Tech support says :messages to upgrade from a private to business account have been sent by mistake

[notstopbuying]

I had a message yesterday on my private selling account and an email, to say that I needed to upgrade from a private seller to a business account, I called eBay this morning to ask about various things with regards to upgrading to a business account and the tech support person said....No need to, the emails have all been sent out by mistake.

I asked will I receive an email to confirm it was a mistake, they said no, but they are currently working on the issue.

The tech support person did say, if I received a 2nd email to say I needed to upgrade to a business account, then it would be best to call back and confirm if I do need to upgrade, but the 1st email as been sent out to many, many private sellers and they have no need to upgrade to a business account.

[bojangled]

dave@ebay 

Earlier today in the chat you responded to @krafty-kreations  with this 

"We provide support and offers for Business Sellers throughout the year. We recently ran a number of Roadshows around the country. We offer 121 support through teams such as ProTrader and offer different promotions throughout the different seasons. '"

What promotions and offers have business sellers been offered?  
No Black Friday offers, no free listings, FVF offers. 
If we are talking promoted listings here, it doesn't touch the discount offered to the newly upgraded accounts. 

To be offered 3 months free subscription to a featured shop including Christmas is worth well over £300 to me. Doesn't sound a lot to some, but the very sellers that I've been reporting now get an extra leg up. 
I hate being negative, but this has really p'd me off.

[krafty-kreations]

From the screenshot it is 6 months free featured shop.

Anybody here on a business account ever had any decent promotions?  I know I haven't, not in many years.

I do not understand how they can say they want to help the businesses to grow, lots have been doing if for years and it seems to me they have been growing well with the 1000 free listings every month

Seems to me you play by eBay rules you get nothing, break the rules and you get a nice free shop and free FVF's.

I am so frustrated.

[simplygifts2014]

I agree this has really p'd me off.  For non compliance in the 1st place & people reporting these accounts they now are rewarded & benefit from it.  I don't see how giving 100% off fvf is going to help the correctly registered business as now they can undercut even more to get a bigger leg up the ladder, 80% off for being incorretly registered was bad enough to compete with & we will chuck in a shop for free aswell. Just wrong so wrong!

[pg_kicks]

I was meaning eBay are worried about the backlash not HMRC, all eBay execs care about if figures so if people are closing accounts due to worries they are going to now be reported to HMRC this seems like a move from eBay to reward them to trade legally. 

[pg_kicks]

I certainly hope its being rushed through otherwise if this has been a long thought out option then the people around that table need to have a look at themselves, they are rewarding people for not only breaking eBay policy but also UK law. 

eBay and its staff can deny its a reward as much as they like, they can deny who have been given the email but it seems pretty clear to me that its a reward for trading illeaglly and the people who will pay for it will be the legal trading accounts as per usual.

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

The only offers (if you want to call them that) we have had in the last few years have been part funded coupons, I haven't used them. Apart from that absolutely nothing.

A free featured shop for six months and no fees for three months during the busiest time of the year......

that is a great offer. Most years that would have saved us 3 - 5k.

[bojangled]

I had the awful Low Cost FVF offer which actually worked out more expensive for me in the end, not eBay's fault, didn't do my Maths properly.

As for Roadshows, not possible for me.
Protrader ? Never had an invite, I'm probably too small and sell low cost collectibles. 

Still got my £10 voucher to spend...

[pg_kicks]

Sorry for the triple spam but I'll be honest I've had a few 'promos' due to being on the Pro Trader but these are part founded coupons which perform worse than if I run a sale myself. The advertising needs serious work btu again I've offered solutions and my time to talk to the marketing team but it falls on deaf ears.

As a few know my category is filled with 'private' business accounts, I've been reporting 10/15 a day, they will get to save around £600 in subscriptions and I've just checked my FVF for 3 months (they get 4) and its over £4000 so basically ebay are rewarding illegal traders with upto £5000 worth of rewards.

I know Dave is tagged and he does try his best but how anyone can think this is fair and not see it as a huge reward for criminal activity is beyond me, sadly eBay wont say a word. 

[vinylscot]

Of course, you didn't bother thinking that through before you posted, an allegation which seems to be what most on here are levelling at eBay.

Many genuine private sellers have large collections which they decide they no longer want. Totally unrelated to my business account, I have literally hundreds of football programmes, and as many books, magazines, toys, etc.

Under your silly suggestion, it would take me five years to list the football programmes  alone. These were collected from over forty years attending matches, and purchased individually, and I would be certain to die well before I managed to list everything, including my magazine collection etc.

