Weekly Chat with the eBay Community Team- 21.05.25 @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 , 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.
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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

[thealuminiumshop]

Ill rephrase. Could you please advise why sellers aren't being advised about the fees they have had to pay which are not valid?

[k-ar-l]

Hi,

I recently sold a ice cream machine for £400 and used simple delivery where i had nothing to do with the delivery side of things. Literally got a label you provided to me and dropped it off at the post office.

A week or so later the buyer contacted me saying they did not receive the item and i need to refund them, i explained that simple delivery was used so i have not say over the postage and cannot even raise a issue. I informed them they needed to contact yourselves, however they sent message after message some of which were name calling.

They did open a case which was closed in my favour, however 2 weeks after this case was closed i got an email at 11pm saying it had been re-reviewed and was now found in the buyers favour.

No explanation at all no further details on the case nothing, just the £400 removed from my account.

This left me literally shaking as this was a lot of money and i could not sleep that night wondering what happened.

I contacted eBay first thing in the morning and spoke to the lady who was apologetic and explained that the money should not have been taken from me and the case should not have been re-reviewed. I did get my money back 3 days later. 

However this whole experience has left me not wanting to use eBay anymore how can something i have no control over be found my fault? how can money be taken from me because of this? why are your staff not trained properly? 

It was an absolutely shocking experience i did not expect to go through on such a trusted platform or so i thought.

[dave@ebay]

---

@thealuminiumshop wrote:

Could you please advise on the overcharging of shipping labels?

What is happening? When will sellers be advised?

---

Hi @thealuminiumshop 

I'm not aware of any overcharging for shipping labels. Do you have any examples or can provide me more information on what you mean. 

Thanks,

Dave

[thealuminiumshop]

Number 1 on @mygaras post.

1. Being overcharged for postage.

Last week, as documented by many others on the forum, postage rates changed overnight, resulting in customers being overcharged for postage. The current rate at the time for Medium Parcel 1-2kg was £3.44, and yet I was charged £5.15. I have still not received my refund, simply a string of excuses (lies) as to why I was charged the inflated rate. 

This has affected quite a lot of sellers. 

[mygaras]

---

dave@ebay wrote:

---

@thealuminiumshop wrote:

Could you please advise on the overcharging of shipping labels?

What is happening? When will sellers be advised?

---

Hi @thealuminiumshop 

I'm not aware of any overcharging for shipping labels. Do you have any examples or can provide me more information on what you mean. 

Thanks,

Dave

---

Hi dave@ebay 

Check out my earlier post in this thread - Last week I was charged £5.15 postage when it should have been £3.44. All of my 1kg-2kg listings are now at this same rate, even items with an asking price of less than £5.00. I have no way to override this therefore have marked myself as 'away'. There have been quite long discussions about this on the Postage Board in the last few days.

[kat@ebay]

---

@a45heaven wrote:

How are views counted on auctions ?

I assumed it was something like when a member looked at an item page, i can not guess if duplicate visits are counted as multiple 'Views'. 

Are views integral to when Sellers are charged for 'promotions' by ebay?

I ask as i can not understand why the number  of  'Views' shown reduces as auctions near end time.

---

Hi @a45heaven,

It would be counted everytime a user clicks on the auction item to view.  Let me follow up this query to get some more details and I'll come back to you.

Thank you,

Kat

[dave@ebay]

---

@ak_craft_crazy wrote:

Hi,

Please can i ask why another shop is being promoted at the top of my listing?

I can understand similar items being advertised at the bottom of the listing page, but another store selling similar items should not be advertised at the top of my listings. I pay a shop fee every single month only for you to get another seller to pay to promote themselves on my item page.

This is not on!

---

Hi @ak_craft_crazy 

This is a feature called Promoted Shops. You can find out more information on it here. 

Thanks,

Dave

[kat@ebay]

---

@abrahamtoast wrote:

Thank you kat@ebay You'll understand if I take that with a pinch of salt, as you've been telling us this for quite some time now.

If the system had been properly tested, it would have been implemented with far less hassle. Given how unpopular SD is, it was a big mistake for eBay to try to bring it in before it was ready. You have only given fuel to those complaining. If it had been done properly, a lot of the opposition wouldn't have arisen, and that which did would probably be in the past by now. A real own goal by eBay.

---

Hi @abrahamtoast ,

I understand where your coming from on this. I will share your feedback on the Simple Delivery process.

Thank you,

Kat

[marco@ebay]

---

@moonlight-rhapsody wrote:

I would like to ask a question about search results, using the following example.  

==========

Search term "Original watercolour painting seascape”.  

The Best Match was (1) a pastel picture of a dog; (2) an oil painting of fighting ships; (3) blank canvases.  The next few down included the Grand Canyon Arizona, some calligraphy and a forest.  And “Picked for You” included prints, even though the search term was “original watercolour”.  For a seascape.

