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?

[spence0175]

That does sound like a reasonable suggestion. 

[vintique*violet]

I suppose it is perspective, I have never seen " selling"  as competition in such a way as " getting one over another"...but then I am not in business...   but do have understanding regarding the " masqueraders" who intentionally sell 1000's under private accounts with new and multiple items avoiding business fees etc and get that it is an imposition particularly towards business sellers.  I don't think eBay have ever intended on doing anything, it has been going on for years and they have had plenty of time, even reporting such accounts seems to make no difference as often i's " no violation?" reply. Thanks for clarifying between genuine private and those not. I really don't know what the answer is as the new " regs/policies" may not "weed" them out or make a huge difference especially with all the foreign sellers who seem to have dominated the markets and as you say many have more than one account. 

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Why do you think that the Competition & Markets authority is called that?  🙂

This kind of thing has gone on for year, but it's been brought into focus recently, because of the changes that Ebay have made.

Now we have sellers with thousands of listings, who have not been paying any fees at all.  

It is giving an unfair advantage against those sellers who do things by the rules.

They immediately have a minimum of a 15% in FVF's, which means that they undercut the honest sellers significantly.

The answer, is simply a more fair playing field.

If they don't want to balance the fees out, then they need to be far more aggressive in weeding out those "private" sellers.  

I do think that no fees for private accounts is a good thing, as long as it is actual private accounts!

At the end of the day, the real private sellers are no competition at all to business sellers.

They may price the occasional thing at silly prices, but it should only be a one off.  It shouldn't be 100 of that item!

[vintique*violet]

Agreed - but as for that authority it appears there hasn't been any active investigation into eBay , not that we would probably know anyhow - they are the regulators and being as eBay have allowed this to continue for decades, it seems odd only now with the new rules etc ... anyhow I wasn't speaking of business but of genuine private sellers who as far as I know are not cartels 😉 

[spence0175]

Tonight I logged into the category I look and sell on most. I see a private seller who is actually a business in the real world who makes miniature things, does fairs and has an online shop.

So their last 10 sales on here netted them at least £2500 and free fee. Obviously no letter to them to become a business seller. It’s just taking the p…..

[shopping-ferret]

Yeah, a few of us have expressed the same gripes.  I have also mentioned a seller who is supposedly private and has several hundred listings and selling multiples of stock in several of her listings.  In the past I even reported her to Ebay and they did naff all, although that was before the new regulations came in.   Ebay are notorious for ignoring reports from concerned members.  They encourage us to keep Ebay a safe place, only to claim no violations made!!

I expect Ebay have a massive task and it is taking some time to contact all the pretend private sellers.  As someone suggested, perhaps they are contacting the smaller pretend private sellers first (as they know the end result will be an exodus of many sellers) and then will turn their attention to the bigger volume fake private sellers last.  It makes financial sense to them to do it this way.  In the meantime it leaves us fuming.

You would think they had the technology to sooner contact all those sellers who are involved.  At this rate, it is going to take them several months.  There is a method in their madness...

[spence0175]

Yes but it’s not up to us to do EBay’s job and report people. It should be up to them and from what I can see, with all their assurances, things seem to be carrying on as normal.

Time will tell

[theelench]

I made that suggestion.

As I've never sponsored any of my listings and suffered the consequences, I may well be looking in the wrong place but here's another suggestion.

Neither you nor @spence0175 seem to sponsor your ads.?

Do these "private" competitors that you mention sponsor theirs?

If so that might be a clue as to why ebay finds nothing wrong with their ads. and does nothing to restrict their sales?

I would guess that most genuine private sellers don't sponsor their ads. either, so their sales suffer from withheld visibility, their ads. look more expensive their payments are held and their delivery options restricted.

But "private" sellers carry on regardless.   

At the end of the day, right or wrong, honest or dis-honest, legal or not means nothing to ebay.  It's whoever pays ebay the most in fees that counts for everything.

[shopping-ferret]

I agree with you.

No I don't sponsor. I think I tried it for a few days and it didn't result in more sales so opted out. I just promote my listings above the minimim % as think that does help a little if you're selling anything that loads of others aren't. I'm winding my business down for the time being due to downsizing my living space so now have the basic shop. 

How can you tell if a seller promotes? I can't imagine the fake private seller does that. 

[the_book_seekers]

I've just finished catching up on a thread discussing the sales drop since BPF and it seems to be largely false private sellers. Which ever ebay minion is sending out convert to business emails would do well to read these boards, it would save a lot of time an effort. I didn't make comment, I just couldn't face explaining again why they are businesses this morning. 

[spence0175]

I will never pay extra. I pay enough and I have enough niche items to not warrant extra advertising.

But you are right. At the end of the day it’s all about the money. Not principal or legality, just the money….

[spence0175]

That’s the thing. I believe many hobby sellers do not think they are business sellers along with the car booters who are there every Saturday buying to sell online….

[theelench]

"How can you tell if a seller promotes?  I can't imagine the fake private seller does that."

I don't promote / sponsor, that's why I asked you.

I couldn't see "Sponsored" on your listings in the search results but I did see plenty that were Sponsored.