Also many private sellers sell personal possessions to raise money for a specific reason, a holiday, a wedding, even to clear debt. Again, your restriction would limit me to, at most around £50 per month, and that's not going to help much towards any of these goals. Yes, I could find more valuable items to sell, but your proposal would kill off sales of individual items from large collections.

While I am annoyed that these sellers are receiving a substantial incentive just to "do the right thing", I reckon it will be worth it, in the long run, if it weeds out all the bogus private sellers. To do that, eBay need to make sure they have considered EVERY private account, and continue to monitor all new accounts in the future. There is no need to punish genuine private sellers.

[cobwebcottage]

Still got my £10 voucher to spend...  and it doesn't even cover the cost of 3 rolls of Ebay branded tape!!

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

You could sell them in groups.

What is your suggestion to deal with the situation ?

Do you genuinely think 1000 free listings a month is right ?

[dch2112011]

Just a thought but these football programs from the past 40 years, are you selling them for more than face value ?

If so is that not making a profit ? 

If you sell for a profit regularly are you an online trader ?

If you are selling them below face value then it can not be classed as trading and you have no worries and should not be asked to upgrade your account.

[sml192]

---

@pg_kicks wrote:

I was meaning eBay are worried about the backlash not HMRC, all eBay execs care about if figures so if people are closing accounts due to worries they are going to now be reported to HMRC this seems like a move from eBay to reward them to trade legally. 

---

If an unregistered business seller is worried about being reported to HMRC for not paying tax then I don't see how a short term incentive to trade legally is going to prevent them from closing their account.

Genuine private sellers are already selling legally so shouldn't have to do anything and this certainly isn't going to remove their worries of being reported to HMRC. 

[vinylscot]

I don't understand what your problem with 1,000 listings per month for genuine private sellers.

If you have a large collection, the way to raise most from it is usually (not always), to sell the items individually, but offer many items for sale at any one time, so that potential buyers may make multiple purchases. If (when) I decide to sell my football programmes I will probably list a hundred at a time, on FVF discount days, to maximise my return.

Selling in groups doesn't often work nearly as well. I would only do so to get rid of those which didn't sell when listed individually.

So I don't really think there is a situation which requires dealing with, as long as the bogus accounts are identified and re-categorised as business accounts where appropriate.

[vinylscot]

I realise you are just posting out of mischief.

Selling, something like a football programme, bought for 15p in the 1970s, and sold for £5.00 would not constitute a "profit", as re-selling was not the point of the initial purchase. It's the same with any collectible. Almost anything being sold in the collectible categories in 2024 would have cost less when originally purchased. But these items were not bought with the intention of re-selling, so would be considered purely private sales.

You've been on the boards a lot - you know this.

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

Not sure about that, a lot of antiques and collectables are sold at a loss against their original purchase price, I see it all the time.

[the_book_seekers]

Was not expecting this when I opened the boards today. While I'm not impressed with the freebies being offered, finally, finally some action from ebay. 

[ett1954]

You are perfectly correct in that eBay is not responsible to ensure due taxes are paid by sellers, however they have at the very least a moral responsibility to ensure that businesses are correctly registered to conform to UK law.

The encouragement, and the 'turning of a blind eye', and that is what it has been over the past years, allowing sellers to avoid conforming to the legal requirements as it has obviously been to eBay's advantage, illustrates clearly their priorities.  Whilst I am sure a large proportion of 'private' sellers submit their returns and pay their taxes, I am equally sure many do not, and eBay's 'laissez-faire' attitude to legal compliance only encourages this.  How many time on these boards have have we seen the comments "eBay told me I don't need to register as a business seller" used as the defence when a member clearly trading has been accused?  Why is there no protocol for reporting such sellers?

Why has eBay suddenly used this blunderbuss approach to sellers now?  Many have been trading in the same manner for years; many are genuine private sellers of their collections or inherited items and can justify their private registration.  As for rewarding those who have been non-compliant to become compliant; well that tells you everything.

As @4_bathrooms correctly pointed out they are beginning to see 'the writing on the wall' where their previous approach may result in consequences for their actions, or should I say, lack of actions as GPSR doesn't appear to apply to private sellers.  It wouldn't be the first global tech company to face financial penalties for such an attitude to national laws.

[pg_kicks]

Its more that eBay will (concierge basically admitted to me) have lost sellers due to it they dont want to lose anymore, so in fear of losing those who do report to HMRC but enjoy the benefits of illegally trading they are giving them rewards (or incentives as concierge calls them) to make sure they are complying and stick around.  

[the_book_seekers]

Why has eBay suddenly used this blunderbuss approach to sellers now?

Something has clearly changed otherwise ebay wouldn't be taking this action. I doubt we'll find out what's at the bottom of this unless ebay is dragged into a court somewhere.