Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team- 03.09.25 @2pm

[community-team@ebay]

Hi everybody!

The Community Chat will open at 2pm and will remain open until 3pm on Wednesday. After that it will be closed for further questions. Of course, we will continue to take care of answering any questions that may still be unanswered—We’ll get to everything as quickly as possible.

Please ask your questions in the thread below. In order to be able to answer your questions as quickly as possible, we ask you to have one question per post. Of course, you can make as many posts as you like in the Chat- the more the merrier!

Our eBay Community Team is made up of dave@ebay and marco@ebay . Between us, we have knowledge in Buying, Selling, Fulfilment, Payments, and the Community itself. Anything we aren’t sure on we’ll know the people who will be! Please ask us any questions you may have and we’ll do all we can to support. We understand that certain topics, such as concerns about businesses possibly using private accounts, can be frustrating and important to you. Please refrain from asking the same question repeatedly in our weekly live chats. We assure you that we carefully review all posts in the forum and ensure that your concerns are communicated to the relevant teams for appropriate action.
To maintain a constructive and community environment, posts that repeatedly breach this guideline may be removed. Continued violations could result in further action against your community account. We appreciate your cooperation and understanding in helping us keep our community focused and respectful.

To ask your question, click Reply in the lower-right corner of this post, type your question, and click Reply between 2pm and 3pm. The community team will answer each incoming question in chronological order and will quote the original question in each answer.

Please note that any reply without a question to the community team or discussion replies may be removed from the chat. We want to keep on track to get through as many questions as possible. We welcome all discussion to be moved to the discussion boards.

If you missed the weekly chat time, please ask your question in the community boards and tag us or we will be back next week with another chat!

Many thanks,

Your eBay Community Team

[jjambadger27]

What's the present situation with UK sellers shipping to the US via the Global Shipping Programme in terms of tariff collection? I presume buyers are being charged for the relevant fees? It would be good to know exactly how this is being handled before I open up sales to America again via the GSP.

[custom-giftsuk]

Hi, can you tell me if there is an issue between Royal Mail & eBay please, specifically tracking delivery?

In the last 2-3 weeks, we’ve had zero items marked as delivered despite having Click & Drop which automatically uploads the tracking number to eBay. 

I’ve spoken to eBay CS in regards this who state that there is no known issues and to just keep on as normal.

So far we’ve had buyers complaining the status on eBay doesn’t show the item even as dispatched, despite a RM tracking showing, we’ve had buyers opening cases against us when tracking shows the item as delivered (which is still showing as undispatched on eBay) and some of those buyers have actually escalated the cases to eBay and because the automatic system finds in their favour we’ve had to phone up eBay CS and have them reverse the case after they check on the RM website, which apparently eBay doesn’t do now. There are even a few outstanding cases where the item has been dispatched, delivered, photos taken of the delivery, the buyer opens a case as they see their item is undispatched knowing they have their item, and then admitting that they have their item, yet we cant close the case  because eBay’s automatic system would find in their favour because tracking shows the item as undispatched!

So is there a problem between Royal Mail & eBay?

[pegr-834437]

Hi,

Hope you are all well.

In last weeks chat which I shall post a link for below I replied to a answer that dave@ebay made, my comment was post 26 but for some reason it seems to have been missed by dave and the team as they have replied to others after I had submitted the question.

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Chat-with-the-eBay-Community/Weekly-Chat-with-the-eBay-Community-Tea...

I will also copy the question(s), sorry if I broke a rule but just wondering why it wasn't answered, if there is a reason and if I can please get an answer to the question. 

Thanks

Hi Dave, 

Are you saying the policy team (a human) checks each report or are some done by AI?

I know you cant really say much but as eBay is not a court of law they do not need to be 100% sure an account is a business, why are eBay siding with a possible account breaking the law over making sure every customer on eBay has the correct rights when buying on the site? 

The reporting system is not fit for purpose, I know you say we need to use 'Other' as an option but thats really not acceptable, if I buy from private accounts who are most likely businesses I'm paying for bpf which is pretty fraudulent as I get zero additional protection than if they were correctly registered.

