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 .

[kath3735_wxmjn]

so nice to hear from someone with sense!   Then again most real private buyers are getting rid of old stuff that is not so easy to find out in the big real world.  I have bought a few items recently, regardless of BPF, they were what i wanted and at the price i wanted.   Although i do wish they had stopped messing with the search engine because trying to find specifics these days is ludicrous not to mention all the sponsored/promotion ones that have absolutely nothing to do with what you want! 

[andha-21]

How do you think you will do if Simple Delivery is made mandatory?

[martinwh1]

I'll just leave my listings running whatever eBay does - it really makes no difference as all private sellers are in the same boat as it becomes the buyer who chooses and pays for the postage, from which eBay presumably gets a share. Their greed might mean that actually extend this to business sellers for whom it might have some attraction as it transfers loss or damage claims to the buyer as the seller has no contract with the courier. No point in saying "if you do this I'll leave" as they really don't care.

[goodibags]

"Personally, I'll leaving my listings in place and see what happens, after all it costs me nothing and, as they automatically renew, I don't even need to waste time looking at them."

On the one hand, if you don't re-list them they'll be dropping further out of view based on Ebay's algos favouring newly added items.

On the other, as I discovered this week, if you DO re-list any they will now have the buyer fees added to their total value in a search by price (I have 2 records which are out of place relative to all the others). In which case they'll also drop down the order...

[g-banjo]

I have been a steady user of eBay for 23 years. I’ve not been obsessive about it, nor have I started a business – just used it regularly for buying and selling. Things have changed a lot over the 23 years, different rules, different buying habits among the users, and I’ve had my ups and downs, but I’ve always found that if I came across a dodgy seller eBay had my back. 

Now someone, and I can’t understand how this person is allowed anywhere near decision making here, has decided to implement this new “Buyer Protection Payment” - charging the buyer for protections they’ve always had, as far as I can see. 

But it is, of course, the seller who will pay it. 

Why? Because the psychology is well known, buyers like some figures a lot more than others. An item priced at £39.99  will sell before one priced at £38.71 - or $200 is easier to buy than $197.37. 

So good sellers will have to calculate how to get that cosy final figure in front of potential buyers, they will have to calculate a lower figure to achieve that friendly, non-threatening sum, in other words the seller will pay this tax. 

This might be the last straw for me, after 23 years. And it isn’t really the tax, it’s the stupidity! The fact that there is someone so high up in this organisation that they can come up with such a dumb idea, someone who obviously has zero understanding of buying and selling, means this is becoming an organisation I can no longer trust.  

I’ll give it a month. If this idea isn’t reversed, or seriousòly changed within the month I’ll be out, after 23 years. And I’m very sure that other long-termers will feel exactly the same. 

[kenwill9896]

I could not agree more, having buyers now contacting me as they have been charged extra over what they wanted to pay its a disgrace why is it that if purchased outside the U.k. they are charged nothing? I also have been on e bay for over 20 years it's a disgrace might start looking for another outlet.

kenwill9896

[papso22]

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@kenwill9896 wrote:

I could not agree more, having buyers now contacting me as they have been charged extra over what they wanted to pay its a disgrace why is it that if purchased outside the U.k. they are charged nothing? I also have been on e bay for over 20 years it's a disgrace might start looking for another outlet.

kenwill9896

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Is this based on offers you have made to them?  There are no other circumstances where the buyer does not know what they will pay, and where they are not charged that amount.

[bogush75]

All that bugaboo and what?

As always ..  ebay just ignores it and cointinues its corporate politics.

They probably wait for ebayers to forget and get used to "the new".

The moon doesn’t care for barking dogs.

Unfortunately.

[melston2000]

I've noticed my Ebay sales have dropped to almost nothing since the Buyer Protection came in, and looking at the prices I can see why - they're all sorts of crazy amounts now, looks like I've just typed random numbers in...

