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.

[krafty-kreations]

Is this a joke

Free shops and no fees to register correctly, yet not one incentive for business sellers who have been registerd correctly for years!! 

SMH

[notstopbuying]

Call at 8am in the morning, you are more likely to speak with someone at ebay Ireland, they tend to offer the most reliable advice. 

[simplygifts2014]

Geez another kick where it hurts by ebay to be rewarding private sellers for not originally complying. So now my "Private" competitors get an upgrade of £92 a month & no fees for 6 months in the run up to the busiest time of year, yet correctly registered business get nothing again! 

[notstopbuying]

Worse case, if it turns to be, that sellers need to upgrade to a business account, at least you will have 3 or so months of the busiest part of year, totally fee free and a nice featured ebay shop too.... Not ideal, but IMHO I'd rather remain as a private seller. 

[kempseykate]

Well, I haven't had the email  ... yet! But if I do, and get offered those benefits, I will simply upgrade (even though I'm not a business), take advantage of the offer, work like mad until the end of the year to get rid of as much stuff as possible- then close the account and charity shop/FB MP anything that's left. 

[abradley001]

Idont want a shop though. I'm not running a business, just moving on my stuff while I've still got the mobility to do so.  

If its not a mistake and my account is limited, I still wont  falsely register as a business.  I'll probaly be so upset that I'll just not use ebay any more to buy or sell. The undoubtably harsh looking account limited notices would take the joy from using the site, especially as I haven't done anything to deserve it. 

20 years ago I got the intenet from a CD ROM,  created my account here so I could buy a games workshop miniature I'd missed that was only at store openings.  I still havent painted him.🙄

[notstopbuying]

As mentioned, it might be worth another phone call, perhaps tomorrow, ideally at around 8am, as you would more than likely to speak to someone from the team in Ireland, I was put through to seller support and they pretty much straight away said it was a glitch an error that the messages where sent out, one other person I chatted with today, totally unrelated to me, said they had the same chat and they got the "its a tech error" emails should not of gone out.....so with you calling yesterday, perhaps the customer services where not on board with the potential error/glitch, but maybe try again tomorrow, but Dave on this post, who is from eBay, says it is not a glitch.....no disrepect to Dave etc, but I am sure we have all had one ebay customer support tell us one thing, but then to be told another thing, then another thing...but I know what I was told this morning, I barely even had to mention it, boom, the customer services person said they know about it and yeah its a glitch.....that customer services person might be wrong.....but why are sellers with very few feedback, sold 1 item, having the same upgrade to a business account message??

The waters are quite muddy right now, time will tell though.

[dch2112011]

Maybe the email should not have been sent out - until tomorrow ! 

The criteria is possibly to do with total listing value  and or quantity sold or listed - not necessarily the actual sales value or number of items sold but the potential future sales and value based on the listing values - it could be to bring it into line with HMRC trading criteria ?

[abradley001]

Thing is though,  if you are selling on your own stuff that wasn't bought to sell or made to sell, HMRC own website tool confirms its not trading as a business. You are allowed to sell off every item in your house if you needed to,  and it would still be ok with HMRC if you didnt buy or make the items just to sell on for profit.  Its just your old stuff.

HMRC have to be notifed by ebay if you go over the 30 items or £1700ish value, but it doesn't mean you are due to pay tax or register as a business.  Its all about what you sell and why, but Ebay does not seem to even consider that,  if the emails are legit. It may be a blanket response because they wont have the resourse to look at every case.

I'm hoping it really is a glitch though as trying to speak to Customer services about this is just an aggrivating waste of time. The CS phone person doesn't really care about your problem, they just want  you off the phone.

[4_bathrooms]

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@kempseykate wrote:

Well, I haven't had the email  ... yet! But if I do, and get offered those benefits, I will simply upgrade (even though I'm not a business), take advantage of the offer, work like mad until the end of the year to get rid of as much stuff as possible- then close the account and charity shop/FB MP anything that's left. 

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The problem being eBay will likely report to HMRC that you sold x number of items for y amount whilst identifying yourself to be a business. If the total value of those sales was over £1,000 (including postage) you might very well receive an invitation from HMRC to either complete a self-assessment or explain how the whole "Registered as a business seller" thing was a mistake.     