[wellingnorth]

Last week there was an issue raised on a thread started by user porte2425 whereby a seller's full postcode is revealed on the "Contact seller" page if 'Click & Collect' is enabled.

In the course of the thread it also became apparent that a seller's full postcode is also revealed if they have normal in person collection enabled for an item (again on the contact seller page)

In both cases is this intentional or a bug?

Note that in both cases on the contact seller page you see the location as *city*,"null",*postcode* which suggests at least something may be going wrong. Another thing to note is when you set the item location on the listing page it does say 'Postcode not visible on listing' (even on a collection only item)

This is the full thread with screenshots.
https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Technical-Issues/Simple-Delivery-with-Click-amp-Collect-is-revealing...

[marco@ebay]

---

@jjambadger27 wrote:

What's the present situation with UK sellers shipping to the US via the Global Shipping Programme in terms of tariff collection? I presume buyers are being charged for the relevant fees? It would be good to know exactly how this is being handled before I open up sales to America again via the GSP.

---

Hi jjambadger27, thanks for your question.

Buyers remain responsible for duties and fees, if buyers fail to pay tariffs, associated fees, or provide the required information to carriers, they generally will not receive their item. However, eBay Money Back Guarantee does not apply when the buyer refuses to pay required import charges.

For further information, you can click here to see more about shipping to the US and tariffs. 

Thank you,

Marco

[pegr-834437]

I know you can only ask 1 question at a time so this weeks question and a new post would be can we please have a sticky thread on this forum for all of the issues that have been highlighted and awaiting a response, also to whom in the relevant department this has been passed to.

I ask this as in the below conversation Marco said he has passed info on and they themselves have seen there is an issue and he will report back as soon as it is resolved. This was nearly 3 months ago and it seems that the issue either hasnt been resolved or Marco has forgotten to report back, neither of these are really acceptable as either eBay dont care a major bug has been on the system for nearly 3 months or marco has just not got back to eBays customers, which I'm sure you can all agree if we did that to our customers eBay would eb giving us strikes, black marks and threatening the account.

The reason I ask as to who you pass this info onto is also important as many of us have spoken to managers within departments who really should have been passed info and they either play dumb and pretend not to have any idea of issues or they really dont have any idea, this was brought to attention when a member went to a large jewellery expo and was told by an eBay rep they didnt know of any drop in sales or issues on the site. So either the team you are passing info back to is not spreading the info or the team are not the correct one. I know you are in a difficult position but if there was a sticky thread when eBay customers (who pay thousands of pounds) go to events like the roadshow and open events we can go directly to the people you have spoken to and give first hand evidence of the issues, request updates and provide more help as clearly if an issue has been going on for nearly 3 months since it was passed back there is a big problem.

Sorry for the long question and I hope it can be answered, we just like you only want the best for the site but the failure to work with us is clearly making the site fail more, I think I can speak for many on here in that we are more than happy to provide evidence and information on issues but if its just passed to an unfaced member who does nothing its not really helping anyone.

[dave@ebay]

---

@custom-giftsuk wrote:

Hi, can you tell me if there is an issue between Royal Mail & eBay please, specifically tracking delivery?

In the last 2-3 weeks, we’ve had zero items marked as delivered despite having Click & Drop which automatically uploads the tracking number to eBay. 

I’ve spoken to eBay CS in regards this who state that there is no known issues and to just keep on as normal.

So far we’ve had buyers complaining the status on eBay doesn’t show the item even as dispatched, despite a RM tracking showing, we’ve had buyers opening cases against us when tracking shows the item as delivered (which is still showing as undispatched on eBay) and some of those buyers have actually escalated the cases to eBay and because the automatic system finds in their favour we’ve had to phone up eBay CS and have them reverse the case after they check on the RM website, which apparently eBay doesn’t do now. There are even a few outstanding cases where the item has been dispatched, delivered, photos taken of the delivery, the buyer opens a case as they see their item is undispatched knowing they have their item, and then admitting that they have their item, yet we cant close the case  because eBay’s automatic system would find in their favour because tracking shows the item as undispatched!

