Customer Services Advice On Business Accounts

[bojangled]

marco@ebay dave@ebay 

Yet again on a call to customer services (Closing shop, required a refund) I have been advised that I should trade on a private account to avoid seller fees. I explained that this was against UK trading laws. The agent is unaware of this.

It’s not good enough, eBay has created the divide and doing nothing to balance or encourage sellers to trade legally.

Jo

[pegr-834437]

Was it an outsourced call centre or the Dublin/Belfast (sorry cant remember which)? Not that is matters as they all should have basic knowledge and not encourage people to break the law. I'm sure it will be passed onto the relevant team who will deal with it though 🙂 

[bojangled]

@pegr-834437 No wasn’t Dublin. I don’t expect the CS to have full legal knowledge, I do expect them not to actually encourage fee avoidance. 

It’s quite obvious that no-one within the company really cares though, so I’ll get my coat…

Jo

[pegr-834437]

Its a sad fact that they just tell you whatever you want to hear and businesses on private accounts is such a low care of eBay they wont even tell the customer service agents to not encourage it. Considering all the complaints and reports back to the relevant teams I'm still shocked how little eBay care sadly.

I hope you find success on other sites or whatever you do next, how eBay just dont seem to care an account thats sold 18k items is leaving is very sad but again not surprising. 

[krafty-kreations]

I have been told the same thing a few times by CS.

I just read the weekly chat and saw this in response to pegr-834437

I cant comment on individual reports or accounts that are trading onsite but eBay in no way allow users to break the law. We also have safeguards in place to assure buyers are protected and getting their full consumer rights. 

Oh Dave, eBay does allow users to break the law and their customer service encourages it!!

[pegr-834437]

dave@ebay 

This is the exact thing that I was highlighting, we don't need to pinpoint it onto exact accounts but when CS are doing this type of 'service' it goes agaisnt everything you say. Also when eBay use the line we cant be 100% an account is a business, all this does it say they could well be a business but we don't care so you might be getting frauded and forced to pay a bpf and not get your consumer rights but we would rather side with the possible fraudulent account thats breaking the law.

As I said in the message last week, eBay is not the court of law, they can use the case of probability, but instead it has openly said it will use facts which it can never produce as people lie.

So whilst you say eBay in no way allow accounts to break the law the lack of action on thousands of accounts who may be breaking the law is in turn allowing a percentage of those to break the law. This in turn means customers are not getting their full consumer rights and are being forced to pay a buyer protection fee that offers no additional protection over their statutory rights as a consumer and the mbg if the account was on the correct setting as a business.

I know you cant talk about specific accounts but you can certainly talk about the issue as a whole and the points above prove eBay are not doing enough and by not doing enough are allowing a percentage of users to break the law.

Sorry to @bojangled for hijacking the thread but I didn't wish to wait another week to get a reply on the issue in the weekly chat, its a lot more serious and should be a top priority and not spread over months of comunication.

[bojangled]

@pegr-834437 no apology needed. 
I looked in on the weekly chat was going to repost this as I tagged the community team, but as is quite common no response.
Your point on raising a sticky thread for current issues is something the .com board have and clearly works well. I’ve asked several times as have others. Cuts through repetitive reposts, and would ease the pressure on the mentors and CS. But apparently it wouldn’t work here (shrug). 

@krafty-kreations well said 🙂

Jo

[pillarboxred]

I could convert to a Private Account because I sell so little for so little, I don't meet the threshold to pay tax. I don't use up my personal allowance. I'm losing money month on month. 

[nutrafituk]

They all have great potential to become politicians.

[dave@ebay]

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@bojangled wrote:

marco@ebay dave@ebay 

Yet again on a call to customer services (Closing shop, required a refund) I have been advised that I should trade on a private account to avoid seller fees. I explained that this was against UK trading laws. The agent is unaware of this.

It’s not good enough, eBay has created the divide and doing nothing to balance or encourage sellers to trade legally.

Jo

---

Hi @bojangled 

This is absolutely not the advice that CS should be giving out. When was the call, just the date and a rough time? 

I'll have the call listened to and make sure the agent is properly educated. 

Thanks,

Dave 

[papso22]

I very much doubt it's just one agent, we also have the reports of agents telling people they don't sell enough to be a business, which is not stated anywhere in the published policies, or in consumer law. 

Perhaps it would be better to make this a training topic for all of ebay CS, and also make sure their scripts are accurate and that they give advice according to ebay published policies. 

In fact, perhaps they could refrain from/be told not to, advise on account status at all and just refer members to published policy which is actually quite good and comprehensive.  That takes the pressure off them and helps make sure ebay is giving the right legal message.