And as for sending offers, it's now a matter of trial and error to try and get it near the price you want to offer it to the buyer at, usually considerably cheaper than you'd expect if the item's worth a fair bit.

Seems like a total rip-off to me since all the buyer really gets from it is Ebay blocking the funds until the item arrives, and Ebay getting an extra chunk of money for doing virtually nothing. Since it's bad for buyers and bad for sellers, when combined with the extra fees charged to send your data to HMRC and the global climate (buyer interest from the USA / Europe on items has tanked too for some reason), I can see this spelling the end of Ebay as we know it.

[melston2000]

In some ways I can see why they've done it - it's a knee-jerk reaction. They probably get a lot of complaints about "UK" drop-shippers giving inaccurate shipment dates (after all, if an item's coming over from China, there's no way you can accurately predict when it'll arrive), so if they force buyers to pay for the extra admin / complaint costs, they can stop sellers from getting paid 'til the item arrives.

Only problem is, ultimately that's one extra tax on the poor UK private seller, and combined with the extra faff of trying to calculate what the buyer will pay, that's likely to discourage genuine private sellers from advertising more stuff on Ebay, e.g. recently I just chucked a couple of perfectly good items in the bin rather than listing them.

And if other sellers think the same as me, there's going to be even less private sellers meaning the percentage of drop shippers will go up further still, and when you get beyond a certain point buyers will wonder what the point of Ebay is when they can pick the same items up from Aliexpress considerably cheaper.

[insidethe93]

g-banjo wrote: And it isn’t really the tax, it’s the stupidity! The fact that there is someone so high up in this organisation that they can come up with such a dumb idea, someone who obviously has zero understanding of buying and selling, means this is becoming an organisation I can no longer trust. I’ll give it a month. If this idea isn’t reversed, or seriousòly changed within the month I’ll be out, after 23 years. And I’m very sure that other long-termers will feel exactly the same.

Some have already left. Others are in the midst of leaving. Others will leave. I'll follow certain sellers to their pastures new. I've been seeing in listing and receiving in with my orders notes from sellers saying they're leaving, paraphrasing "due to increased eBay fees" (presumably BPF). Thanks, eBay, for driving me to explore new shops - quite exciting - and I'm having a great shopping time elsewhere = much less spending on eBay.

I'm glad eBay has made some tweaks, but to avoid driving away too many customers eBay has a limited window of opportunity to make major changes to: BPF, SD, withholding funds up to 14 days. Those policies need to be reversed or hugely mitigated.

The first immediate steps should be (1) restore to sellers as much control as possible over pricing and shipping, restore FVF and remove BPF, (2) pay sellers their money promptly. SD, if drastically revised to help sellers rather than hinder them, could become a widely used option, if so then success!

If only the top execs understood that, rather than be stubborn beyond reason (which looks like trying to save face), it's better to admit "sorry, I made a mistake, let's revert" - no stigma to it, indeed (at least in Britain) it'd to your credit.

In commerce/industry, there's are strong financial reasons (and for common sense) why you gauge reaction BEFORE starting a venture or massively changing an existing one. Why would you impose something as a procrustean forced-fit one-size-fits-all, then watch customers leave and hear unhappy customers expressing indignation - how can that help any business? - but that's what eBay has done...but it's not too late to deal with the mess if done drastically and soon.

[v1kr1s]

I disagree to eBay updates from 04.02.25 and 16.02.25

I’ve been long time eBay seller and buyer.

I don’t agree eBay to hold my money until tracking number show the item is delivered. Many times tracking number doesn’t show it’s delivered, but the customer leaving positive feedback, meaning it’s delivered. I see the same as buyer – I bought expensive item and received it 4 days later. Three months later I received the tracking number and 2 months after still doesn’t show it’s delivered.

So, if the tracking number never show the item is delivered, but the customer received it, I’ll never see my money, meaning eBay will steal them from me.

I don’t agree eBay stealing my money because of post service software glitches or couriers in their rush forgetting to mark it as delivered.

