Same old chestnut…..EBay not acting on Private sellers clearly trading as a business!
Summary: emsgems2025 expressed frustration with eBay's handling of private sellers who they believe are operating as businesses, thereby avoiding fees and taxes paid by legitimate business sellers. Other participants supported this sentiment, suggesting eBay's leniency is encouraging unfair competition and impacting genuine business sellers. Solutions like limiting listings for private sellers were discussed, while some recommended alternative selling platforms or reporting to authorities. Several participants expressed disillusionment with eBay's response, stating it undermines the integrity of the platform.
I’m soooooooo fed up with Private sellers getting away with this and EBay doing NOTHING about it!
One of the things I specialise in is a range that has limited edition numbers on the base. It’s as clear as day when someone buys an edition numbered 115 for £78 and then lists it at the earliest opportunity with another £50 added on, yes a private seller!
I have also been butting heads with a private seller for 3 years as she is the only other trader on eBay that specialises in another line I trade in. Yes she is a Private seller once again!! Her stock consists of items she has already purchased on eBay and items she has managed to scavenge from an online Collectors Club.
How is this fair in any way to us when we pay around 20% fees, a shop subscription and Tax!!
EBay it’s about time you did something!!
What happened to all the special offers Business sellers used to get???
Taken away to subsidise dishonest sellers!
I’m sick sick sick of the injustice!
Something needs to be done!
NOW!
4_bathrooms
·5 days ago · EditedThe responsible organisation for policing the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act is the Competition and Markets Authority. Unlike Trading Standards the CMA have teeth and are actually interested in policing the DMCCA if their "direct enforcement regime" blurb is to be believed.
You can - as a business - make a complaint to the CMA about unfair commercial practices. Schedule 20 of the DMCCA lists commercial practices that in all cases are considered unfair; Paragraph 25 of that schedule states:
"Falsely claiming or creating the false impression that the trader is not acting for purposes relating to the trader’s business or falsely representing oneself as a consumer."
For the avoidance of any doubt breaches of the banned unfair commercial practices listed in Schedule 20 - including Paragraph 25 - are criminal offences as detailed in this Government guidance. So, any business that misrepresents itself by masquerading as a private buyer or by masquerading as a private seller is committing a criminal offence whether they realise it or not. Such businesses are also committing offences under the Consumer Rights Act and the Consumer Contracts Regulations but the offences they commit under those legislatures can be treated as criminal or civil offences - the act of masquerading as a private buyer or a private seller is always criminal.
This does seem to be a very eBay UK-specific problem. If enough eBay UK users complain to the CMA then maybe the CMA will light a fire under eBay's backside when it comes to policing their own platform. It may be a case of being careful what you wish for but by all means complain to the CMA here. The key points to make in your complaint are:
At the first stage select "A problem with a business"
At the second stage enter "eBay"
At the "Tell us what happened" stage you need to state that eBay turns a blind eye to businesses engaging in unfair commercial practices even when such activity is reported to them. Mention how businesses masquerading as private sellers or private buyers are allowed to routinely breach consumer law and engage in unfair commercial practices. Take screenshots of such sellers' listings showing the "Registered as a private seller" and "Thereby, consumer rights stemming from EU consumer protection law do not apply" disclaimers. Also, take a screenshot of this thread so the CMA can see how the practice is routinely affecting correctly registered business sellers.
If enough people do this then maybe the CMA will take notice.
Trading Standards don't care. HMRC don't care about nor do they enforce consumer law. You can prove such buyers and sellers are committing multiple offences - one of which is always criminal - under consumer law and you can also prove that eBay does nothing about it even when it is reported to them. The only organisation I would suggest bothering complaining to are the CMA as they are the only organisation with the teeth and the will to do anything about it.
pillarboxred
·1 week agoYou have spotted incontrovertible evidence. It is standard business practice to report competitors to HMRC when you can factually show they are breaking the law by evading taxes. I was told this by a senior City of London accountant who advised corporations and governments on Value Added Tax.
emsgems2025
OP1 week agoI would have no time to run my own business if I reported everyone that bought from me, eBay and auction houses and then listed them on here at higher prices. It’s up to EBay now to have some control over this.
pillarboxred
·5 days agoEBay relies on users supplying information about violations. It's one of the ways violations come to light. There are millions of sellers and eBay doesn't have millions of staff (maybe they should have). If you feel you are being materially harmed, then you should take some time to report offenders to HMRC. I'm not sure how you go about it, but there is stuff on the HMRC website. Once you had the "hang" of it, you would become quicker at doing it.
sml192
·1 week agoHow would you know whether or not they are evading taxes?
pillarboxred
·1 week agoI don't know but sometimes competitors come into possession of information about how businesses are being run and "take it from there".
dwhairandbeautystore
·1 week ago · EditedI've also had enough of this but eBay just do not care!