Fake private sellers are Businesses so I can well imagine that they would promote to take advantage of getting the visibility necessary to sell anything on here.  After all they're not paying any other fees are they?

@spence0175 

I ask you the same questions for the same reasons.

I'm a private seller and didn't sponsor my listings.

Sales 2021 = 20+

2022 = 13

2023 = 13

2024 = 4

Nothing to do with unfair competition, everything to do with my listings being hidden.

Why do I think that?

My sales on ebid, selling the same sort of vintage glass, often the same items.

2022 = 17

2023 = 24

2024 = 28

2025 = 4 so far this year

The reason being that there's no shortage of buyers.   Buyers can find, view and buy my stuff there, but not on ebay because I don't sponsor, so my stuff is hidden below a lot of irrelevant modern tat in the search results.

That's why I've stopped listing (and buying) here.  As a private seller it's Free to Sell, but I won't sell anything much unless I sponsor and with the latest restrictions I'm regarded as an unreliable seller that buyers need to be protected from and will further deter buyers.  Will have to wait up to 17 days for my money if I sell anything and will soon have my delivery options restricted to what ebay makes most money on. 

I'd have to be a fool to carry on listing on a site that is so biased towards business sellers and under such conditions.

[spence0175]

It’s sad that they are doing that to you. You’re right. But do you think that’s partly down to the removal of specialised categories.. I sell an antique doll and she is just dumped in dolls and playsets which when you see those words it just screams Barbie and similar and you have to fill in a huge amount of boxes just so that someone might see it.

I do less well in dolls than I ever did before category changes…

[dan-myers]

The law does not say you have to register as business

[ett1954]

Under the Consumer Rights Act - 2015 and legislation concerned with Unfair Trading it is a criminal offence for a business to represent itself as a private individual.  It is also a requirement that a business openly displays contact details; something which cannot be done on an eBay private account.  These are amongst other regulations.

You are by definition a sole trader; the law only states you are not required to register a business name - as a sole trader your own name will suffice.  For clarity a sole trader is a business and has to conform to the various pieces of legislation which cover a trader's activities, primarily the Consumer Rights Act - 2015 and the Unfair Trading Act which protect consumers from unfair or misleading trading practices and ban misleading omissions - this includes businesses misrepresenting themselves as private individuals.

[papso22]

---

@dan-myers wrote:

The law does not say you have to register as business

---

Indeed there is no law that says in clear terms that a business seller must have an ebay business account, that would be giving ebay far too much prominence in legislation. 

However the point being made, time and time again to members like you, is that in order to comply with the laws that do refer specifically to businesses that sell online, you will need an ebay business account.

Hence, if you trade on an ebay private account, you break a number of laws, i.e trade illegally. 

[theelench]

Just a suggestion to you, @ett1954 and others. 

Perhaps it might make the situation clearer to such wrongly registered businesses if, instead of pushing the Consumer Rights and other pieces of Consumer Protection legislation which deal with specific but differing aspects of how a trader should act to be legally compliant, try highlighting their basic and very easy to understand criminal act instead of the various Laws and ebay rules?

That is they are mis-representing themselves as a private individual while acting as a business, which in itself is a criminal act (akin to fraud?).

No possibility of trying to say "but we comply with the legislation without being properly registered."  No confusion between non-legally enforceable company T&Cs  and legal requirements under a specific Act.

Their crime is the mis-representation of themselves, from which all other infringements, whether legal or just ebay rules, follow.

By keeping the question simple with a black and white, Yes or No answer in the first enquiry you might get a quicker understanding by some of the wrongly registered.  If that doesn't persuade them, then go on to detailed legislation and broken ebay rules?? 

[jokers_toybox]

But why isn't eBay picking up on buyers accounts like dan-myers?

Who can blame him for dodging those fees? When he's so blatant is his business activities, he's not hiding it, all items brand new, stock images, a shop front. There's literally no doubt he's not a private seller.

I honestly don't blame him, the systems are at fault, and every player in the game will try to use the rules that give them the best chance of winning, especially when nothing gets done.

I mean honestly, we could tell in seconds, one dedicated member of staff lets say doing 1 a minute, could do 480 account checks a day, 13,440 a month, 161,280 a year. Give 'em a wage of 36k a year that would cost 22p per account check.

They'd get way more than that back in Business account selling fees, even if you halved the number of accounts they checked.

Or more simply, put all accounts on the same fee structure, I think that's the biggest issue for most, not what tag the account has, but how it's unfair

[ett1954]

"try highlighting their basic and very easy to understand criminal act instead of the various Laws and ebay rules?"

I appreciate your input and would normally agree with your suggestion however this poster has been prolific on a number of threads recently whereby he has constantly made the statement "The law does not say you have to register as business".  Earlier yesterday I corrected this statement on two other threads highlighting why this was incorrect and even suggesting he may have mistakenly believed that a sole trader not having to register a business name (as their own name is sufficient) meant he wasn't required to register as a business seller.  Various other posters have also attempted to 'educate' the seller on numerous threads.

eBay members who may approach these forums looking for advice may well accept such a statement if it is not contradicted and corrected.  I have no intention of repeating my earlier explanations to a seller every time when it appears they no intention of changing their misguided impression.  My response was not there for his benefit but to others coming to this thread.