Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team- 05.02.25 @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 kat@ebay, marco@ebay and dave@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

[darth_baggins]

Can you explain why with the latest change to sold item emails, the quantity sold is no longer shown, nor is the quantity remaining? If someone buys more than one item, all that's shown is how much they paid, not how many they've purchased.

Is this a glitch or intentional? Because if it's intentional, it's very bad.

[ak_craft_crazy]

Hi,

I have a question about a recent transaction where we were charged £4.39 for a Promoted Listings - General fee. However, the listing in question is not part of any promoted listings that I am aware of, so unless you have automatically included it in some sort of ad without my knowledge there should be no ad fees on this item.

The only reason I noticed this one is because a customer asked for a longer length of ribbon on another listing. I then sent them the direct link to this listing, which I have confirmed they clicked on and purchased straight away.

This does not constitute any form of advertising from yourself and should not be included any form of ad. This has happened before, and I raised the issue with customer service who refunded immediately and apologised as they were unsure why it was charged as an ad.

Now I am really concerned that this has now happened on 2 occasions we are aware of but how many times has this happened without us knowing and how many other sellers has this happened too?

It is completely wrong to charge an Ad fee when no ad has even been clicked on, it was a direct link that I sent to the customer.

Please can this be investigated?

[direct.gifts]

How long does it take for feedback to be removed when seller protections are in place due to the Weather?

Whilst I was not in an impacted area I had an order sent to an impacted are which arrived late, does this count for seller protection?

I had 3 set of Netural feedback from them same customer due to a Royal Mail delay but it was in the North West of England which was badly impacted by Snow.

It is not desperate to be removed as it has fallen way down my feedback list now but I thought it would have been removed with the announced seller protection in place.

[cobwebcottage]

Can I please ask why Ebay thought it was not necessary to inform 1000's of mobile users that the app would no longer be compatible on some phones?

Did they not think this would not have an impact on us?

What about buyers who. all of a sudden, cannot see the site? This will have an impact on every seller.

Feeling very under valued as a small business seller paying Ebay a good percentage of fees to use the site.

[sweetcharity.2013]

Last week 29.1.25 I questioned as to why I had been charged VAT on postage, for which Marco directed me to an ebay page for explanation & advised that the VAT was correctly applied to the whole purchase on a UK to UK sale.

Upon checking further I see that the in sellers completed listings my purchase states that the postage was £3.49, however the actual listing states postage at £2.91. On a further item I purchased the listing states postage at £2.29 but in the sellers completed listings at £2.75 – which is what I was charged - (£2.29 + 20%VAT 46p = £2.75)

QUESTION: If VAT was applied to the whole transaction as previously advised (at some weird %) why is the sold item updated to show that the postage is £3.49 (£2.91 +20% VAT of 58p = £3.49)?

NOTE: The seller has relisted some unsold items (same category, same condition) & the postage is now showing at the prices I paid including VAT eg £2.75

[sweetcharity.2013]

Further to my question above –

QUESTION #2 As I was not charge VAT correctly. Eg not advised beforehand that VAT was applicable am I in line for a refund? 58p + 46p = £1.04 ? 😉

[dave@ebay]

---

@ak_craft_crazy wrote:

Hi,

I have a question about a recent transaction where we were charged £4.39 for a Promoted Listings - General fee. However, the listing in question is not part of any promoted listings that I am aware of, so unless you have automatically included it in some sort of ad without my knowledge there should be no ad fees on this item.

The only reason I noticed this one is because a customer asked for a longer length of ribbon on another listing. I then sent them the direct link to this listing, which I have confirmed they clicked on and purchased straight away.

This does not constitute any form of advertising from yourself and should not be included any form of ad. This has happened before, and I raised the issue with customer service who refunded immediately and apologised as they were unsure why it was charged as an ad.

Now I am really concerned that this has now happened on 2 occasions we are aware of but how many times has this happened without us knowing and how many other sellers has this happened too?

It is completely wrong to charge an Ad fee when no ad has even been clicked on, it was a direct link that I sent to the customer.

Please can this be investigated?

---

Hi @ak_craft_crazy 

If you want to PM me the item number I'll have a look to see what the charge was from. 

Thanks,

Dave

[tpogodin]

The new buyer fee for private sellers was supposed to be introduced, starting with electronics, on the 4th Feb but as yet does not appear to be active anywhere on the site. Can you explain why this is and when it's actually coming into force?

[kat@ebay]

---

@darth_baggins wrote:

Can you explain why with the latest change to sold item emails, the quantity sold is no longer shown, nor is the quantity remaining? If someone buys more than one item, all that's shown is how much they paid, not how many they've purchased.

Is this a glitch or intentional? Because if it's intentional, it's very bad.