I've now cancelled my subscription fee to ebay and am running down my stock as it times out at the end of the month. I am starting to drip-feed it onto my private account and Vinted as I need to sell the stock, it all has a shelf life and I need recoup my costs.
If everyone else is doing it with no consequences I'm not going to feel bad about doing the same now. It has not been an even playing field for a long time and I'm sick of working bl%$@y hard, just to constantly have my prices undercut by people who are losing a tiny amount in buyers fees in comparisson!
My profits were so low last year that I didn't even owe any tax, it's pointless now.
emsgems2025
OP1 week agoI feel for you, I do. To rub salt in the wound EBay subsidise Private Sellers with allowing Simple Delivery. Apparently no matter how underpaid postage is on a parcel Royal Mail have been told to ignore it. Also the few extra quid added for Buyer Protection allow Private Sellers to keep their funds under a certain threshold for items damaged in transit or not as described. How many perks are these people getting when we get NOTHING. Come on EBay at least start throwing in some old deals like you used to, 60% off FVF’s or something??
EBay constantly seems to be driving Business sellers to give discounts , really?? When we are already fleeced for around 20% as it is!
dwhairandbeautystore
·1 week agoI know, t's ridiculous. It seems like everyone now expects offers to be sent out like the do on Vinted too, so after already reducing prices, we're expected to lose even more money, just to compete with fake private sellers!!
I'd forgotten about SimpleDelivery but you're right - if one of my parcels 'goes missing' (or gets stolen by the buyer) I have to refund in full and lose the cost of the postage. On a private account you get refunded and lose nothing.
You can't even blame the sellers really if they are being given free rein to do this!
emsgems2025
OP1 week agoPlus private sellers get negative feedback removed without any questions asked. I received a broken item, poorly packaged. Gave the seller two chances to apologise or at least acknowledge the error but nothing. I left negative feedback and it was removed within 20 minutes!
pillarboxred
·1 week agoDid you go through the official Item Not as Described process? You don't need to give sellers chances to apologise or acknowledge an error.
emsgems2025
OP1 week agoYes when through the correct process but if someone apologises I don’t tend to leave negative feedback.
bojangled
·1 week ago@dwhairandbeautystore Way back in March I wrote to my MP and Blair McDougall (Small Businesses under secretary), one response yesterday.
I’m not putting my political head on here but it’s obvious no one has the slightest bit of interest in this, be it DSR avoidance, tax evasion, food products being sold by unregulated so called ‘side hustles’, or eBay’s complete lack of policing their own site.
I honestly give up.
dwhairandbeautystore
·1 week ago · EditedThen honestly, I'd open up a private account and start selling on there too.
If nobody has any interest in policing these accounts, just do the same thing.
As long as you know you are being a fair seller, paying your taxes etc then breaking ebay rules that they are not enforcing isn't doing any different to so many other sellers.
That's the way I'm starting to feel, especially with all the low-life scammers manipulating the loopholes now. I've had so many returns recently, just because they changed their mind for most, which costs me loads in postage, but also had a few scams in the last month where people are purposely damaging products and claiming they arrived that way so they don't get charged return postage.
I'm then out of pocket for the lost item as well as 2 lots of postage. One scumbag even kept the original £25 item and returned a £2 empty item and I had to refund him 50%.
These people are having a field day!!!
As someone else just mentioned on another thread, private sellers can also benefit from the protection of Simple Delivery, meaning they are refunded in full by eBay if the item gets lost or damaged in the post.
pillarboxred
·5 days agoWrite to them again and publish your letters and replies on X. They need shaken up.
theelench
·2 weeks ago@the_brick_lodge
"Ebay has introduced SD and BPF solely to match the other place to appear more attractive to private sellers" etc.
And let's not forget that it was also introduced to recoup at least some of the revenue ebay lost by making it 'Free to sell' for private sellers.
Ebay is doing well, but the topic of this thread is that correctly registered business sellers are not, due to the unfair competition from other businesses who are incorrectly registered as private sellers in order to avoid paying business seller fees.
This has nothing to do with the vast majority of Private Sellers but, as always, the solution put forward is to introduce blanket restrictions on the innocent. There are already restrictions on private sellers use of multi-listings(?), I believe ?
