eBay Quietly Updates Policies, Retroactively Covering Controversial Payment Hold Changes
eBay appears to be trying to quietly rewrite history of controversial changes which held some sellers' payouts until after delivery with new policy update reminder for Germany.
The changes first began being noticed by sellers in the US and UK in late 2024/early 2025 with payouts for all sales suddenly being delayed until 2-3 days after delivery confirmation without any clear explanation, only vague new terms in the Payments Terms of Use that basically said:
"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."
To add insult to injury, when affected sellers contacted eBay support, some were told this new policy will eventually be applied to all sellers on the platform - and alarmingly, that information was then directly contradicted by eBay community personnel in the US, UK, and Germany, leaving sellers wondering who they should trust and what's really going on with these holds on funds.
Liz Morton
Sellers in Germany also started experiencing the same holds and the same conflicting information from eBay support at least as early as July 2025, as shown in this thread from the eBay Germany community forum, which received over 100 replies (all translations by Google).
There were multiple replies in that thread from eBay staff, including this one on July 18, 2025 from Miriam@eBay acknowledging delayed payouts may be applied to an account due to unusual selling patterns, but that this would not be a blanket policy applies across the board to all sellers.
But now in a strange turn of events, eBay appears to be trying to pretend like this policy only went into effect in Germany in September 2025 and that those changes were announced to German sellers at that time.
This "reminder" was posted in the eBay Germany community on December 4, 2025, claiming that sellers were advised of the new policy which supposedly started in September 2025.
Reliability, transparency and security are at the heart of our efforts to improve selling and buying on our marketplace.
For the majority of our sellers, payouts for their sales are instant. Since September 2025, eBay has reserved the right to withhold payment in certain cases until order delivery has been confirmed.
These include, for example, service status issues due to delayed deliveries, negative feedback, an increasing number of buyer protection claims, or unusual changes in selling behavior.
We will ask affected sellers to improve their services, such as ensuring timely delivery of orders or uploading tracking numbers. This will allow our sellers to continue selling without restricting their accounts.
Once service performance has significantly improved over a certain period, instant payouts will be activated automatically.
The post also linked to an eBay.de policy page which states this change went into effect September 9, 2025 - but that's clearly not the case as evidenced by the German community forum posts showing the policy was actually in effect at least since July.
To make matters even more confusing, some US and UK sellers who had previously had the payout delay applied suddenly had it lifted in November, again with no explanation or additional information from eBay, leaving sellers wondering if eBay had backtracked on the policy or if the risk factor criteria simply no longer applied to their accounts.
Liz Morton
I speculated at the time that eBay may have come under regulatory scrutiny for delaying payouts, especially considering they financially benefit from earnings interest on held funds - particularly in the UK where eBay recently signed onto the Office of the Small Business Commissioner's fair treatment pledge promising transparency and fairness when applying holds on seller funds.
dantekellmanthompson
It's also possible German authorities may have been taking a closer look at eBay's payment hold policies, which could explain this recent attempt at revisionist history.
If eBay should have learned anything from this situation, it would have been the importance of clear, direct and timely communication with sellers - especially when it comes to anything impacting finances and cashflow.
Unfortunately, it does not appear eBay has taken that lesson to heart, as sellers are still very much in the dark about when the delayed payout policy really went into effect, what criteria may cause it to be applied to an account, and how long the delayed payouts will last once they are applied.