I don’t agree to added buyer protection (which already exist) covering nothing different than before, but raising the prices, making them not attractive to the buyers anymore.

EBay might be one of the online market leaders, but it’s not the only one. There is many alternative platforms and now I’m moving to some of them.

I used to have good experience so far with eBay, but it’s time to leave.

If they revoke their unfair updates and never do such things again, I might return … until then BYE eBay.

[kenwill9896]

No I have had buyers moan at me for being charged over the top, one person
who is a massive purchaser of coins has said, he may not purchase from ebay
in future if it goes on as it affects his profits.
Then another who asked why she was being charged more, I sent her an e mail
about it, but she said at this time she had the money to cover it.
Why should U.K
sellers be charged for this service-, when if in the rest of the world get
to send for free?Given that the items sent go through more handling to get
here, so send with more risk, if item did not turn up then the postal
service etc would pay up, such a bad move from e- Bay we can only hope they
do a you turn.

[derickj68]

As an eBay private member since 2004 I only really started selling stuff I'd collected (for my hobbies mainly small electronics items) over many years about 10 years ago or less (can't remember exactly... I'm old and now retired!)  as the majority of stuff is low value, and to give the buyers a comparative bargain, I would only list when eBay was offering free listings and seller fee discounts - initially 80% then 70% (reducing the fees on a £10 item from £1.40 to 28p, then 42p) - this meant that as I was keeping more of the buyers fee, and as a private seller, the item could be cheaper to them - Buyers still had their MBG - Royal Mail postage was and is still insured for non-delivery - and eBay froze funds in the event of any problems -  so surely the 'dis-ingenuousness' stems from eBay...

[ripface]

I have now had to contact eBay Help three times in the last two weeks due to non-payment of items that had not been flagged as delivered.  These three items totalled over £1K.  Whilst on the call to the third adviser I had a bit of a rant and vented my frustration on the whole payment after delivery issue.  The adviser was sympathetic and raised a complaint.  This is the response to the complaint .....

This interaction was documented as a complaint. Your complaint reference ID is 2-nnnnnnnnnnnn.  An eBay specialist has investigated your complaint and determined that you have received the correct information as per our policies. Since the appropriate information has been shared and no further action is required, your complaint is now closed.

So much for eBay's complaints procedure, they obviously don't give a duck!

[papso22]

They don't really have a complaints procedure.   There certainly isn't one advertised anywhere, not even a complaints department with contact details. 

[ripface]

Well that is weird!  Not sure how I managed to log a complaint, and get a complaints log number, and a response from the complaints department .....  I guess there must be some sort of complaints channel .. erm .. somewhere!!

[ripface]

.... at the foot of my complaint response I get this, might be an idea for everyone who is dissatisfied with the new "payment 24 hours after delivery" and "buyer protection fee" to log this with the financial ombudsman.

If you have additional concerns, you should know that you can contact the Financial Ombudsman Service. The Financial Ombudsman Service is an independent body, and reviews issues like this free of charge. If you’d like them to help, you’ll need to contact them within 6 months of the date of this email. After that, the Ombudsman won’t be authorised to take any action, unless they decide there’s a good reason why you couldn’t get in touch within that time.

Here's how to contact the Financial Ombudsman Service:

• By phone: 0800 023 4567 or 0300 123 9123
• By email: complaint.info@financial-ombudsman.org.uk
• By post: Financial Ombudsman Service, Exchange Tower, London, E14 9SR

[papso22]

I am not saying you can't complain, just that there is no published complaints procedure so they can pretty much do what they like with the complaint.

It appears in your case they gave it a reference number and a 'specialist' looked at it.  I suppose that's something.

[ripface]

I just posted another reply to this ever growing tail of woe and anguish.  It appears that someone has deleted my post which regarded a suggestions posted by the eBay Complaints department referring to logging issues with the financial ombudsman.  

Maybe someone didn't like that idea?