So is there a problem between Royal Mail & eBay?

---

Hi @custom-giftsuk 

I checked our open tech issues and we don't have anything open. Send me an item number for one of the cases and I'll ask one of the shipping guys to have a look at it.

Thanks,

Dave

[marco@ebay]

---

@wellingnorth wrote:

Last week there was an issue raised on a thread started by user porte2425 whereby a seller's full postcode is revealed on the "Contact seller" page if 'Click & Collect' is enabled.

In the course of the thread it also became apparent that a seller's full postcode is also revealed if they have normal in person collection enabled for an item (again on the contact seller page)

In both cases is this intentional or a bug?

Note that in both cases on the contact seller page you see the location as *city*,"null",*postcode* which suggests at least something may be going wrong. Another thing to note is when you set the item location on the listing page it does say 'Postcode not visible on listing' (even on a collection only item)

This is the full thread with screenshots.
https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Technical-Issues/Simple-Delivery-with-Click-amp-Collect-is-revealing...

---

Hi wellingnorth, thanks for your post.

I will look into the thread in question after the chat, and take it from there. Thanks for flagging that with us.

Thank you,

Marco

[tinksemporium]

Hello Dave and Marco,

As a seller I sell and ship via GSP to the USA. Do we increase out prices to reflect the new tariffs and thus pre-paying it for ease and will eBay be publishing a list of product of orgin tariff rates?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[wellingnorth]

Sorry, another question about Simple Delivery, I wanted to ask about the following message that appears in 'my messages':

"Your buyer has reached out about their order. Since you used Simple Delivery, we'll work with your buyer directly on any delivery related questions."

I am fairly sure that this text appears against any communication with a buyer after a Simple Delivery order has been placed, even if it is the seller who has messaged the buyer, and so where it says "Your buyer has reached out about their order" they actually probably have not.

Regarding the second part of the message "Since you used Simple Delivery, we'll work with your buyer directly on any delivery related questions." are ebay actually ever replying to buyers or not relaying their messages to sellers? If not then what does the message mean?

There's a thread here where you can see the confusion that is resulting
https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Seller-Central/Message-confusion/m-p/7920352#M754180

It would be great to get some clarity from the technical team who have implemented this on what exactly this message means and whether we can safely ignore it?

[reynardnoirrailwayana2015]

Hello,

As someone who sells frequently to the USA the tariffs situation is causing some issues. It would be good to get some real clarity from eBay on this.

It seems that the tariffs have to be paid up front by the sender, so as a seller we would need to collect this charge from the buyer so we can pay it at the time of sending. This is fine, but right now there does not seem to be a mechanism to do that - other than possibly using GSP, which is not ideal.

Additionally eBay rules state that:

"Buyers are responsible for paying import charges. If you offer international postage, you can't include these costs in the item's purchase and postage price. Make sure to let international buyers know about this in your listings."

So these two things seem at odds with one another.

Some additional questions -

Is GSP actually working in terms of collecting the tariffs? US buyers do not seem to think so.

As a temporary work around is it acceptable in the eyes of eBay to use increased postage costs to cover any tariffs until a proper system is in place?

(the rules seem to specifically prohibit this but if we get permission on this chat - then I plan to implement this today)

Will eBay eventually have a system in place for collecting tariffs for those not using GSP - if so what is the timescale?

Will the tariffs impact final value fees?

Finally what happens if the orange chap decides to change his mind on tariffs, increasing them or removing them when an item is already in transit?

[therealimacardie]

Hi

I have not sold 30 items ever nor sold for £1740 ever so why do I have to give NI number

[auctiongabble]

Hi Dave 

I messaged you last week and tagged you in a post and received no reply, please can this be answered?

Hi dave@ebay kat@ebay 

Dave, Having read your post about tariffs and to ensure we are opted in to global shipping as they will handle all custom documents, are there still restrictions in place for jewellery / precious metals with global shipping as there was before?

