In my previous ebay auctions, the winning bidder paid by pay pal, the funds cleared immediately, and I used those funds to ship the items off to the winner by purchasing the mailing label through the pay pal system. No problems. 100% positive.
In my most recent auction (and for the computer apparently) the winning bidder will pay by pay pal, and the funds will be held pending shipment, receipt by winner,review, and their positive feedback, and it could take 21 days to see any money. This includes the money the winner pays for shipping.
*The money to ship the goods is held pending the shipment of the goods.*
For me, that flies in the face of "buyer pays shipping" They're not. I'm paying for the shipping. And because the $150 to ship this would come out of my pockets, I am basically financing the winner's purchase for three weeks. I'm sorry, but that's just totally unacceptable to me. If I was presented with some kind of warning about this (not just some sentence buried in their terms of service) I would have never listed it with eBay. I didn't even know until I went to print the guys shipping label, and ebay said, "Oh Hi, we're holding your funds, so we're just going to go ahead and pull this shipping charge and associated fees out of your bank account. cool?"
No. not cool. Something goes wrong, and I'm out the computer and $150.00. Ebay and paypal are already notorious for their automated customer service, plus after reading their combined terms of service, and a couple of threads on the subject, I'm not all that comfortable with the process any longer.
100% Positive Feedback, Verified Address, Verified Bank Account, Premier Membership, Instant Payment - all of that is apparently meaningless.
It all boils down to the fact that I am unwilling to spend 150 dollars packing and shipping a computer to someone who may or may not pay me in three weeks using a middle-man who may or may not release the funds.