Could private sellers reduce buyer protection fees by doing this?

[forestyob]

Hi,

Just asking this out of curiosity.

For private sellers a Buyer Protection Fee is added to the cost of the item but not including the postage.

So, for example, if a private seller lists an item for £100 including postage then the Buyer Protection Fee is 4% of the £100 plus 75p (or 72p as it seems to be in reality) making the BPF £4.72.

In this example could a private seller get away with listing the item for 1p plus £99.99 postage making the BPF only 74p (rounded up) and less BPF cost for the buyer ?

[valueaddedresource]

@forestyob my guess is this is one reason eBay has said they plan to make Simple Delivery mandatory for all private sales of eligible items in the very near future - with Simple Delivery, the seller doesn't get to set the shipping cost, so something like this wouldn't even be an option.

[jonatjonatjonat]

In theory you are correct. But I imagine you'd very quickly get hit for breaking ebay policies around fair postage costs.

This is exactly what happened on marketplaces when they first launched and why ebay and amazon quickly set about calculating fees on shipping costs as well as product costs. I'm surprised ebay missed it this time around to be honest - they must have known this would happen.

[parsley2003]

They have a new rule that you cannot find ways to get round them getting their BPF money, they have a lot of new rules that will tie us down