Just in time for the holidays: PayPal to delay payments up to 24 hours!

[mandy]

The announcement:

***Limited Release: PayPal Payment Review for Sellers*** 

Hi everyone...I'm Matt Lundgaard with PayPal's Risk Management department. PayPal has established a reputation as the safer, easier way for sellers to receive payments online. This is due, in large part, to the many years we've spent building extremely sophisticated backend systems to help us detect fraud.

At eBay Live! in Boston this past June, PayPal's President Rajiv Dutta gave a quick preview of a new risk reduction program that benefits eBay sellers called Payment Review. I'm pleased to let you know that we're going to start rolling out this program shortly.

What is Payment Review?
Think of it as an early warning system designed to help protect sellers from fraudulent payments. Sellers now benefit in a new way from the vast amounts of payment data in our systems, our sophisticated fraud modeling, and the collective industry experience of our fraud agents. These strengths all come together to power Payment Review – a one-of-a-kind service that works with sellers in the fight against fraudulent buyers.

How it works
Payment Review is automatic, and sellers do not have to opt in.

If our systems spot a payment that is high-risk, we'll send the seller an email alert within minutes advising that your payment has been put into a Pending status while we investigate. Payment Review investigations will typically take up to 24 hours to complete.

If we determine that the payment is most likely legitimate, we'll let you know via email and on the Transaction Details page that you can ship the item and that you will be eligible for the Seller Protection Policy. (Learn more about our standard eligibility requirements.)

If we determine that the payment is most likely fraudulent, the payment will be automatically canceled. It's that simple.

You probably won't see "Pending" payments often
While we think this will provide great protection for sellers, the vast majority of you will see Payment Review occur on only a very small percentage of transactions, if at all.

Sellers should still exercise good judgment when accepting payments.
Payment Review is an important step forward in helping to deliver an even safer experience for PayPal merchants. However, it's not a substitute for seller caution when accepting payments. We recommend sellers have a risk reduction strategy that is best for their businesses. Payment Review is one additional feature that helps sellers manage risk.

Our Launch Plan – Starting Slowly
We're introducing Payment Review for a small number of transactions first to make sure everything is running smoothly. We will expand the program to include an increasing number of transactions in the U.S. and Canada over the next few months. Assuming all goes well, we'll introduce it to our global marketplaces.

eBay Workshop: Partnering with PayPal to Reduce Fraud Risk
Please join the PayPal Merchant Risk team on Monday, October 15th from 2-3pm Pacific time for a workshop on how PayPal and sellers can work together to reduce the risk of chargebacks, claims and buyer fraud. We'll also answer your questions about Payment Review.

On behalf of all of us here at PayPal, we thank you for your business and support!

ChannelAdvisor's Scott Wingo on payment reviews:

2. PayPal slid out an announcement today that for select transactions (I bet over $100?) they are going to delay payment for as long as 24hrs.  Here's the catch.  We have no idea how sellers+buyers are going to be alerted to this new 'state' and also there haven't been any developer announcements on if there are any APIs to let us know that a payment has entered 'pending'.  PayPal's latest rollouts of new features have been pretty rough so the office pool has this one winning the majority of votes as 'most likely to disrupt Q4 holiday sales'.

full article: http://ebaystrategies.blogs.com/ebay_str...-q4-e.html

[bargainbloodhound]

Google Checkout's payment review averages 3-4 hours not 24...they also seem to be much better at detecting fraudulent transactions than PayPal. 

PayPal's latest rollouts of new features have been pretty rough so the office pool has this one winning the majority of votes as 'most likely to disrupt Q4 holiday sales'.

Luckily PayPal is under 2% of our transactions.

[sneakymagenta]

It must be Q4! eBay's rolling out major changes...

[size=5px]Die assholes die![/size]