[pg_kicks]

As eBay dont allow you to move back to a private account once you have transferred I would wager a lot will explain that they were strong armed into moving to a business account but are not actually a business but did not wish to lose their account. It might get a little harder to explain if you have had £50k worth of sales or sold 3k items in the year but if you are a genuine private seller it would be obvious for most people looking in.

The whole thing looks badly thought out and a PR disaster, rewarded for law breaking, what a mess. Cant wait to hear the usual at the Open Event, small business sellers are the backbone of eBay and we are so thankful for your loyalty.

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

This is typical Ebay, no nuance to the process.

There were simple ways of dealing with this, an example could have been to cap private sellers to 10 new listings a month and no more than 30 listings at any given time.

At the moment private sellers get 1000 free listings a month, we seem to be going from one end of the scale to the other.

The decision making is baffling.

[pg_kicks]

Your option would be simple but really they could have done what they have done without the rewards for trading illegally or as eBay concierge call them incentives but have an appeals process which is staffed by UK based agents with even a basic knowledge of consumer law.

They will have historical date for all accounts so if somebody has appealed and they have 3k listings but claim its due to a family member dying or giving up on a hobby then you say sure but we are only allowing 10 new listings a day as we have looked and you have only had a recent spike in listings, but if somebody says that and have had 3k listings for 5 years and constant new listings then they are rejected and forced to update or the account is closed. 

You could have gave them 6 months to move or appeal so all appeals had time to be judged, the extra staff needed would have paid for themselves with the extra fees or just not giving illegal traders thousands of pounds worth of freebies. 

I've said it before but the people who run eBay have never used the site and certainly never sold on it, its so obvious as they are doing their best to make it as bad as possible.

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

10 new listings a day could end up with 3650 listings in a year !

[pg_kicks]

Sorry no idea why I said a day, i was meaning a month, basically back down to just standard general public getting rid of a few items they no longer need. I cant even be bothered to list 5 a day never mind 10 so no idea why I said 10 a day for a private account.

[british-ceramics-and-paintings]

The existing 1000 free listings a month for private sellers works out at 33 listings a day every day of the year !  

You do have to ask who came up with that and why has it been in place for so long. Mind boggling. 

[pg_kicks]

100% done as eBay knew accounts were trading illegally but it brought traffic to the site, they are now worried due to possible backlash from the HMRC change and the EU labelling change that they will lose accounts and in turn look bad to whoever is above them so have decided to reward those who were trading illegally. Classic case of only looking at certain figures and never going into those figures, ask anyone who has sold on eBay for 5 years and we could all tell you the issues, none of those have been fixed.

[4_bathrooms]

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@pg_kicks wrote:

they are now worried due to possible backlash from the HMRC change and the EU labelling change that they will lose accounts

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HMRC don't give a hoot what type of eBay account a person is operating as long as they are paying the tax due on their income. Besides, HMRC already knew what everyone was earning from eBay anyway; the OECD reporting requirements were likely more of a nuisance to them than anything else as they were simply being told what they already knew.

However, the EU can hold eBay liable for any non-compliant products that enter the EU/EEA/NI market and the blind eye eBay was turning to such sellers clearly created a loophole that could be exploited by business sellers masquerading as private sellers. I'm guessing the EU Commission was none too pleased about it. 

[ett1954]

@pg_kicks  "100% done as eBay knew accounts were trading illegally but it brought traffic to the site, they are now worried due to possible backlash from the HMRC change.........."

This bit I agree with, however I am wondering if they have been hearing some of the 'stories' I am hearing that there has been a big increase in the number of business sellers approaching their MPs complaining about the unfair competition afforded by certain digital platforms to people trading illegally and highlighting the tax revenue being lost, resulting in HMRC being asked to look at ways of making such platforms culpable and financially liable in certain cases.

Some of these 'private' sellers have been at it for years and the fee structure has certainly encouraged it, and with this new offer continues to do so by rewarding this past infringement of UK consumer law by non-enforcement of their own rules.

I suspect this is being rushed through without due consideration, or any respect to business sellers who have been legally compliant, in order to attempt to cover their backs with HMRC next year.  There could be some embarrassing questions to be answered by some platforms (not just eBay) next year when HMRC have the data in their laps; especially as they can go back and request further information for up to six years, or even 20 years in certain situations.

[sml192]

HMRC are only concerned with the payment of taxes and not whether a seller is trading legally or not, they are 2 separate things.  It is up to the individual seller to ensure that they are paying the correct tax, eBay has no responsibility in that regard.