PING Security Verification - First time withdrawal

Hello avensis20 

A very common issue. 

Don't worry. Your funds are safe and you can and should send the item to the buyer. 

The hold up is Trade Me are under pressure with a lot of these verifications so it is taking them a long time to get to them. Upto a week even in some cases by the sound of it. Nothing much else you can do really but sit back and wait I'm afraid!

EDIT: To say that Trade Me don't have a contact number. All contact is made online now. 

Kia Ora avensis20,

Sorry to read of your experience,

A lot of Members are experiencing a delay in having their Ping withdraw ID verification passed and the money being transferred to their Bank accounts currently, we haven't been advised of the caused delay reason.

I can confirm as you've sighted the money in your Ping account initially and have received no email from the Trust & Safety team warning you not to send the goods you are able to go ahead and send them off to your Buyer if you haven't already. - As you've processed the withdraw of Ping fees the money will be sitting safely in the holding account awaiting your verification to be assessed and passed.

Yes! a staff member will reply to your original request, the subject line in your "My Requests" will have a tag at the end of it giving you the status, you can click into the subject line to add further and to make an enquiry. Requests have a target response time of 1-2 Business days however I've personally waited upto 4 days previously.

Status Codes:

I hope this is processed quickly for you from here. - All the Best! 

Thanks everyone who have responded, this has been helpful.

Apologies if my message seemed ranty, but when you have $700 thats sort of just no where and no one replies to you its not that ideal!

Thanks avensis20,

Your Post is fine and quite understandable given the circumstance. It's not easy to navigate where help or information can be gained from at times. - Cheers.

With all the posts about first PING payment issues, maybe trademe needs to redo their instructions to help fill the gaps of understand. All of the posts on this should give them a good guide as to what needs to be added, and made more clearer.

Cheers AJ,

I have sent several reports through to staff to amend help files, response is passed on though I see no change. I suspect since Ping became mandatory in most Marketplace categories for both In-Trade & then Casual Sellers has created a backlog in manually processing verification ID's which warrants an Official Comment placed also.  

Ideally Identification Verification should be completely automated and also made part of any new member sign up when they open an account. I've been banging on about that for many years. 

The technology is there to scan and assess drivers licences, Utility bills, passports, birth certs, from a user supplied photograph, and then automatically verify those against a selfie face ID photo. Many other websites manage it. Some of them carrying even greater financial risks than on here.

I totally agree, we use the same type of technology in my role and while it requires intervention, the only thing we have to see is if the identification verification is a 'pass' or whether more information is required (which is rare unless someone lives in a shared living arrangement etc). It takes about 1 minute to check that verification, this could easily be set up to be automated if they have the systems in place.

I think in relation to the way trademe customer care operates, being that I am a manager in this field and have a team myself, the website SLA's need to either be dynamic, show warnings that there is delays etc and also potentially have team members on the live chat to be able to answer general questions, such as. These decisions are made by management not the team members themselves that probably struggle with the processes that management put in place for them, which is a shame. It also just shows the company isn't invested in looking after there clients.

In that instance I would hope that TradeMe reaches out to me first and doesn't just send the money back!

Kia Ora avensis20,

Yes! if there's an issue with your verification TradeMe will come back to you with what they require next and in some cases can help to verify you over the phone - the funds aren't just returned to the Buyer. You have nothing to worry about there. - Cheers.

Be mindful of the following with using 3rd party systems including but not limited to Zendesk Customers services Business Process outsourcing and ID Verification systems in general.

Cybercriminals frequently target personal data, which can command a high price on the black market for use in scams.

Information like full names and official ID numbers is especially valuable because, unlike credit card details, it typically remains unchanged over time.