I've already had one deal go south because of this. Buyer didn't want to wait the 21 days so he called his bank and is having them chargeback paypal - he's going to send me a money order instead. I told him no problem with that on my end. Now the whole thnig will be dragged out until he gets his cash back from PP and into his bank and then withdraws it and makes a MO with it and then sends it snail mail. So, he probably would have been better off just waiting the 21days, but w/e.
Well, to be accurate, the deal went south in part because you asked the buyer to wait 21 days, while this isn't really what Paypal intended for you to do.
I think this Paypal policy is complete garbage, I'm not for a moment suggesting otherwise, but they don't expect sellers to transfer that 21 day wait to their buyers. Paypal is expecting you to ship before that 21 day period has cleared.
Again, I think this policy is garbage, but Paypal's logic is that the payment is
"safe from buyer recourse" immediately, and thus you should ship. For those next 21 days, the payment is only subject to Paypal's recourse (ie, if you turn out to be a scammer etc). In theory, during that 21 day hold, the payment has already been secured from the buyer, and they don't have the ability to retract it. So in Paypal's mind, you're supposed to be bridging that 21 day hold, in the sense that during this period you'll have access to neither the item, nor the money (which is being held by Paypal).
It's a little bit different than saying a payment is "pending". Because with the 21 day hold, the payment has already cleared to Paypal. Your accessing those funds is only contingent on Paypal saying
"Ok, the funds are yours".
But the "theory" of it is ridiculous, because just as you've done, sellers are just going to offload the 21 day delay onto their buyers, which actually has a negative impact on the buyer's safety, because it wastes 21 days of their 45 day dispute window before the item even leaves the seller's hands.
