Starting on December 17th, it appears that all RMAH transactions with destinations set to PayPal (and some Battle.net balance transactions as well) were being hung up in a state of limbo. The sales transactions would finish processing and show as "sold" in the Completed tab, but the funds for these transactions were not been posting to PayPal.
It even went the other way, where people are trying to add Battle.net Balances to their accounts, and their banks / credit cards were successfully charged, but the balances never show up.
Some Blue Poster quotes:
Posted by Omrakos 12/24/2012 03:05 PM
we're working on an issue currently with PayPal users not receiving their funds for sold auctions yet and the status there is the same as far as I know. The appropriate parties have been informed and are aware of the problem. When I hear anything, I'll be sure and pass it on. Until then, repeatedly making posts about it in here isn't helping.
No one's going to lose their money for a sold auction, the process is simply being delayed.
The responses from the official Blue posters on the issue were pretty sorely lacking in detail. They collected lists of transaction IDs to allow them to investigate, they acknowledged that they "know it's a problem", and they are "working on it". At least one has assured us "you will be paid, we just don't know when", and another offered this somber news recently:
"You'll need to wait until the Paypal transaction has completed. Unfortunately we're experiencing Paypal difficulties right now that may not be resolved until after the first of the new year."
Until yesterday, I had a number of transactions that were hung up in this fashion (they've all now cleared on either this past Thursday or yesterday), and it was definitely frustrating. I'd wanted to use those funds, and not knowing when I could was a bit disheartening. But like any such significant disruption, this created opportunities if one chooses to use them.
The RMAH has become significantly distorted in pricing and availability due to this disruption. You can leverage off of this chaos.
Gold prices have been fluctuating rather dramatically, as people have tried shifting their business towards the Gold Auction House side (and some have been more reluctant to sell, with not knowing when they might see payment). On 12/16 we saw the price move from 33 cents per million to 39 cents per million in a single day, reversing a price trend that had been downward from 12/7 until 12/17, bottoming out at about 26 cents per million. If you have excess gold, you can attempt to lock in some of these price spikes by stepping into the relative void and selling your own gold.
Prices have been volatile since then, and volatility on commodities (like gold) is a chance to buy off the low end and sell off of the high end, or use either with proper timing to move towards your desired position.
Likewise, you can take advantage of the reduced supply on the RMAH and increased supply on the GAH to engage in arbitrage between the markets, buying commodities and items for cheaper on the gold side and taking advantage of the price distortions on the RMAH side to make your listings stand out due to the pricing differentials.
Now that Blizzard appears to have resolved the problem, expect to see additional volatility and chaos as people decide how to shift things back around. Be on the lookout for disruptions like this, and ask yourself while they are happening what you can be doing to turn the event into a profit opportunity.
I personally have a 5mil gold AH sale that has been pending for 48 hours.
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