Strange, in the past 4 years I've been selling on here I've only had 1 buyer do a chargeback, and it was less than $30.

> I also received the following message today:
>
> Your business is important to us, and we are working hard to provide an easy, fast and secure payment service to you and your customers while keeping our prices competitive. We're also committed to clearly communicating changes to our policies and procedures. To that end, we are writing to inform you of a change to your PayPal account, which will take effect 30 days from the date of this email.
>
> Beginning 07/23/2009, a small percentage of the total payments you receive will be held temporarily as a reserve in your account. This small reserve amount helps to ensure that funds are available to cover payment reversals or buyer chargebacks, if you do not have a sufficient PayPal account balance and do not provide the funds to do so.
>
> A reserve is like a security deposit for your PayPal account and is standard practice in the payments industry, especially for retail segments like Toys & Hobbies where there is a higher-than-average risk of reversals or chargebacks. This does not mean that you have done anything wrong. We are requiring a small reserve in your account because you sell in a category that has a higher risk of reversals and chargebacks and because you are relatively new to PayPal as a seller.
>
> Your reserve amount will be 10% of the total payments you receive, which will be held on a rolling 60-day schedule. That means 10% of the money you take in each day will be held in your account, and then made available for withdrawal 60 days later.
>
> For example, if you receive $2,000 every 60 days into your PayPal account, then a reserve amount of about $400 would be required on a rolling 60-day period. In other words, about $6.67 would be held in reserve each day, then released 60 days later.
>
> If you are a PayPal Money Market Fund customer, you will still earn interest on your total balance while your money is in reserve. Click here for more information or to enroll in the PayPal Money Market Fund.
>
> We recognize this is a change in the way we do business with you. By requiring some merchants to reserve money in their accounts, we're able to lower our own costs. Keeping our costs low helps us to continue providing competitive pricing for all sellers who use PayPal.
>
> If you have any questions about this change, please call us at 1-877-729-7252. We appreciate your business and look forward to a continued partnership.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> PayPal
>
> I read the link to the PayPal blog and the analyst claimed that they currently require a reserve on less than 1% of sellers.
>
> Less than 1% - really? Well, it must be my lucky day to be one of the select few.
>
> I'm not a huge seller (about 1K to 2K received per month) and am very disappointed by this policy, and I don't consider 10% held to be a "small percentage".
>
> I have NEVER had a chargeback and find it ridiculous that they don't appear to look at your past chargeback history before implementing this policy.
>
> We sell a lot of jigsaw puzzles and model kits in this category with an average payment of less than $20.00 including shipping and I find it hard to believe that these would be considered high risk items.
>
> It's only a matter of time before "less than 1%" of sellers becomes ALL sellers...



I am in the same boat just got the email today same exact one. Never had a charge back been selling for over 3 years and positive rating. I sell toys and kids clothes not really any big ticket items and I also sell polymer clay beads that i make.

If they did this to me I would consider giving it up. Do they apply this rule to transactions other than ebay?

I know of sellers of the following items that have had "reserves" placed on their funds:

purses, clothing & fashion accessories
books
industrial
motor parts
games, toys (aver. price $25.00 or less)
stamps
fabric
pool supplies
and
pet supplies.

None of the sellers, except the purse seller (a Titanium power seller that Ebay is actively courting to remain on the site), have ever had a chargeback.

If you have had reserves implemented, please feel free to contact me through contact member. I've got a few questions that maybe you could answer for me.

I think they must mean $2000 every 30 days. That comes to 6.67 a day. Someone typing that up got confused. 30 day total payments, but 60 day rolling average. (the blog says 30 day rolling average, but there must be different tiers going on here).

I agree that we will see this happen to more and more sellers until everyone's money is held, with the exception of the "diamond" level group.

caped, it is hard not to notice this 1% thing.
Back when SNPP started being enforced, eBay said that the bottom 1% of sellers were causing 35% of the problems.

In your sampling, is there any indication of performance issues?