---

Hi @darth_baggins ,

Can you let me know when you first noticed the change in the sold email and I will follow that up?

Thank you,

Kat

[marco@ebay]

---

@direct.gifts wrote:

How long does it take for feedback to be removed when seller protections are in place due to the Weather?

Whilst I was not in an impacted area I had an order sent to an impacted are which arrived late, does this count for seller protection?

I had 3 set of Netural feedback from them same customer due to a Royal Mail delay but it was in the North West of England which was badly impacted by Snow.

It is not desperate to be removed as it has fallen way down my feedback list now but I thought it would have been removed with the announced seller protection in place.

---

Hi direct.gifts, thanks for your question.

It normally takes 24-72 hours for feedback to be removed since the moment they are actioned. If other defects or feedback have been removed, but those ones haven't, I'd recommend contacting customer service, so they can review those for you manually.

Thank you,

Marco

[auctiongabble]

I noticed the ebay app no longer working on certain mobiles too, a simple message being sent by ebay to its 'USERS' would have been the considerate thing to do and wouldn't exactly be too difficult for ebay to do.

Ebay really are not getting much right at the moment, are they...

So what is the minimum android version that the ebay app will now work with?

[kat@ebay]

---

@tpogodin wrote:

The new buyer fee for private sellers was supposed to be introduced, starting with electronics, on the 4th Feb but as yet does not appear to be active anywhere on the site. Can you explain why this is and when it's actually coming into force?

---

Hi @tpogodin ,

It is currently being updated into the system and will be rolled out starting with the electronics category. We don't have an exact time as it will be on a gradual basis.

Thank you,

Kat

[marco@ebay]

---

@sweetcharity.2013 wrote:

Last week 29.1.25 I questioned as to why I had been charged VAT on postage, for which Marco directed me to an ebay page for explanation & advised that the VAT was correctly applied to the whole purchase on a UK to UK sale.

Upon checking further I see that the in sellers completed listings my purchase states that the postage was £3.49, however the actual listing states postage at £2.91. On a further item I purchased the listing states postage at £2.29 but in the sellers completed listings at £2.75 – which is what I was charged - (£2.29 + 20%VAT 46p = £2.75)

QUESTION: If VAT was applied to the whole transaction as previously advised (at some weird %) why is the sold item updated to show that the postage is £3.49 (£2.91 +20% VAT of 58p = £3.49)?

NOTE: The seller has relisted some unsold items (same category, same condition) & the postage is now showing at the prices I paid including VAT eg £2.75

---

Hi sweetcharity.2013, thanks for your question.

Yes, as advised before, the VAT is added to the transaction in general, not postage only. On the link I provided with you before you can see why VAT applies to purchases. For further VAT questions, you can contact a local tax experts, as we are unable to provide further details on it since we are not tax professionals. 

Thank you,

Marco

[darth_baggins]

I don't know exactly, some time last week, but I've seen others mention it on the other boards.

[kat@ebay]

---

@darth_baggins wrote:

I don't know exactly, some time last week, but I've seen others mention it on the other boards.

---

Hi @darth_baggins ,

I will get some clarification on this being a change. As soon as I have an update I will post back.

Thank you,

Kat

[dave@ebay]

---

@cobwebcottage wrote:

Can I please ask why Ebay thought it was not necessary to inform 1000's of mobile users that the app would no longer be compatible on some phones?

Did they not think this would not have an impact on us?

What about buyers who. all of a sudden, cannot see the site? This will have an impact on every seller.

Feeling very under valued as a small business seller paying Ebay a good percentage of fees to use the site.

---

Hi @cobwebcottage 

We need to keep the App up to date to support the latest security and patch updates to keep the site as safe as possible for all users. Unfortunately, this can sometimes mean older operating systems to not support the most current versions of the App.

I understand that some brands no longer offer updates to their older phones. In these cases the site should work through the mobile browser. 

Thanks,

Dave

[marco@ebay]

---

@auctiongabble wrote:

I noticed the ebay app no longer working on certain mobiles too, a simple message being sent by ebay to its 'USERS' would have been the considerate thing to do and wouldn't exactly be too difficult for ebay to do.

Ebay really are not getting much right at the moment, are they...

So what is the minimum android version that the ebay app will now work with?

---

Hi auctiongabble, thanks for your question.

There is an AB post announcing this in the Community home page, where you can also see the minimum requirement for Android and iOS versions that support the eBay app.

Thank you,

Marco

[wintersdawn1]

Hi, has the new change of delayed payments after private sellers make a sale been implemented yet?  Thank you.

[a45heaven]

It is currently being updated into the system and will be rolled out starting with the electronics category. We don't have an exact time as it will be on a gradual basis.

Will the time scale allow for auction or scheduled items? Scheduling may be 26 days ahead of going live - should seller stop scheduling items now as a precaution?