FAO Ebay staff - Reporting businesses trading on private accounts

[howmuchtobid]

To whom it may concern.

It's about time it was made easier for Ebay users to be able to report businesses trading on private accounts in a much more straight forward way.  At the moment there is no obvious option when using the report item option, i.e. there is no business trading on a private account option.

I and many other business sellers/Ebay users have spent a lot of time reporting blatant business sellers on private accounts however we are often wasting our time as all we get is a pointless AI response which simply isn't good enough.

This is something that needs to be introduced urgently as it will help legitimate business sellers survive and hopefully flourish, also in many ways it will be of great benefit to Ebay. It will also help Ebay's image as having so many illegal sellers on the platform is not a good look.

Can someone from Ebay please confirm they have seen this, thank you.

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

As I posted on another thread this morning regarding this topic I am not going to waste any more time on it.

One final thing I will say is I spoke to Ebay customer service again this morning, as many of us know they are clearly making it up as they go, the person I spoke to claimed a seller would be forced to upgrade from private to business if they sold £1500 - £1800 a month, I asked him where that figure came from, thin air obviously.

The messages coming from Ebay on this are beyond embarrassing, the lack of respect shown to business sellers is quite incredible, my expectations these days are very low however I'm not sure you can go much lower than what we have witnessed on this situation.

[gemini-project]

You just couldn't make it up, more traing needed at eBay.🤣

[santlache_sales]

Don't do it....

DO NOT become a grass for eBay.

Let them sort their own problems of their own making out, better still close your business account and open a Private one.

NO FEES.

Let eBay get the message we want a level playing field, not one so highly weighted in favour of private sellers, that they are making it no longer viable for businsses

[therenewalworkshopltd]

There is nothing quite like advising others to do something illegal and not doing it yourself......

[the_book_seekers]

One final thing I will say is I spoke to Ebay customer service again this morning, as many of us know they are clearly making it up as they go, the person I spoke to claimed a seller would be forced to upgrade from private to business if they sold £1500 - £1800 a month, I asked him where that figure came from, thin air obviously.

It would appear so. From threads on these boards customer services have given out figures of £85,000, 10,000 euros that I can remember and now £1500 to £1800 a month (which equates to £18,000 to £21,000 per year). After being on ebay for 21 years it shouldn't amaze me how ebay fails to ensure that customer services know what they are talking about. 

[gemini-project]

Whatever the figure they come up with they still have to report the seller to HMRC with an income of more than £1000,it doesn't matter what they keep saying, that is the freshold, its more to do with what they are selling of course, if they make something to sell or buy something to sell its a business whether they make a profit or loss they must still fill in a tax return.

I have reported someone selling 10 of the same new item multipul times and every time eBay says there is nothing wrong with the listing.

Whatever the figure they come up with they have to report the seller to HMRC with an income of more than £1000, its more to do with what they are selling, if they make something or buy something to sell its a business whether they make a profit or loss they must fill in a tax return.

I have now started to report to HMRC rather than eBay as they have a more vested interest.

[gemini-project]

I forgot to add for every failed atempt from eBay i report the seller to HMRC and eBay to trading stanndards as well as HMRC.

[gemini-project]

I had someone contact me last week too sacred to post on here, he was losing so much money and didn't want to loose any-more, what as this come too????

[gemini-project]

I have now received this, every one of my reports have been about a business running of a private account, its a complete joke.

We’ve noticed a pattern of unfounded reports from you. Please see our emails following up to your previous reports for examples.

What this means for your account:
We know this might have been an honest mistake. As of now, there is no impact to your ability to submit reports.

If this continues to happen, your reports will automatically be closed and your ability to submit reports will be temporarily suspended.

Why do we have this policy?
Users shouldn’t misuse our reporting processes – when they do, it’s disruptive for our community.. Under the eBay User Agreement, eBay may stop processing reports from those that frequently misuse our reporting process. You can read our guidelines below.

[pg_kicks]

Just shows how little they care, copy and paste responses saying please report, press releases saying we are fighting it and then every CS agent makes up different figures lying to us as they have no clue. I'd love a meeting with somebody who actually reponds to questions, the reponses are genine and not made up lies and has some power within eBay. Sadly none of them dare speak or when they do its infront of a room full of business accounts and fail to mention the biggest change on eBay in over a decade thats been in the process of being rolled out for months so they clearly knew. Trust and loyalty from eBay to its customers ha.

