Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team- 14.08.24 @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. 

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

[dave@ebay]

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@pg_kicks wrote:

Hope all of you are well over the last few weeks.

As highlighted in the thread below

Tech support says :messages to upgrade from a priv... - Page 2 - UK eBay Community

It seems eBay are starting to crack down on incorrectly registered accounts, are you able to ask managers why accounts who they believe have been breaking the law are now being rewarded with free subscriptions, free selling and free 1 to 1 help for complying with the law of the UK whilst it seems accounts who are 100% compliant have been given nothing? This is rewarding criminal activity and surely eBay wouldnt want to be seen as doing that?

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Hi @pg_kicks 

We are in no way rewarding criminal activities. It can happen that some private sellers could go over the threshold without realising. We are offering support to these accounts to help them grow as a business as they may not be fully aware of how to trade commercially.

Thanks,

Dave

[marco@ebay]

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@lincolnshiremarine wrote:

Dear Marco

It did not even got as far as ebay staff looking at it, that is my point.  As soon as we asked for a removal with our reasons, it said that this has been submitted to the buyer.  The buyer refused to remove it.

A ebay staff member has not looked at it.

Please advise

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Thanks for your reply, lincolnshiremarine. 

It sounds like you sent your buyer a feedback revision form then rather than submitting your feedback for removal to us. If that's what you did, the revision form is sent to the buyer directly, and then they can decide whether they want to remove it or not. eBay staff wouldn't check those. Did you send a feedback revision form to your buyer by any chance?

Thank you,

Marco

[krafty-kreations]

Hi

Most of what I sell is personalised, Just lately I find I am having to chase buyers for the personalisation as they haven't added it, One I wanted to cancel as I was getting no response to messages and I cannot send without those details and realised there isn't a cancellation reason that would fit. 

Luckily the buyer did respond but could you maybe find out if it would be possible for a valid reason such as personalisation details not provided as a reason to cancel be added? 

Thanks

[marco@ebay]

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@technthread wrote:

I sent a buyer an offer yesterday which they countered and I accepted.

I didn't get the usual sale notification and noticed that it went back to them like a counter offer for the same price and the item is still live as they haven't paid.

Is this a change to the offer system so no buyer can have an unpaid buy it now item?  I don't mind it but I am confused by it as I haven't seen any announcement that this will now happen.

As the buyer hasn't paid I am wondering how this acceptance appeared to them at their end. Do ebay tell them I accepted or do they present it as a counter offer? My buyer might think I was being fly here and seems to have pulled out from buying so I am just curious. Thanks 

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Hi technthread, thanks for your question.

It looks like this could be a recent change, but I will double check this for you, and provide you with an update as soon as we get further information on this. Thanks for flagging it with us.

Marco

[kat@ebay]

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@username3_3 wrote:

Hello eBay Community,

I may be bringing up a previous known issue but I have tried to resolve myself with no joy.  The subject is the Nectar bonus points from 2nd April 2024 to 30th April 2024. To qualify for 500, 1000 or 1500 Nectar Points 3, 4 or 5 purchases over £10 were to be made on the eBay app.  I made the 5 £10 purchases on the app and my eBay statement clearly shows the 5 purchases qualified with a heading in green stating BONUS POINTS. It would not show this unless the 5 purchases qualified.

I tried Nectar customer service who said eBay are responsible and there message is the purchases did not qualify. This does not make sense, so I tried eBay CS, who said something similar but are reluctant to explain why BONUS POINTS (qualified) are clearly stated on my eBay statement. I can not understand why they are refusing to acknowledge the system error. I can only think they do not have the necessary tools to see or there is another reason they are not acknowledging the BONUS POINTS.

Since this, I discovered eBay Community and found out the April Nectar points bonus was a common error amongst customers. So, I was hoping someone would have another look at my case and explain why I have not received 1,500 points bonus with Nectar, as it clearly shows in the eBay statement.

My eBay statement showing the purchases that qualified, attached.

Hoping, Chris

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Hi @username3_3 ,

Thank you for reaching out regarding the April Nectar and providing the April statement. I will need to follow up offline to have this looked into further. I will update you as soon as I have more information.

Thank you,

Kat

[dave@ebay]

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@abradley001 wrote:

I'm fine with ebay reporting it to HMRC. Thats not the issue. HMRC are ok with it.  My issue is that I'm being told by ebay to register as a business or my account will be limited on the 4th Sept.  HMRC say I dont need to. 