Your post and all associated links are written in the way that all will be handled by global shipping now however on global shipping section the long list of prohibited items still remains.

Thanks

[dave@ebay]

---

@pegr-834437 wrote:

Hi,

Hope you are all well.

In last weeks chat which I shall post a link for below I replied to a answer that dave@ebay made, my comment was post 26 but for some reason it seems to have been missed by dave and the team as they have replied to others after I had submitted the question.

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Chat-with-the-eBay-Community/Weekly-Chat-with-the-eBay-Community-Tea...

I will also copy the question(s), sorry if I broke a rule but just wondering why it wasn't answered, if there is a reason and if I can please get an answer to the question. 

Thanks

Hi Dave, 

Are you saying the policy team (a human) checks each report or are some done by AI?

I know you cant really say much but as eBay is not a court of law they do not need to be 100% sure an account is a business, why are eBay siding with a possible account breaking the law over making sure every customer on eBay has the correct rights when buying on the site? 

The reporting system is not fit for purpose, I know you say we need to use 'Other' as an option but thats really not acceptable, if I buy from private accounts who are most likely businesses I'm paying for bpf which is pretty fraudulent as I get zero additional protection than if they were correctly registered.

---

Hi @pegr-834437 

Apologies, I must have missed that last week. 

It can be either, it depends on the type of report and how it is routed. I don't have the details of how these are routed though, that is handled by Customer Support.

I understand you are unhappy with how the system is set up but at the moment the other option is the best way to report the issue. We have asked that there be an option specifically for but as Im sure you can appreciate, with a site this big even a small change can be a massive task to implement. We have spoken to members of the policy team about this and they are aware of the sentiment around it but as it stands, I have no way of saying if or when this could be changed.

Thanks,

Dave

[marco@ebay]

---

@pegr-834437 wrote:

I know you can only ask 1 question at a time so this weeks question and a new post would be can we please have a sticky thread on this forum for all of the issues that have been highlighted and awaiting a response, also to whom in the relevant department this has been passed to.

I ask this as in the below conversation Marco said he has passed info on and they themselves have seen there is an issue and he will report back as soon as it is resolved. This was nearly 3 months ago and it seems that the issue either hasnt been resolved or Marco has forgotten to report back, neither of these are really acceptable as either eBay dont care a major bug has been on the system for nearly 3 months or marco has just not got back to eBays customers, which I'm sure you can all agree if we did that to our customers eBay would eb giving us strikes, black marks and threatening the account.

The reason I ask as to who you pass this info onto is also important as many of us have spoken to managers within departments who really should have been passed info and they either play dumb and pretend not to have any idea of issues or they really dont have any idea, this was brought to attention when a member went to a large jewellery expo and was told by an eBay rep they didnt know of any drop in sales or issues on the site. So either the team you are passing info back to is not spreading the info or the team are not the correct one. I know you are in a difficult position but if there was a sticky thread when eBay customers (who pay thousands of pounds) go to events like the roadshow and open events we can go directly to the people you have spoken to and give first hand evidence of the issues, request updates and provide more help as clearly if an issue has been going on for nearly 3 months since it was passed back there is a big problem.

Sorry for the long question and I hope it can be answered, we just like you only want the best for the site but the failure to work with us is clearly making the site fail more, I think I can speak for many on here in that we are more than happy to provide evidence and information on issues but if its just passed to an unfaced member who does nothing its not really helping anyone.

---

Hi pegr-834437, thanks for your post.

Yes, this has been asked before, but unfortunately, for different reasons we wouldn't be able to do this from our end. 

Regarding the thread you're referring to, I'm afraid I haven't had any more relevant updates, which is why I haven't gone back to the thread in question.

Also, I can guarantee you that we are always passing on your feedback, no matter what the topic is or how negative or positive the feedback might be, we always pass it on. However, we wouldn't be able to let you know who receives all our feedback as that is internal information.