[nutrafituk]

Seriously, If I were you I would consider legal actions against them. Quite painful but worth it, in my opinion. At the end of teh day, you can prove both loss of profit and their negligence.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

Quite painful but worth it, in my opinion. At the end of teh day, you can prove both loss of profit and their negligence.

How?  For sending a notice out saying you may be blocked from reporting?

What loss of profit?  And to be honest, what negligence?  They aren't actually blocking anything and even if they did, it is certainly not negligence (warning you) and also not directly causing loss of profit!

[lupo-store]

And I have just had a long conversation with concierge. The explanation was that whilst they are encouraging people to report, some people are reporting excessively. They say that some people reporting 50 odd accounts every day.

I explained that is people are doing this then surely it's because there is still a major issue and eBay has now created a two tier marketplace where businesses on private accounts are gaining an unfair advantage.

The agent agreed that private account should not have the ability to sell multiple new items. He also confirmed what the previous agent told me last week in that there are new announcement in respect to this issue due in the next week or so.

I am hoping it's short-term pain for a longer better marketplace

[nutrafituk]

You really like questioning anything, don't you?

A loss of profit - due to false private sellers taking advantage of no fees and unfair compeptition as they are businesses.

Negligence - despite reporting this matter to eBay, they failed to act causing the above.

[gemini-project]

Well it wasn't 50 odd reports, nothing like that and it was a week since the previous reports.

One seller has 50 odd listings all new items some of them with more than one for sale and one  is a multi buy offering a percentage discount.

I got the usual "we didn't find anything wrong"💩

[therenewalworkshopltd]

No, I don't question anything.

I question dodgy statements.

It is extremely unlikely that you can prove a loss of profit.  Ebay have already started to take action against this.

And negligence.  Again, Ebay have already started to take action against this.  You cannot say that they are not.

Therefore, you have virtually zero chance in a court of law of proving either statement is true.

If you believe otherwise, then why are you not taking legal action?  Instead of suggesting that others do this?

[nutrafituk]

From Wikipedia: negligence is a failure to exercise appropriate care expected to be exercised in similar circumstances. Within the scope of tort law, negligence pertains to harm caused by the violation of a duty of care through a negligent act or failure to act.

Fact: reported repeatedly for a long period of time with no result. Even if there are some actions taken it is not relevant if that does not apply to your case.

Loss of profit - eBay is a closed market, there is a limited number of transactions are shared amongst the offers. It seeme obvious to everyone else that genuine businesses are losing their trade to those 'private accounts', and it is getting only worse as it is imposible to compete on these terms. You can prove loss of trade on behalf of those bo comparing the market share.

I do not have time for this - it is my opinion - take it or leave it. Having seen the tone of your replies, you are happy just to moan and dispute. And finally, no need for such actions here as we are getting actually somewhere by being proactive.

[therenewalworkshopltd]

It's your opinion, fine.

But you don't have time, when someone disagrees with you.....

I'm happy to agree to disagree, but the whole point of a forum, is to discuss differing views etc.

Not to state something, then back away.

I will however ask again, if you believe that you can be sucessfull, why are YOU not doing rather than just advising others to do so?  After all, it affects you just as much as anyone else.

"And finally, no need for such actions here as we are getting actually somewhere by being proactive."

So why are you telling others to go after Ebay if there is no need to, because you have been proactive?

You can't have it both ways.  Opinion or not.

[nutrafituk]

I do not tell anyone to do it, I suggest to consider - and there is massive difference between these two. Surprisingly, you cannot see that despite knowing it all... Again, at this stage in our position there is no need to do that as in our case we can see some progress and we are not so heavilly affected.

We did take Royal Mail to court in recent years despite not hetting anywhere with their CS, Regional Team and our Account Manager. In result we we compensated 16k, but I guess there was 'virtually zero chance in a court of law' by your standards. Unless you have something constructive to say, please do not reply - just stick to the main forum topic.

[howmuchtobid]

I have reported many sellers who are blatant businesses for months and months, they are all still selling on private accounts, listings items and selling items. One of the sellers even has the nerve to display their website on their listings. It is obvious they are businesses and it can be proven.

How is Ebay not negligent in these circumstances? Please tell me...