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.

[gemini-project]

 its nearly always "we didn't find anything wrong" some times its Ai and sometimes a customer service agent, i have had 2 warnings over a 4 month period and nothing as happened to any of the sellers.

[ett1954]

Gave it a try myself on a seller with multiples of new items; dozens already sold including potential risky electricals.  Got the standard "thank you, we are looking into it."  No further response but did kindly get an offer from eBay on one of the items I viewed.  😩

[gemini-project]

The " we are looking into it " just means they received  your report, probably goes straight into the shredder.

[mrdandt]

Just as a matter of interest the message sent on the 3rd January stated 

"We’re always looking for more ways to help drive sales to your business, so from 20 Jan, Coupons, Multi-buy and other discount tools will only be available to business sellers. You can look forward to more exclusive benefits in the future. "

It might be me just missing something or not understanding but I checked today and private sellers still have Multi-buy discount available on existing listings, I thought that this would be something that would have been removed from active listing from private sellers ? not sure about the exclusive benefits as of yet.

[game_raid]

It looks like multi buy has been removed now, some items I was searching for a few days ago had the multi buy offer available and is now no longer showing.

[lupo-store]

From what I can interpret it would appear that eBay have always assumed people to be honest. They have to selling lanes (business or private), unlike Amazon who only have business. What appears to have happened over the last year is the following:

Chinese sellers found that selling on a private account means they can sidestep VAT taken at source and gain a 20% price advantage.  They also flooded the market with private accounts selling multiple new items on multiple listings.

eBay knows the private accounts were more attractive so are now making them less attractive by the following means:

1. removing multi buy etc

2. Buyer protection fee of 75p + 4% from Feb 4

3. eBay Simple Delivery will be mandatory for private sellers.

For me if I sold an item for £6 in fast moving competitive markets Chinese competitors were saving 20% VAT and FVF's so maybe £1.90 advantage.

After the above changes come into effect they will be hit with a 99p fee for Buyer protection and Simple Delivery will be £2+ whilst I can send RM48 LL's at £1.20.   

All of their advantage will be swallowed without eBay admitting liability.

It will therefore be beneficial for these businesses in the 'wrong lane' to go back on a business account.

My question to eBay is:

If a Chinese seller on account A uses a false private account B to evade fees, they have a choice of going back to dormant account A and being legit or starting new legit account C.  Will eBay find the links from burner account B to account A or C?

[therenewalworkshopltd]

unlike Amazon who only have business.

Nope.  You can be a private seller on Amazon, though difficult.

[lupo-store]

I used to have a private account years ago so you are probably exactly right.  Hopefully eBay can sort all these issues though with these measures

[ett1954]

"After the above changes come into effect they will be hit with a 99p fee for Buyer protection and Simple Delivery will be £2+ whilst I can send RM48 LL's at £1.20. " - The Chinese seller will still have that advantage of sidestepping the 20% VAT taken at source which will deter those doing this changing from a private account to a business account.  They will continue to have an advantage; albeit a diminished one.

[555njp]

And of course that’s only for really low cost stuff. If your selling price is nearer the £20 mark, the private account will be far better (financially).

[lupo-store]

Thats correct at the moment but I suspect things are changing

[555njp]

I very much doubt it, but will gladly be proofed wrong 😄

Just re-checked the “private” seller I reported last week.
They are still selling loads of brand new items with multiple quantities and are in the £15-£100 range which gives them a huge advantage.

Right, let’s see what nonsense is being spouted on the chat….

[gemini-project]

I agree with that, seen exactly the same with multiple quantities, reported multiple times over the last few months and nothing as happened

[555njp]

It’s been talked about on chat at the moment.
Apparently it will be happening (removing multi-quantities for private sellers) but the exact date not known.
I suspect it might only affect new listings too.?

I did wonder if they mean just  “Multi-Product listings” will go rather than number available?

[kempseykate]

---

@555njp wrote:

It’s been talked about on chat at the moment.
Apparently it will be happening (removing multi-quantities for private sellers) but the exact date not known.
I suspect it might only affect new listings too.?

I did wonder if they mean just  “Multi-Product listings” will go rather than number available?

---

I think it just refers to 'Multi-product' rather than a quantity of one item on the same listing (nearly 1,000 on one of my favourite seller's listings 😞 ) 

Can I just say your last line of post 332 made me (and my OH) chuckle!

[bojangled]

@555njp if ever there was reason to get other eBay departments on to a chat to answer questions this weeks chat is it.

I’m not disrespecting the community team here, they do what they can, but they really don’t have the answers to these questions. 
Jo

[cobwebcottage]

It's still there for some private sellers. One with 1600 listings and most are multi buy.

[bojangled]

I have seen one private seller that had multi-buy discount on every single listing, now not showing the multi-buy promotion.

Jo

[kempseykate]

I just tried to list a multi quantity listing - I'm a private seller.

I scheduled it, and it let me add a quantity of 10 AND set up a multi quantity discount on that listing - which is something else that is supposed to have been stopped. 

I couldn't see an option for multi product listing - but I haven't seen this available on my listing s for months/possibly over a year.

[krafty-kreations]

I scheduled it, and it let me add a quantity of 10 AND set up a multi quantity discount on that listing - which is something else that is supposed to have been stopped. 

I have just checked one of the sellers on my watch list and all their multi quantity discounts have disappeared.