claim with their credit card saying they did not receive the items (about $2700 claim total). I had signed delivery confirmation and even an email from the buyer acknowledging the receipt. So ebay covered under me (rightly so) under seller protection.
So now I am "high risk" because a buyer falsely claimed no receipt? And now ALL my sales go to hold until delivery confirmation? that sounds like a terrible seller protection program if you are going to be punished for what was clearly a bad claim from the customer.
Even so, putting my stuff on hold until delivery receipt would not have stopped this seller protection claim given they waited until months after receipt to file a claim with their credit card.
An eBay community rep, Kyle@eBay even chimed in on the thread with an official answer, confirming that as existing policy states, some sellers may occasionally have funds held, but it's not something that will happen for all transactions:
As you pointed out, there are instances where a seller may be subject to holds like this, but it is not something that will be occurring on all transactions on the site.
All of that discussion initially took place back in November, before the new Payments Policy Terms of Use were posted publicly.
But the seller says they have contacted support multiple times over the last few months and received the same answer from multiple "managers" that they were opted in early to a new policy that will apply to all sellers soon - and a few other sellers have now posted that their payments are being held until after delivery confirmation and they have been told the same information when contacting support as well.
At first, I thought the easy explanation may just be that support agents were reading the updated information for private sellers in the UK and incorrectly saying it would apply to the US as well...but in reviewing the Payments Terms of Use again, I noticed an update to part of the US policy that I had completely missed in my previous analysis.
Rather than being included in the main body of the Terms of Use with most of the rest of the changes impacting the US, this part was tucked away in the section for Additional Terms For Services Provided By eCI (eBay Commerce Inc.) which is the entity that handles payment processing for the US/.com marketplace.
Old Version:
New Version:
"In some cases (for example, if you are a new seller on eBay), funds may become available for disbursement after the items have been deemed delivered to their shipping destination as described in this help page."
That new section now means that in some situations, US sellers will have their funds held until after delivery - just like support has been telling the sellers who have been posting in the community forums.
The help page that section links to provides additional information about the length of the delay (2 days after delivery confirmation, 30 days after order date if no confirmation) but crucially, it does not provide any more detail about to which sellers or in which situations this new policy will apply - instead it just uses a generic term of "some sellers."
Those terms are almost identical to the UK update except in the UK, funds for untracked deliveries or those with no delivery confirmation become available after 14 calendar days and in the US, it's a full 30 days.
It's also important to note that in the UK, the policy applies to all private sellers so the effects will be much broader there, but in the US it will only apply to sellers who fall into risk assessment criteria or other limited scenarios and will likely not impact the vast majority of US sellers.
eBay acknowledged in 2023 that they earn interest on funds processing, so there is definitely a financial incentive with this new policy, in addition to any "buyer protection" reasons they may publicly proclaim.
And the language "unless subject to a hold" means this is not part of the existing payment hold policies and is instead a separate policy that may be applied in addition to payment holds for other reasons.
That still leaves the open question - what does eBay mean by "in some cases" and "some sellers"?
The only example they give is if you are a new seller, which may not be too much of a disruption since the existing payment holds policy already says that new or infrequent sellers "typically experience holds for up to 30 days" - as long as this policy and the new policy don't "stack" the time on top of eachother.
But clearly being a new/infrequent seller isn't the only criteria as a few of the sellers posting about this in the community definitely don't fit that definition.
So was it the high value claim that was found in favor of the original poster in that community thread?
Or in the case of a different seller who was told the same thing, was it the fact that their feedback was only at 92.9% and indicated multiple recent not as described claims?
Unfortunately, there's no way to know for sure and apparently eBay is not giving them specifics when they contact support - they are simply being told that they have been opted in early to a new policy that will be rolled out sitewide "soon."
Also unfortunately, if this only applies to "some sellers" that would make Kyle's response about it being "not something that will be occurring on all transactions on the site" technically accurate while also perhaps being disingenuous or at least leaving out critical details - which may explain why neither Kyle nor any of the other eBay community reps have responded to repeated follow up tags on the topic.
In years past when eBay has released a Winter Seller Update, it usually happens sometime in the first couple weeks of February, so it's also entirely possible additional information could be being held back to be officially announced as part of a broader update.
For now, I'll continue reaching out to eBay to request additional information - stay tuned for updates and let us know in the comments below if you are a US seller who has been impacted by this policy change!