[bojangled]

dave@ebay Thanks for that, but as @papso22 says wagging the finger at one employee isn’t the solution. 
As was pointed out on this post weekly chat on the 27/8/25, the emphasis seems to be on pushing private sellers to run a business on their accounts, while business sellers get no added value.

I’ve seen posts from sellers on these boards that think because they’ve subscribed to a ‘shop’ they are a business on eBay.  I’m not blaming eBay for that because ignorance is no excuse. I do believe the definition should be made clearer, shops are for businesses, maybe a relabelling is needed? 

I’ve veered a little off my original complaint, but you know how frustrated I am with the lack of action on incorrectly registered sellers, the inequality on the subscription fees/listing allowances/rollover availability for basic shops on the different accounts. 

Jo

[darth_baggins]

IME the general eBay staff opinion is to be a business seller you have to have 'X' amount of sales in 'Y' period. Of course that's wrong. In the eyes of the law if you buy or make to sell, you're a business. End of discussion.

[dave@ebay]

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@bojangled wrote:

dave@ebay Thanks for that, but as @papso22 says wagging the finger at one employee isn’t the solution. 
As was pointed out on this post weekly chat on the 27/8/25, the emphasis seems to be on pushing private sellers to run a business on their accounts, while business sellers get no added value.

I’ve seen posts from sellers on these boards that think because they’ve subscribed to a ‘shop’ they are a business on eBay.  I’m not blaming eBay for that because ignorance is no excuse. I do believe the definition should be made clearer, shops are for businesses, maybe a relabelling is needed? 

I’ve veered a little off my original complaint, but you know how frustrated I am with the lack of action on incorrectly registered sellers, the inequality on the subscription fees/listing allowances/rollover availability for basic shops on the different accounts. 

Jo

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Hi @bojangled 

My intention was not to wag fingers, rather make sure that teammates are giving the correct information to callers. Obviously more experienced sellers like yourself understands the possible issues that might cause but some others may not.

Ive escalated the post over to the CS teams so they can review the calls. 

Thanks,

Dave

[krafty-kreations]

I don't sell a lot on here now, can't even be bothered to list much.

Even with BPF it would cost me less to sell on a private account and I could add 300 new listings every month at no extra cost.

I can see why people do it.

What I don't get is why eBay allow it, do nothing about it and then tell you that all reports are taken seriously but due to account confidentiality you wouldn't see what action is taken, like we don't have a clue! 

[pegr-834437]

dave@ebay 

Dave is there any chance you can answer the below question, I asked it on the weekly chat from last week which you didnt see, I then asked it again on this weeks chat which you did answer part of the question but not this part and then again in the tagged message on this thread I have asked and its been ignored again.

I'm not wanting specifics but from eBay as a whole.

eBay has set out that they can not be sure if an account is a business, but they are not a court of law so never need to be 100% certain, surely its better to be safe and force accounts to move to a business account so customers are 100% guaranteed to get their consumer rights and not be forced to pay a bpf when there is a strong chance the account is a business, there does not need to be hard and fast rules but if you, I or another member can pretty much be sure an account is a business (multiple brand new items different sizing).

Why does eBay rather side with the possibility of an account breaking their own policies and UK consumer law rather than force accounts to change so that all customers can shop safe on their site? 

Also another question was missed on the weekly chat but by Marco, once I can understand, twice is questionable but 3 times in 2 weeks seems like a pattern and not a good one.

[bojangled]

I’ve been having an email conversation with the ‘executive escalations team’ regarding my various issues. 

Here’s a snippet in response to the lack of value and action some business sellers are seeing:

‘While we feel that private sellers need more support now, this does not mean that we do not do routine checks for sellers that do not follow our policies or UK regulations.’ 

I assume this team are based in the US. I don’t think there is any understanding of the way the UK site works in conjunction with UK law. Or awareness of the underlying problems some business sellers are voicing. 

Jo

Jo

[papso22]

We know they do some checks, we have seen posts confirming that, both from sellers who should be businesses  and those that seem wrongly targeted.

The point is they don't do enough checks, and somehow the really bad offenders don't get caught.

I would love to know how they check and the parameters they use!

[rainbowtrax]

Let's be honest, any one of us could do a better job than ebay while blindfolded with one hand tied behind our backs. Ebay don't even deal with it when the sellers themselves state that they're a business thus removing any possibillity that they're not. We still have "private" sellers selling food items and medicines that ebay don't even deal with.

[cobwebcottage]

I would also like to know if Ebay have considered the morality of taking a BPF from all of the sales where it obvious that the private seller is incorrectly registered. 

Some even state that they are a business in their bio.

You can't even get a result from reporting a seller with 1000's of items and puts the web address of another site on all of their photos.

The report procedure is a waste of time.

dave@ebay