Thank you,

Marco 

[custom-giftsuk]

Thanks Dave for the reply. I have sent a PM to you explaining the situation as well as a screenshot of one particular case but we've not had automatic feedback for any item delivered in the last several days. 

[auctiongabble]

Hi Dave & Kate

A different subject that i tagged you both into a post and received no reply

Hi All,

As previously posted i mentioned i would be visiting a jewellery show in London and will be talking to the ebay authentication team at the show, well i was able to do that today and this was how it went.

Being asked how my sales are:

Telling the ebay rep that my sales are down 80% and im not the only one as many are experiencing the same since Feb, do you happen to read the members forum?

Her reply, oh someone else mentioned about poor sales but it was news to her and she doesn't and not many ebay personel read these forums.

She mentioned the usual: are you ensuring titles are good, photos are good and using many photos, all item specifics are completed and ensuring main keywords in first 4 words of title.  There was ntohing that could be advised other than promotions! She saw nothing wrong that paying 14.9% fees and ebays recomended ad fee of 12% would leave very little profit.  Also the in balance between private sellers paying no fees and getting 300 free listings per month compared to business sellers having to pay £25 plus VAT for shop to get 250 free listings.

I raised the point, business sellers selling in jewellery catergory are paying 14.9% in fees if above standard rating, what are we getting for that? Her response 'A platform', as with all businesses costs have gone up and ebay is a business to make profit!

To which i commented, a platform that has glitches from 1 wk to the next, Support that is no good (unless you get through to dublin), a platform that is loosing business sellers because ebay panicked about V****d and went about it all wrong.  Ebay as a platform worked well about 4 years ago, Since the new ceo came on board was the turning point and start of the decline on here.

Atleast 2 years ago i raised a number of improvements to authentication on how to better provide detail reports to sellers when items fail.  All i got was 'Yeah things are slow to be implemented within authentication for improvements'

She took no notes down throughout the entire conversation and i have missed some parts out.

To summarise, ebay see no issues and all that is important to them is their profit margin at the cost of damaging business sellers and loosing business sellers.

dave@ebay 

I messaged you and tagged you in a post regarding what you wrote about Global shipping 

Ebay authentication at the show were unaware that jewellery and precious metals are prohibited items with global shipping.... this is your own partned international courier service that you provide!

Can i have a reply by Wednesday?

kat@ebay 

I have raised many if not all the points above in weekly chat and i am told feedback will go the the relevant departments.  My feedback and advice to the authentication team 2 years ago was to a team leader within that department.  Meeting with the ebay authentication team today clearly shows that nothing is dealt and yet we get told 'it will be passed as feedback'.

My suggestion is that a senior manager within ebay who deals with 'feedback' is invited to participate in the weekly chats or have them contact me directly to discuss in more detail.

Please do not tell me to contact support regarding this matter as it is beyond their level

[jjambadger27]

Seeing that the buyer pays the tariff costs in advance of the item being shipped via the GSP hub, this then means that if they refuse to pay, the transaction is cancelled and the seller isn't out of pocket then?

There's also been conjecture over whether tariffs need to be paid for CDs & vinyl, seeing as certain items such as books, CDs, vinyl, DVDs, BluRays, cassettes, posters and photographs are classified as “informational materials” under 50 U.S.C. § 1702(b) - is this being adhered to by eBay/Pitney Bowes? 

[pegr-834437]

Thanks for the reply.

The issue with this is the 'other' option was highlighted as such a pointless and ineffective option in the old system, a system that everyone at eBay trumpeted saying how great ti was but the new system will be so much better but all you's (as in eBay) have done is changed the design but not the option. If eBay really took the issue seriously it could have been a change in either of the new update which seems to have been out for months now or any time since that date. The failure to either add business trading on a private account in the update or any point since then shows just how little you (eBay) care.

Also can you please answer the part on why eBay would rather stand with an account breaking the law then standing with customers and users getting their full consumer rights, this I'm sure you will understand is a very strange approach for a private business to take when they do not need to be 100% sure of anything apart from upholding UK law.