And , to me, applying more restrictions on genuine private sellers, rather than tackle the criminal business sellers, is throwing the baby out with the the bath water. Ebay needs more private sellers who will then, hopefully, recycle their sales proceeds through the site.
IMO as ebay tightens its control over private sellers and how they can and cannot sell on ebay makes the site less useful to them as fewer find they cannot balance jobs, families, leasure activities plus selling within the ebay straightjacket.
But the pretend 'private' seller that is really a business will either find a work-around or incorporate every restriction into their business model and continue trading.
So further restrictions won't deter the guilty, it will just further reduce the number of genuine private sellers.
theelench
·2 weeks ago@technthread
I'm sure you're right about resellers on V, some of my best repeat buyers on ebid have been resellers as well. It's often not too difficult to identify an item that I sold there when it turns up on ebay or etsy at double the price. A piece of niche vintage glass often has some unique chip, straw-mark or other fault that is easily identified, especially if the reseller is so lazy that they pinch my photos instead of doing their own !
Most of them are buying for their business on private 'buying' accounts, which is just as much misrepresentation and as illegal as are their actions when reselling the item on a private account.
But it's probably true to say that they learnt their trade on ebay, where it's made so easy by the lax enforcement regime and a continuous supply of newbie sellers with all kinds of cheap collectables to be picked-up for next to nothing. They are the ones who used to go through the Newly Listed items 'Watching' every item of interest, never buying at the asking price, just waiting for a fire sale offer from me.
technthread
·2 weeks ago · EditedIt is just an untenable situation I don’t know what the best solution is.
If I buy on my private account I can get coupons and up to 12% cashback via a 3rd party.
If I sell on my private account we all know the perks. The seller also doesn’t need their contact information shown and whilst people say well that’s required legally: why don’t Vinted, Depop, Etsy, eBid or Whatnot require that? It’s easy to see why people trading under VAT threshold think a business account is some kind of trap that will leave them poorer and they won’t get any thanks for doing it.
I appreciate the counter arguments, I pay the fees here so I decided to do it the right way but I also get why many private sellers who should be on a business account look at it and say absolutely no chance.
eBay know this so it’s often a case of turn a blind eye or lose the user to a competitor. I think they must realise the very nature of the platform is about profit, private sellers will quickly see opportunities to buy and sell just by searching in their own categories I’m sure many will dip in and out of ‘trading‘ because that’s the mindset eBay puts people into. If it was about altruism or clearing space, folks would donate to charity.
the_brick_lodge
·2 weeks agoHave a look at the new X Files Lego set on eBay, today I see 23 listings for it and only 5 listings are from business sellers, it isn't released until the 4th of August.
writesoon
·2 weeks agoQuite extraordinary! Clearly offering pre-orders for new items they have ordered themselves in order to sell immediately. Report report report.
writesoon
·2 weeks ago · EditedJust a suggestion, emsgems, but have you ever considered live selling? There is another platform that treats businesses and private sellers exactly the same, with free live shows and listings and just commission to pay on sales. They will match your first £100 or £150 sales, so you have a chance of doubling your income in the first week or so. The competition from private sellers in my category, some with tens of thousands of sales and thousands of listings rolling over for free every month and paying no commission, has meant I can only afford an eBay shop every now and then when I use it to maximise sales for certain items. The live auction site I use does take time to build up a customer base, and you have to be well organised to use it, but it is beginning to fill the hole left by reducing my eBay listings. Not for everyone I know, but perhaps worth a look. Can’t name the site on here obviously but it shouldn’t be hard to find. Good luck.
emsgems2025
OP2 weeks agoThank you for taking the time to help. I hate even talking on the phone after having a high pressured telesales job for so long. I don’t think the type of items I sell would flourish in a live auction as they are quite niche.
jus468420
·2 weeks agoIt's quite tempting to join the club, no fees, undercut everyone but still declare the sales for tax purposes. It's getting tempting to be honest, thousands and thousands do it with zero pressure from eBay.
emsgems2025
OP2 weeks agoI think to weed out these sellers ( the blatantly obvious ones ) eBay should have a 10 listing limit per week. Anything over the 10 listings per week charge final value fees. All this was done with a view of putting Vinted out of business but I can see Vinted is thriving more than ever.
theelench
·2 weeks ago · Edited"All this was done with a view of putting Vinted out of business but I can see Vinted is thriving more than ever."
