We are aware many payments have been delayed for sellers, some drastically. We ask for your patience while we resolve the issue that is resulting in these delays. Once fixed, we will make another announcement and will begin processing all delayed orders. We do apologize for the delay and any inconvenience.
—1/25/2022—
We have news that you’ve all been waiting for this morning. As of approximately 3:30am EST this morning, PayPal concluded their due diligence review of our account. We have been cleared to proceed and PayPal has agreed to continue serving our site. This entire review process has been mentally draining for our team, as we are sure it has been for many sellers. PayPal has provided us with multiple conditions we must meet in order to continue using their platform. Most of them are nothing our users need to worry about, as they deal with things in-house. However, the 2 conditions that will effect our users are as follows:
- We must remove all listings for game “accounts” on PixelMarket, and they will not be permitted for sale for the time being. This is something we will continue working on with PayPal, as we know how many users rely on the site for those sales, but unfortunately, they will be removed as of today. All current payments for already sold accounts will be issued.
- Per PayPal’s request, we must be slightly more detailed when issuing payments to our sellers. To be 100% transparent, what this means is that we will be required to include your PixelMarket username and a very brief description of the item(s) sold for each payment. This will only be seen by us, you the seller and PayPal. No, they will not be inspecting every single payment we issue. This is more of a way to keep better records in the event something more serious does arise.
The remaining conditions are only things we need to worry about. We are now able to begin issuing payments, however, the minor change explained in #2 has to be entered into our payment system. This means we have to do some additional work on our end, and we can then start the payment process again. We expect to start issuing payments sometime in the next 12 hours. For those who will qualify, fee discounts will be applied as adjustments and will be viewable in your payment details and your emailed invoice.
—12/31/2021—
Yesterday we re-submitted a new version of a document they requested. We are still currently waiting for them to review this submission as of 9:54am EST on 12/31/21. We cannot guarantee 100% this is the last of it until they review/respond/accept this document. We’ve been in constant contact with our PayPal account manager and have been given no signs that there could be more coming.
—12/20/21—
In order to ease some worries, we would just like to offer some transparency in regards to the issues with payments. Over the past 2 years, PixelMarket’s volume has grown exponentially, as have many online/e-commerce platforms. Currently, PixelMarket’s only payment gateway is PayPal for both buyers and sellers. As a result, that exponential growth has solely affected our PayPal volume. When that happens, it can trigger PayPal to begin multiple review processes for companies and websites in order to prevent activities on their platform that they deem suspicious. This is not something that is only effecting PixelMarket, but many other companies who have experienced similar growth.
The review process includes many requests for documents related to the business and company, as well as multiple questionnaires that we have to answer in as much detail as possible. Unfortunately, it’s not just a simple one-time thing we can submit. It’s a constant back-and-forth process with PayPal. We submit requested documents and question responses, they’re reviewed and we are then presented with additional questions and document requests. This is why we’re currently at the mercy of a PayPal waiting game. PayPal does not work on the weekends, and our company is established in China, creating some additional timezone differences that slightly prolong the process. The current review we are undergoing by PayPal is of one of the highest levels of checks a company will go through with PayPal. Once we get through this review process, a review of this nature is unlikely to ever happen again. The downside is that while the process is ongoing, our system is unable to issue payments from the account. We are only able to accept payments and issue refunds.
We do not want to mislead any users, which is why we have been unable to provide a good ETA on when this will be completed. We currently feel confident this could potentially be wrapped up this week. See below message as well.
We understand some users have payments that are very delayed, some by over a week. Once payments have come back online, we will issue these delayed payments with a fee discount applied. The exact fee will be dependent on the amount of time that they are delayed. This payment adjustment will be reflected in your account and will show how much of a discount was applied, but only once the payment has been processed.
We are incredibly grateful for all of our dedicated users, as well as our new users. It is an unfortunate and uncommon circumstance we are experiencing right now, and would like to thank you all for your continued patience.
—12/18/21—
All,
Regretfully, we are still working continuously on trying to resolve the issue that is delaying payments. Unfortunately, we are at the mercy of a waiting game with PayPal, as they are the ones who can get the issue fixed.
We would like to announce, however, that as a result of this issue and the problems it has caused, once it is finally resolved, we will be begin taking necessary steps that will allow us to offer multiple other routes of payments for both buyers and sellers. We have found that being too reliant on a single source can have negative results when things like this come up. We don’t have a time frame for these new additions, nor are we able to comment on exactly what they will be, but rest assured, we feel many sellers (and buyers) will feel some sense of relief once we are able to roll them out.