I changed the sort order to Lowest Price inc P&P, and got the following top 3 results.  (1) Vibrant Skies with a picture of trees; (2) sea shells with some calligraphy; (3) Grand Canyon Arizona.  The next few down included 2 typographical quotes, a “dream landscape” and a forest.  Beneath those were some more forests.  In fact, of the top 16 results, no less than 11 had zero reference to a seascape.  That's 69% of the price-order search results were totally useless.  

==========

This not a one-off, it is just the tip of the iceberg.  Mismatched search results such as these are commonplace, and very often the items are out of price order as well.  It’s extremely annoying for buyers, and why would they bother searching for something on ebay when they get such nonsensical results?  And it’s extremely disappointing for sellers to discover that their listing is buried beneath results that bear no relation to the search terms.

Why is this, and what, if anything, is ebay doing about it.

---

Hi moonlight-rhapsody, thanks for your question.

I've just tried there a couple of times, and I am getting accurate results (Please see screenshot below). Maybe try using a different browser or clearing the caches and cookies of your browser to see if that helps.

Thank you,

Marco

[equinox-electronics]

Hi

Is there an issue with the returns system today? Had a return delivered but no option to refund 

[marco@ebay]

---

@equinox-electronics wrote:

Hi

Is there an issue with the returns system today? Had a return delivered but no option to refund 

---

Hi equinox-electronics, thanks for your question.

Yes, that is an issue from our end, we are aware and currently working on it to get it resolved. If you want, once is resolved, I can let you know so you can submit the refund. For now, you can let the buyer know about this, just so they know and don't worry about not receiving a refund.

Apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Thank you,

Marco 

[kat@ebay]

---

@k-ar-l wrote:

Hi,

I recently sold a ice cream machine for £400 and used simple delivery where i had nothing to do with the delivery side of things. Literally got a label you provided to me and dropped it off at the post office.

A week or so later the buyer contacted me saying they did not receive the item and i need to refund them, i explained that simple delivery was used so i have not say over the postage and cannot even raise a issue. I informed them they needed to contact yourselves, however they sent message after message some of which were name calling.

They did open a case which was closed in my favour, however 2 weeks after this case was closed i got an email at 11pm saying it had been re-reviewed and was now found in the buyers favour.

No explanation at all no further details on the case nothing, just the £400 removed from my account.

This left me literally shaking as this was a lot of money and i could not sleep that night wondering what happened.

I contacted eBay first thing in the morning and spoke to the lady who was apologetic and explained that the money should not have been taken from me and the case should not have been re-reviewed. I did get my money back 3 days later. 

However this whole experience has left me not wanting to use eBay anymore how can something i have no control over be found my fault? how can money be taken from me because of this? why are your staff not trained properly? 

It was an absolutely shocking experience i did not expect to go through on such a trusted platform or so i thought.

---

Hi @k-ar-l ,

I'm sorry to hear of this experience. The case being closed in your favour originally should have been the final decision so I am not sure why it would have been reviewed. We don't work cases here so I am unable to comment on that part. However I will send it for review for any necessary coaching and training.

Thank you,

Kat

Thank you,

Kat

[dave@ebay]

---

@thealuminiumshop wrote:

Number 1 on @mygaras post.

1. Being overcharged for postage.

Last week, as documented by many others on the forum, postage rates changed overnight, resulting in customers being overcharged for postage. The current rate at the time for Medium Parcel 1-2kg was £3.44, and yet I was charged £5.15. I have still not received my refund, simply a string of excuses (lies) as to why I was charged the inflated rate. 

This has affected quite a lot of sellers. 

---

Hi @thealuminiumshop 

kat@ebay replied to the OP and advised she sent the questions they raised over to the shipping team. Once we have an update from that we'll let you know. 

Thanks,

Dave

[marco@ebay]

---

@cz1266 wrote:

Hi and good afternoon,

Is it still ok to put a clickable link in an item's html description to another ebay item that you are selling?

Regards Charlie

---

Hi cz1266, thanks for your patience on this.

I've just confirmed that links are not allowed, you can see the full policy here. 👍

Thank you,

Marco

[kat@ebay]

Hi @a45heaven ,

Following up on the views for auctions.

A page view is counted when someone views your listing on the website or app. If the same person views your listing, clicks away, and then comes back to the listing, that counts as a second view.

A view is not counted when your listing appears in a search result or an ad placement, but the user doesn't click on it to view it. It also doesn't count when you are logged in to eBay and view your own listing and when your listing is viewed by a bot.

For an active auction listing, the view count shows the total number of views since the auction started.

For an auction listing that ended without a sale, the view count shows the total number of views from the current time going back 30 days. This means the view count for an unsold auction listing may include views made after the auction ended.

Thank you,

Kat