💬 Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team- 20.07.22 @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 , dave@ebay  and katie@ebay . Between us, we have knowledge in Buying, Selling, ProTrader, Fulfilment, Parts & Accessories, 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. 

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

[calibreautopartsdirect]

HI Kat, Dave, Katie,

even you must accept that your script about Ebay receiving information from HMRC about being non-compliant is just some attempt to deflect from the issue.

This is the response I received from Ebay for Business UK via Facebook:

We are listening to you, Peter. Our teams are working on the issue, as we understand the scale of the matter. Our IT teams are aware of the issue and hope to have it resolved as soon as possible. From there, we'll know more about what actions can be taken.

That doesn't sound like: HMRC informed us that you are not compliant.

Please give honest answers.

How many sellers were affected?

How is Ebay going to support those sellers?

[red-damore]

Please answer poster questions specifically.

Why are you giving a totally inadequate canned repose?

your communication concerning the VAT debacle was absolutely inadequate given the gravity of it.

Why was your communication so poor?

Why weren't warnings given?

Were eBay sellers considered in the way you communicated the information?

Why wasn't something as simple as a warning pop-up used?

[pixiesen2012]

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katie@ebay wrote:

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Sellers were contacted via email in June and were notified of 30 days to update valid VAT info in order to keep selling on site.

Many thanks,

Katie 

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and when they contacted ebay they were told their details were correct and the message was a glitch

they also checked their accounts and the details were correct

this is an ebay problem and needs to be sorted out,

[kat@ebay]

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@mteconlineshop wrote:

I like many others had over 3800 listings removed due to the VAT **bleep**, cost alot to re put all the listings back up and now sales have dropped, been trading on here since 2009 but i feel eBay are pushing sellers like us away, no responce from them regarding it

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Hi @mteconlineshop,

We appreciate your questions regarding the VAT information. We are working with internal teams regarding this and  will continue to share further information here on the boards as it comes.

We appreciate your questions regarding the VAT information.

Thank you,

Kat

[calibreautopartsdirect]

Hi Katie, it was then confirmed to us by Ebay that the VAT details were correct. And you now stating that HMRC informed you of non-compliance. I would like to see evidence of that.

We've always been VAT registered and paid our VAT.

[dave@ebay]

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@trudyspanish wrote:

Hi, i phoned ebay several times, and i was told countless times that you had my valid VAT number and that i need to do nothing, i asked for this in writing, which Jermaine did and i have a copy of this and it was confirmed by ebay customer service that they can also see that private email. I was told on Monday that IT was fixing this, i have had no more contact from eBay since monday. I also phoned ebay telling them for weeks my VAT number wasnt been shown on any of my listings, got told then they will pass onto IT and they'll get back to me, which no one did.

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Hi @trudyspanish

We appreciate your questions regarding the VAT information.

We do need to advise this is not a technical issue:
eBay have a legal obligation in our partnership with HMRC to ensure sellers are VAT compliant at all times.
Sellers were contacted via email in June and were notified of 30 days to update valid VAT info in order to keep selling on site.

We work closely with HMRC to ensure our sellers comply with their VAT obligations.
If we are informed by HMRC that a seller is not complying with these requirements we will take appropriate action.

I haven't been able to look into your account specifically on the VAT number not showing but this may be different to what most are experiencing. I'll look further into this after the chat and contact you directly. 

Thanks,

Dave

[mteconlineshop]

Hi

Thansk for the reply but when we go from anywhere between £1500-2000 turn over per day down now to £500-800 the loss to us is horrendous plus many of the variation listings i had on will not re load as they kepe say variation not allowed and they have beem listed for years

[red-damore]

Please can you answer the questions? Being poorly prepared is not an adequate excuse. You must have known the VAT debacle was going to come up?

[ukhaberdashery]

Feedback was in the 250 all positive...All Gone

[carparts34]

Hopefully this is visible

[thefantasycollectiongiftware2014]

The Away switch could of been put on and until we had explained to properly the issue , rather than keep being told its fine and receiving confirmation of this .

With the amount of glitches on ebay site you can understand why sellers get sick of the constant messages as far as alot of us are concerned is you accepted our VAT numbers name etc and mine have been on listings for years .

AND I PAY MY VAT !!!

19 years of hard slog on ebay for what .

[sethandcotrading]

Sellers were contacted via email in June and were notified of 30 days to update valid VAT info in order to keep selling on site.

if this is the case why are so many sellers affected. We were told not to worry and even when you go to update the vat details there is no option or anything stating that you must enter your name. I am a sole trader and have been compliant with the Hmrc.  We had our trading name for many a few years without any issues. 

The main concern is the listing being de activated and what are ebay willing to do to help ?

[thefantasycollectiongiftware2014]

Fantastic and i was one of those .

[ukhaberdashery]

 sold 1398 times. 5 years it took me to get there..GONE

250 Positive feedback...GONE

I have 1500 listing and this was a random one I picked out. How an I now supposed to compete when everyone else who is now above me when it comes to getting found by buyers?

[dave@ebay]

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@800bhp wrote:

My question is what are ebay going to do about the serious damage they have done to business's by ending all their listing for a 'VAT error' which they had previously stated was OK.

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Hi @800bhp,

Thanks for reaching out.

We appreciate your questions regarding the VAT information.

We do need to advise this is not a technical issue:
eBay have a legal obligation in our partnership with HMRC to ensure sellers are VAT compliant at all times.
Sellers were contacted via email in June and were notified of 30 days to update valid VAT info in order to keep selling on site.

We work closely with HMRC to ensure our sellers comply with their VAT obligations.
If we are informed by HMRC that a seller is not complying with these requirements we will take appropriate action.

We will continue to share further information here on the boards as it comes.

Thanks,

Dave

[dancestationdirect]

Ebay, you have destroyed my business along with countless other sellers!

I echo the comments from my fellow sellers throughtout this Chat and within the seller forum.

All of us are legitimate sellers registered with HMRC, we are not tax avoiding businesses.

So to pass this back to us and say it was our fault is insulting and infuriating, particularly when you know that we all received the email confirming that all of our details were correct and no further action needed.

Ebay, start by an acknowledgement of the unimaginable impact this is having on our livelihoods and tell us what you are going to do to help this large number of loyal sellers who have been with ebay for years????

I never expected this from Ebay and feel very angry as I know that this is going to take a long time, if ever to recover from.

[thefantasycollectiongiftware2014]

Dave are you going to respond to this one !!!

Do you understand what were up against with ebay .

Even with this disaster got told to clear my cookies my god i was ready to remove my head and throw out the window .

[pixiesen2012]

perfect!

so dave@ebay  you were one of the people who told us that it was a glitch email and there was nothing anyone needed to do!

what do you have to say about that?

[red-damore]

The silence is deafening - oh and I also pay my VAT and THOUSANDS to eBay each month.

All we get in return is crickets!!

[thefantasycollectiongiftware2014]

Were all suffering the same pain.

Totally agree all the fakes all the chinese sellers swamping ebay uk fake addresses we comply paying our vat and taxes and we get the most severe punishment for as customer service says f their transcript .

THANKYOU FOR YOUR 19 YEARS LOYALTY