ebay/paypal holding a reserve on money for 30 days?

I bought a Hang On from a guy on E Bay and he emailed me saying that ebay would hold my money for 30 days and he wanted to cancel the deal. I called ebay and to see what was what and they told me to do the satisfaction ratings. Then call them back. Now I had to fill out the form before seeing the game I bought. I filled out the ratings and called ebay and they released the money to the seller. Well I then drove 2 hours to get the game and the screen would not come up. It needed a new board. Which I paid for out of my pocket. (the games was listed as working) So did I screw up?
The guy told me that so many people were getting ripped off in the electronics section or claiming to have gotten ripped off that ebay was holding money till satisfaction ratings were posted.
Bill
 
I bought a Hang On from a guy on E Bay and he emailed me saying that ebay would hold my money for 30 days and he wanted to cancel the deal. I called ebay and to see what was what and they told me to do the satisfaction ratings. Then call them back. Now I had to fill out the form before seeing the game I bought. I filled out the ratings and called ebay and they released the money to the seller. Well I then drove 2 hours to get the game and the screen would not come up. It needed a new board. Which I paid for out of my pocket. (the games was listed as working) So did I screw up?
The guy told me that so many people were getting ripped off in the electronics section or claiming to have gotten ripped off that ebay was holding money till satisfaction ratings were posted.
Bill

The few times I bought a game hours away on ebay, I always paid in cash on arrival. The sellers appreciated not having ebay scam some extra dollars off the top from paypal, and that way if the game was "not as described" upon arrival I would refuse to pay. Granted I never exercised that right but there was a Paperboy that was pretty close, it had a flaky power supply and missing right sound channel, but after driving 6 hours I took the game anyways.
 
I sold a computer item not too long ago, and they held the payment. I had to call and bitch, giving them a tracking number showing the person received the item. After going up the chain, got my money in my account right away, but that was it for me. Ebay sucks, and I don't think I'll bother selling there again.

One way around it is to not put your item in the electronics category, but that will cost you some search results. However, if you're selling a game, I would think it wouldn't matter as the title is most likely what people are searching for anyways...
 
I bought a Hang On from a guy on E Bay and he emailed me saying that ebay would hold my money for 30 days and he wanted to cancel the deal. I called ebay and to see what was what and they told me to do the satisfaction ratings. Then call them back. Now I had to fill out the form before seeing the game I bought. I filled out the ratings and called ebay and they released the money to the seller. Well I then drove 2 hours to get the game and the screen would not come up. It needed a new board. Which I paid for out of my pocket. (the games was listed as working) So did I screw up?
The guy told me that so many people were getting ripped off in the electronics section or claiming to have gotten ripped off that ebay was holding money till satisfaction ratings were posted.
Bill

2 Things:
What ebay does with his money is between him and Ebay, it's not your fault or problem. His trying to make it your problem or back out of the deal is a real jerkoff move.

Second, if you were going to go pick it up in person anyway, you probably should have insisted on paying him cash after seeing it, or only sent the money once you'd seen it (though obviously you wouldn't want to use his computers to do so).

Since you were going anyway, it would have been easy for him to refund your paypal money (cancelling the deal from Ebay's perspective) and then have you give him cash when you got there.
 
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