Ebay forces upgrade to Business due to new HMRC regulations

[sportex-uk]

Hi All.

I've received an email from ebay forcing me to switch to business account due to the volume of my recent sales. Customer service explained that I exceeded £1800 in one month, so they act in line with new HMRC regulations. The email is a bit threatening: "We need you to make these changes to your account within the next 21 days. If you don’t, your selling privileges may be blocked. This includes listings ended and loss of selling history."

However, As I'm not ready to go business and I consider my increased activity as temporary, Customer Service advised that if reduce my sales volume, I can stay private. Has any of you passed through this process?

Also, what happensto your existing promo listings if you switch to business? Are they allowed to continue on promo terms and with 'no returns accepted' until they sell or end?

[howmuchtobid]

What is the username of your Ebay business account?

[sportex-uk]

It's not your business.

[sarah-hendl]

i had the same thretaning messages last night the removed my listings and have blocked me from selling on ebay this is just another way of big buisines dictaiting to small people i am just selling items from my pairents estate shame on you ebay annd yes they make you except returns and you pay for the postage both ways and you do not get all of your selling fees back 

[pg_kicks]

You still have 368 listings active from what I can see so I dont think they've removed them all.

If you contact customer services and get somebody good they can indirectly tell you why they believe you are operating as a business, obviously they dont know for sure but they have to act with caution as from a business sense its better to be safe than sorry. So if you have a private account mirroring the actions of many businesses accounts, have multiple accounts logging in under the same IP, accounts with the same addresses/names selling a lot they will link them together, CS (if you get somebody good) should be able to give you a better understanding though.

[papso22]

You are selling new toys and have the EU as a place you post to, that may well be the trigger, see the other threads on the introduction of GPSR 

[abercrombie-antiques-art-design]

You look an awful lot like your running a business. Maybe your not & your parents collected so many recent toys before you inherited them. But the red flag is the mountains of new items & the level of sales you are making. eBay are not HMRC so the decide if you have breach the terms they have for private accounts forcing a switch or stop. But all your sales for the 17 months so far are going to be sent to HMRC to review with the year ending 5th April 2024 the first to get sent in Jan 2025 no matter who your selling platform is. Those are the rules. That income alongside whatever to earn from a job will be combined to work out what tax you needed to pay & what you did. So if you did inherit this amount of items then you will need the proof when the estate was declared to offset & tax. 

[abercrombie-antiques-art-design]

Sportex-UK
When you switch to a business account a number of things happen. First you will need a sole trader or a business tax code from HMRC for eBay. That means you will have to declare every year what your profits are. You will need to abide by UK law & that includes getting rid of illegal trading statements like no returns. Those are illegal even for private sellers & will be ignored by payment providers. Existing advertising promotions continue but you do not get 80% off fees so those will stop. You will pay for your listings, they won't be free & when they renew you will be charged again.  I know it sounds terrible when its been so easy but this is reality, eBay are going to report you to HMRC in January. You went over the limits so even if you dial it back be prepared to answer questions & have proof these are personal possesions that you have owned over 6 months & have not made money from.  Good luck. 

[abercrombie-antiques-art-design]

" out sourcing "
Or automatic sorting. Its only a few lines of numbers. Money earned from employer or declared + money earned from online platforms like eBay, Uber, Vinted, Just Eats, Deliveroo = Total earnings 
Calculation done against persons tax band for what they should have paid then minus tax actually paid April 6th 2023-April 5th 2024 = what is owed or over paid. 

A computer can do the entire nations tax obligatrions in a few days & spit out a few million bills. Its the arguing with those who get the bills that is going to eat up resources. 
 

[moldosgifts]

Hi having had a look at your listings

You have some lovely stuff classic collectables

But you also have things with more than 10 avaiolable lego ninjago for one ther are more, this makes you look like a business.

And you will come uip on HMRC radar as ebay will be sending your details to them (sales figures).

But like i said some great items

[shopping-ferret]

Well said.   All these so called Private seller claiming they are selling off granny's old trinkets!  I would not be surprised if some are stating this here, because they think somehow it will be 'proof' they are not a business, in case they are challenged by HMRC and may be investigated!

Question: do you know whether Ebay has contacted ALL over-the-limit Private accounts to ask them to convert to Business, or are they are in the process still, because I see one Private seller  who I have had issues with,  who is definitely operating a business but is still registered as Private.  She appears to have removed some of her listings but there are still a lot up and it does not change her history of course.  I don't understand why she has not switched her account yet - if that was me, I would just go ahead and not wait to be told!

[sticky-art-uk]

You're clearly selling for profit and should have converted to business and paid taxes well before now.

[troopster2525-per]

Why would ebay allow free 1k listings and a shop for private sellers when private sellers should only be selling bits of their own stuff the no longer want... pretty sure they know and are ok with businesses using private accounts as thats the only reason way it makes sense 

[the_book_seekers]

ebay has never got to grips with what makes a UK seller a business. There is no clear idea to identify sellers buying or making to sell who should be registered as businesses. ebays works on numbers and customer services have mentioned some very generous monetary limits for private sellers to be considered businesses.  There are some categories where private sellers could easily have high numbers of listings - stamps and postcards are the most obvious.  Dropping the free listing down to 300 hasn't made much of a difference. 

[moldosgifts]

I believe that is because of the way it is implemented you can list 300 per month leave them alone and another 300 the month after and so on. You can end up with several thousand listings (millions potentially but it will take years/decades to get that far)

[sportex-uk]

One good news for private sellers that come with recent change in fees - no one will now try to force them to switch to business accounts 🙂

[papso22]

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@sportex-uk wrote:

One good news for private sellers that come with recent change in fees - no one will now try to force them to switch to business accounts 🙂

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Why not?  They are still quids in when compared to legally compliant business sellers.

[shopping-ferret]

Why are so many private sellers constantly posting on the business seller board, hmm??  

[theelench]

Really?  Where ?

There are precious few private sellers posting on either of the Selling Discussion boards.

[shopping-ferret]

There are always some here on all these various topics, often complaining about how hard done to they are and how unfair Ebay is and how they are off to Vinted or whatever. 

Maybe it is because they think of themselves as a business, despite declaring otherwise!

[theelench]

And there are business sellers on all the various topics (even those such as payment holds which almost exclusively affect private sellers) often complaining about how hard done by they are and how unfair it is that ebay favours private sellers over themselves and somehow manage to contrive that most topics are turned into discussion of that topic.

Previously, how bad it was that private sellers were given 1000 free listings every month + regular fortnightly 80% off FVF Offers.  When neither was ever true for most private sellers.

Now, how even worse it is that they have been given fee free selling, although the up to 1000 free listings have been reduced and the FVF Offers stopped altogether.

They can always find something to blame on private sellers when perhaps they should take a good look at how good a business person they actually are and whether they can actually run a business in a business-like manner and be viable without ebay's sheltering umbrella .

I think you'll soon be getting your wish and you'll be seeing a lot less private sellers complaining, although I expect you'll still have to put up with plenty business sellers pretending to be private sellers, complaining or otherwise.  So who will businesses have to use as scape-goats and who will they have to moan about when most of the private sellers have gone? 

Perhaps they will be happy joining in the monthly topic of "Sales off a cliff in March" / "April '25 Dead on ebay" / etc. / etc.