Perhaps that's because they are still overwhelmingly casual (private) seller oriented, with pro-sellers tolerated but without the whole site being re-invented to suit them. Vinted is taking full advantage of the exodus of private sellers from other larger sites by keeping their site easy and intuitive to use, whereas ebay has become, for private sellers, a morass of complexity, interference, metrics, payment holds, impossible delivery targets etc., etc. etc.
Ebay's reliance on business and alienation of its once massive support amongst private sellers has led it to paint itself into a corner. Ebay doesn't dare to do anything much about businesses falsely registered as private sellers precisely because it is now so widespread that if it ever did, it's already falling sales would plunge even further.
It's no coincidence that Vinted thrives, just as ebay did when it was predominately private individuals buying from and selling to each other. Ebay's mistake was allowing businesses to become the majority. The plain fact is that there are far too many businesses, far too often cutting each others throats trying to make a tiny profit from selling to the declining number of private buyers that, at one time, were also sellers. When the competition gets that fierce, criminality isn't too far behind.
Possibly vinted might learn the lesson, or it might follow the ebay path and end up the same.
And BTW the overwhelming majority of private sellers are exactly what they registered as. The criminals are incorrectly registered BUSINESSES not private sellers.
the_brick_lodge
·2 weeks agoeBay's GMV grew 18% in Q1 of 2026 on a YoY basis, revenue is up too, I'm not sure eBay are struggling really.
theelench
·2 weeks ago@the_brick_lodge
"ebay's GMV grew 18% in Q1 of 2026 and on a YOY basis, revenue is up too, I'm not sure ebay are struggling.
I didn't say ebay is struggling. If I remember correctly, the 18% growth in GMV this year is exceptional, the last significant growth was in 2020, a blip that coincided with worldwide Covid lockdowns.
As back then, is this more businesses piling goods higher in a desperate attempt to attract sales from a public tightening its belt, this time due to inflation/frozen tax thresholds? Some of it might be due to ebay's ads. for "Free To Sell", but either or both might be just another temporary blip as new private sellers experience the reality of ebay and leave as fast as they arrive through a revolving door.
"Revenue is up too". Yes it is. In part due to Promotion Fees from sellers, the only part of ebay's revenue that has seen regular growth for a few years.
In part due to the inflation of postage/delivery companies charges giving ebay an automatic increase in revenue and also due to ebay taking control of private seller deliveries and whatever ebay is making out of SD that should by now be in full flow.
I don't think any of that points to increased sales, or a mass return to ebay by private sellers but what I think it does show is that ebay's half-hearted attempt to use SD and BPF to push businesses into registering properly has robbed it of another tranche of genuine private sellers but done little to solve a problem that it cannot tackle head-on.
Which IMO further worsens the ratio of businesses to private sellers, which in turn tightens the screws even more on properly registered businesses. It's them that are struggling, not ebay or, seemingly, the growing number of businesses operating under private seller registrations..
the_brick_lodge
·2 weeks ago"ebay's half-hearted attempt to use SD and BPF to push businesses into registering"
eBay has introduced SD and BPF solely to match the other place to appear more attractive to private sellers.
Sell for free is a big advert, SD makes life simple (in the main). It is those two things, although mainly the lack of fees (or perhaps lower fees given BPF still needs to be factored into price if competing), that has caused businesses to use private accounts.
Yes I imagine there are additional revenue streams and inflation does push stuff up but overall they appear to be doing well and I think the reason eBay are ignoring this is the same reason they ignore everything else, either they don't really know about it (being a US based company and major issues not going high enough) or they don't care as the money in is still better than the trouble of dealing with it.
Yet if eBay tackled this issue then yes some sellers would go because the business seller fees would push them out of business but there would always be someone to fill the gap if there is demand and taking at least double from a business seller means they only have to worry about losing around 50% of this kind of trade.
I think part of the the answer is simple, limit private sellers to a quantity of 1 per listing, it would put a large dent in it.
technthread
·2 weeks ago · EditedA good % of my V buyers seem to be flipping on private accounts here and there to be honest. I’m sure genuine private sellers are still the majority there but if I go to a car boot sale tomorrow and buy 10 varied items I can easily make that look like I’ve taken them down from my loft.
I have sold to buyers there who have that private look of an account but will negotiate on the basis of needing to get the item for X to make it work for them ie they are a reseller.
I think it is ethically worse to have the wrong account there as the buyer only has 2 days to confirm the item is ok. At least on here the seller can put the statutory 14 day returns on even if their account type isn’t correct.