I didn't even get to make an appeal, I was just told it was denied. So who can I speak to? Are the Ebay to member team in Ireland still a thing, and if so how do I get in touch?  

Thanks

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Hi @abradley001 

Depending on the time of day and your query you call will be routed to the team best suited to resolve the issue. There is no way to call through to a specific region or call centre. 

The team that you spoke to were most likely the team who handle the appeals for this issue. 

Thanks,

Dave

[pg_kicks]

Hi Dave,

Hope you are well.

What threshold would that be as under UK law there is no threshold for being a business or not, you are are or not? 

This to me looks like eBay are worried people who are breaking UK consumer law will leave so eBay are rewarding them whilst anyone who has been trading legally for years are not getting anything. You say to help them grow as a business, but if they were not registered as a business then they were trading illegally so shouldnt be given help to grow, otherwise that by definition is rewarding illegal activity. lack of knowledge on their part is no defence for trading illegally on a private account.

[sweetcharity.2013]

marco@ebay

Unfortunately my technical ability doesn't stretch as far as screenshots 😞

Additional site navigation

[sweetcharity.2013]

kat@ebay

Thanks. It wasn't a payment reminder as such. It definitely stated along the lines 'it's not yours until you pay for it'

[bojangled]

dave@ebay 

With all due respect to your comment, can you see how legally trading business sellers see this discount and bonus? 
With many regulars bringing the private seller/business seller issue up frequently being told to report it and then learn of a large fee discount to said sellers upon upgrade.

It really is a kick in the teeth.

Jo

[lincolnshiremarine]

Good afternoon

Apologies Marco

This may of been what has happened, but I cannot be certain.

I will look at this.

Best wishes 

[kat@ebay]

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@krafty-kreations wrote:

Hi

Most of what I sell is personalised, Just lately I find I am having to chase buyers for the personalisation as they haven't added it, One I wanted to cancel as I was getting no response to messages and I cannot send without those details and realised there isn't a cancellation reason that would fit. 

Luckily the buyer did respond but could you maybe find out if it would be possible for a valid reason such as personalisation details not provided as a reason to cancel be added? 

Thanks

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Hi @krafty-kreations ,

This is a good point regarding cancelling orders for personalisation items.  While there is no plans to change or add to the current list of reasons I will share your feedback for a possible future addition.

Thank you,

Kat

[thesalmongroup]

We have been unable to log into our account for about 3 weeks because the verification process is broken. We get as far as typing our username and password then it says it will send a text verification which never arrives.

[marco@ebay]

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@sweetcharity.2013 wrote:

marco@ebay

Unfortunately my technical ability doesn't stretch as far as screenshots 😞

Additional site navigation

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Thanks for your reply, sweetcharity.2013. 

Is it because you don't know how to take a screenshot, or is it because you wouldn't know how to upload the screenshot here? Let me know, and if I can, I will be happy to guide you.

Thank you,

Marco

[abradley001]

It looks another community member has been told by tech support that the upgrade to business account emails have been sent out in error to many many private sellers.

So know I dont know if I'm relieved or angry.

[kat@ebay]

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@sweetcharity.2013 wrote:

kat@ebay

Thanks. It wasn't a payment reminder as such. It definitely stated along the lines 'it's not yours until you pay for it'

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Hi @sweetcharity.2013 ,

No worries , if you happen to have a live example where your seeing it before payment is made send me on the item number. 

Thank you,

Kat

[krafty-kreations]

Hi Dave 

In reply to this .... We are in no way rewarding criminal activities. It can happen that some private sellers could go over the threshold without realising. We are offering support to these accounts to help them grow as a business as they may not be fully aware of how to trade commercially.

I cannot remember the last time I was offered any support on my business account by eBay, Many businesses using private accounts have been doing it for years and have grown quite nicely with the 1000 free listings they have, Shouldn't we be in line for a special offer? 

[thesalmongroup]

I called eBay support twice about this and they said it was a tecnical issue but it still hasn't been resolved. Just remove the 2-step verification process! If you cannot send SMS messages, stop using that verification method. 

[marco@ebay]

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@lincolnshiremarine wrote:

Good afternoon

Apologies Marco

This may of been what has happened, but I cannot be certain.

I will look at this.

Best wishes 

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Thanks for your reply, lincolnshiremarine.

Yes, it sounds like that was it, but feel free to take a closer look, and if it was something else, let me know and I'll take a further look for you no problem. 👍

Thank you,

Marco

[krafty-kreations]

Thank you 🙂