Ebay's new buyer protection scam

[wayne15071965]

So I have been a seller on and off her since June 2001, Over the years I have sent items recorded delivery that either never turn up , or arrive with no notification of delivery.  Now someone wants to charge a buyer a fee for safe delivery, when they would have been charged that in the P&P cost.  Frankly it sounds more like a scam than customer service and Ebay are also trying to force us to use their shipping option, So much for free enterprise, sound like trying to get the monopoly on delivery as well.  As for hanging on the sellers cash til 2 days after delivery, really so post office goes on strike and you don't get paid, Think I may start looking to leave. So much for eBay's loyalty to us .

[andha-21]

They charge BPF on every single item then?

[dogrobinsnest]

Cancel the sale refund the money tp the buyer & do a private buy it now for him/Her only 1 0.75p charge

[andha-21]

You replied to the wrong person but it still could be bad advice. 

That would be deliberately circumventing eBay policies and they already threatened posters on threads for that.

Could result in sanctions on accounts or worse.

[andha-21]

@madeat136 

If you do see these posts and it is as I questioned my advice would be to take screenshots of any proof you have, maybe speak to the buyer and see if they want to as well.

I don't have it saved on my phone but there is a rather specific piece of legislation I think you could consider applying. I'm going to find it, cp it here and it's upto you.

Check what you should report to Trading Standards

You should report a business to Trading Standards if they sold you something:

• unsafe or dangerous, like an electronic appliance with faulty wiring or food past its use-by date

• fake

• not as described - for example, you bought a package holiday but something advertised wasn’t included

• you didn’t want to buy - for example, they put pressure on you

Does the last point look like it may be applicable in this scenario?

[papso22]

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@leighbayuk wrote:

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@moorman48 wrote:

I put an "offer " of £525  for an item but the seller only received an offered amount of about £512 

I thought I was offering £525 but was not

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The deduction appears on the checkout screen in small grey print. There is no easy way for a buyer to enter the offer amount that they want the seller to receive. eBay think this is fine.

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Buyers are presumably offering the amount they want to pay.

[knightinarmour]

Yes. My experience is

potential buyers offer the amount they wish to pay total (buyer’s premium is deducted from that and the seller receives the net). 

sellers offer potential buyers the amount they wish to receive (buyers premium is added to that sum). 

it kinda makes sense - and it is clear in the various windows and sections - but I don’t like the whole thing. 

[second_life_electronics]

I wanted to check, what the protection offers to the buyers - I could not find anything but how much they charge - there is nothing about what it offers to the buyer.

[goodibags]

It's ok to do a private bundle for a specific user on Ebay, as long as nobody is directing anyone off-site.

I've done that with grouping comics on request in a customised lot for a buyer. Also benefitted when a seller made up a custom lot just for me.

Those were before buyer fees. With the outrageous 72p item charge it's likely that customised bundles will be a lot more common now.

[andha-21]

From memory the only new thing is a special call centre. Everything else we already had with the MBG.

Which they still advertise on listings and separately from the BPF.

If you look in the announcements forum here you'll find their updates.

@second_life_electronics 

[andha-21]

I used to do it too, but it seems like they actually want to charge all users BPF for every single item they buy. 

That's why I said what I said. 

If they didn't intend to do the above, why didn't they leave an invoice system like before?

To me it looks deliberate and therefore messing with it could find someone at the business end of the beast.

Prevention Vs cure philosophy.

[goodibags]

Oh, I hadn't realised that invoicing had been changed too. It's a while since I sold more than one item to the same seller. Well before BPFs.

I'm pretty sure bundling them together into one lot if/when requested is still allowed. Haven't seen anything suggesting that's been prohibited. Are they going to start policing individual user messages now? 

[andha-21]

From a eBay account reply I saw happen here I'd say that's already happening.

& I don't know if they are happy with people talking and organising combined orders.

The way I see it.

If the BPF is designed to charge for each item , that means they want it.

So if we try workarounds we could end up annoying them. So I'm being careful.

@goodibags 

[goodibags]

Ok, thanks for the heads up.

I guess if those 99p items won't sell at £1.75 but may just do when grouped into lots of 5 or 10 you can see sellers and buyers might just go for that as a compromise/solution.

The alternative might be that the items are pulled, and for sure Ebay would prefer to collect some fees rather than none.

[dogrobinsnest]

There is nothing wrong for a buyer to contact you about several items he/she wants to buy from you then you just put them in a bundle & make a private buy it now I have done this many times. If Ebay are not happy with it just shows their pure greed & no morals & no consideration towards customers of Ebay. That is how I see it.

[leighbayuk]

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@papso22 wrote:
Buyers are presumably offering the amount they want to pay.

Presumably they are offering a fair price that they think the seller will accept, not realising that eBay will deduct a chunk. 

[ripface]

Yeah, that's where the whole thing really SUCKS!!!!

[edwardian-dreams]

So basically eBay screwing both 

[edwardian-dreams]

Pure greed will be the end of them however they try to tart it up 

[wintersdawn1]

I also believe that ebay's uncontrollable greed will be their downfall, the 3 new developments are part of that and it won't end there, once the changes affecting private sellers are all in place they'll be going after business sellers next, creating some bogus reason to inflate their prices, increase the fees they pay and make simple delivery mandatory for business sellers too. 

At this point they can't help it, their snatching, grasping, greedy hands see another way to make money and literally can't control themselves and introduce it.

[edwardian-dreams]

Their downfall not ours

The  problem is that eBay used to be a trusted brand 

I’ve been here since 2002 

those were the nice days and many since UNTIL recent stupid years 

it is no more because they have lied this time outright 

you lose trust 

ie this new fee is to protect buyers 

its total absolute and embarrassing Bollox