A notice is not a remedy

RC/PL/2026/T.50 · Letter from the table · 12 March 2026

To the Platform Council

On 4 February, I opened my seller account and found that a payout of MXN 38,600 was on hold. That money was not an abstract balance. It was the cash I had set aside for the next round of ordinary business expenses. The account page gave me a short notice saying that verification was required. It did not say what transaction or document had triggered the review, what rule was at issue, or how long the hold might last.

I submitted the identification and account records requested on 6 February. On 10 February, the dashboard still showed the funds as unavailable. I used the platform’s support form to ask three questions: what specifically needed correcting, whether a person had reviewed the documents, and when the payout would be released. I received an acknowledgement that my case had been received, but no answer to those questions. I am describing my experience, not claiming to know what happened inside the company or why the review began.

For a small business, the problem is not only the delay. It is being unable to tell whether there is something concrete to fix. If a document is missing, I can try to provide it. If the decision rests on an incorrect record, I need to know which record. A general instruction to wait leaves me unable to make either kind of response.

What Mexican rules give me—and what they do not

I tried to understand what recourse existed under Mexican law. The Código de Comercio recognizes the legal validity of information and communications made electronically, including in Articles 89 and 89 Bis. That matters when business is conducted through an online account. But those provisions do not, by themselves, give me a specific right to a written explanation, review by a person, or a deadline for releasing a platform payout.

The Ley Federal de Protección al Consumidor and the consumer-facing work of PROFECO are important protections for consumers. My difficulty is different: I am a business user trying to resolve a restriction on a commercial account and money owed through that account. A consumer complaint process is not a direct substitute for a clear process inside the platform. I do not want to overstate what any Mexican institution can do in this situation, or suggest that a remedy is guaranteed where I have not found one.

That distinction is why a common platform standard could matter here. In my case, a notice that identifies the particular reason, a route to human review, and a stated time limit on a payout hold would have given me something practical to act on. It would not necessarily mean that every hold is wrong, or that every seller should be paid immediately regardless of a genuine verification concern. It would mean that the person affected is told what is happening and has a meaningful way to respond.

My proposed amendment

I support the purpose of PL-001, but I ask the Council to amend the draft before adoption. Please state plainly that the standard is a minimum process commitment by a platform, not a description of rights that every country’s law already guarantees. That wording matters in Mexico, where the electronic form of a transaction is recognized but the particular protections in this proposal are not supplied by the provisions I have identified.

I also ask that the standard say what counts as a specific reason. “Verification required” tells a seller that something is being checked; it does not identify the issue. A useful notice should name the category of concern and, where it is safe and lawful to do so, the document or information needed to address it. If some details cannot be disclosed, the platform should still give the clearest explanation it can and say how the seller may challenge the decision.

Finally, a review “by a person” should mean a reviewer who can consider the seller’s explanation and change the outcome—not merely someone who repeats an automated notice. The payout clock should begin when the hold starts, with an explanation if the platform needs more time. Otherwise, a promise of a time limit can become another indefinite wait.

I know a platform may need to act quickly to investigate fraud, protect users, or comply with law. The amendment I am asking for does not prevent that. It asks the platform to explain its action, provide a real review path, and put a boundary around the time a small business’s money can be kept unavailable. Those are procedural safeguards, not a demand that every dispute be decided in the seller’s favour.

My experience is one report, not proof of a pattern on its own. But it is the kind of experience that becomes especially hard to navigate when local law does not provide the same process the proposed standard would require. The Council should make that difference explicit and set the standard as a clear floor across countries.

My stance is amend.