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 .

[ripface]

Not in our rural location. Being unable to choose courier other than eVri or RM is a real pain for us and I would imagine a lot of other people .....

[newsgood2]

I live in Hay-On-Wye on the Welsh Borders and it's a small town, but just checked in a Google search and Evri and the post office have done a deal and you may find as I did much to my surprise that my local Post Office now accepts parcels for sending, collecting and returning parcels.

[jophoenix63]

Definitely. Po does not take evri so have to drive

[newsgood2]

Just did further search on Google about Google saying one thing and Evri another and Google now says that although it says that Hay-On-Wye accepts Evri parcels etc., that it is not actually the case. And Keir Starmer wants AI to be big in the UK. It already is big, and useless.

[fejinwales]

It is a scam because packages are insured anyway, (especially for sellers like myslf who always chose an insured option). Not only that, the seller is also affected. I always price my sales for the ammount I want to clear in my bank account. So I used to be able to put a price of, say £50 on an item and with free selling I'd spend £3 on shipping (as I always pay for shipping) and would get my target of £47 back in the bank. Now putting an item on for £50 bumps it up to £53 for the seller so they are less likely to purchase it. Effectively they are being charged shipping twice.

Nothing is ever for free. They got rid of the charges for sales (good for the seller), because they realised they could make way more money off the buyers than from the old seller fees. 

[kevin.yarnfield.uk]

I have been on ebay since 2000. Most of my items are priced from 50p upwards (stamps). As a consequence of "Buyer protection fee" a 50p stamp now starts at 50p + 75p + 4% (BPF). Some clown's answer is "Upgrade to business seller". I sell so little, especially now with BPF added that it would not be worth my while. It's getting to the point that ebay do not want small sellers like myself. I've now stopped buying from private GB sellers. So tell me, how is this going to benefit ebay.

When I post an item, the postage charge includes "protection" in that I can refund the buyer and claim from Royal Mail. That's protection.

[sebastian4ever]

What a bloody mess.

[chababachababa]

It so is.
I have sold through Simple Delivery only to find my buyer can’t pay me and I can’t send the item. No fault of any of us. Only EBay can sort it. They should be contacting me about this. I have a ticket number from IT but it’s two days now and no contact.
They won’t let me send it out to the buyer after they pay me directly to my bank account.
We both loose out !!!

Sent from my iPhone

[achathamchild]

Does ebay read any of this,  I wonder if they have any comments about it all,  it's certainly ruffled a lot of feathers 🪶 

[sew1412]

You couldn't make it up, could you?Sent from my Galaxy

[chababachababa]

I’m sure they do.
Sent from my iPhone

[gallybagger4587]

I agree , I have had a look and was quite shocked there is a buyer fee( hope its better than the one on vinted as they don't want to know when you have a issue, so it's definitely not fit for the purpose it claims)

Also on e-bay I can only send out royal mail 48tracked and whatever I do I cannot change it 

It says up to 2kg £5.15

On royal mails website it's  cheaper than that !

So I think e-bay isn't worth it

[knightinarmour]

There is now something called “simple delivery” which is either Evri or Royal Mail (you can change preferences on the website if logged in ). Up to 2kg is £4.06 and under 1kg is £2.98. It defaults to “Simple” and will soon be mandatory. 

you can custom the weights if eBay estimate is wrong putting it into the next bracket. You can also elect to pay the postage yourself (ie free to buyer). I believe you can use “pending monies” to buy postage and it’s automatically tracked. I pick Evri as I don’t have a printer and a shop is near me while Royal Mail  is much further away

[madeat136]

I have sent a parcel this morning 48 tracked upto 2kg = £3.45 Maybe check the package sizing ?Sent from my Galaxy

[studiomaster_uk]

---

myriad*seller   wrote: "Private sellers will absorb the fees into their prices to remain competitive and the private sellers will be the ones paying it"

@ripface wrote:

I'm afraid this is incorrect.  The fees are paid by the buyers, the seller will get the full amount they sell for.  eBay will add the buyer protection fee on to the full selling price and the buyer pays this.

---

Jeez, you sure don't understand the dynamics of the supply and demand marketplace, do you!

Redface more like!

[pjbracer1]

I have just been through a stage of getting rid of things I don't need and quite a few have value.

This buyer protection fee is essentially a stealth tax on the seller, whilst the buyer has to pay for it it means in order to set the price for and item or to be competitive with others for sale the same may have to  be discounted. So not only do Ebay get their fee the seller naturally gets less for the item.

I have a high spec laptop for sale and wanted to start with a price of £680 in the hope that offers would be made as I am happy to take a bit less for it and negotiate, as it appears better spec than the others it competes with, but as the fee is added to the total price the buyer sees, it puts it way over £700 and then shipping on top. This then puts it into a different price bracket as some users might filter that out. 

Buyers wont see this as an ebay fee they just see it as the total price so it make the item all look more than they really are! 

I did also have some cheapy items £20 things for sale and a buyer was trying to make offers after discussion via message but ended up using up their offers as I agree a price with them which is what they offered, but as the price they were looking at was the price including the fee when they were putting in their offer, ebay then deducts the cost of the fee in the offer which then falls below the figure I had set for auto accept!

From memory so figures are not accurate

Item price set by me £22

Item price auto accept £20

Item price as advertised with buyer protection £23.50 

Offer received when the buying is offering £20 - I was offered £19.20 or something like that so it kept being rejected as it was under the £20 auto accept limit I had set. 

It took a while to work out why I was getting offer of £19.50 or the likes but unless there was a glitch at the time it would appear the advertised price is what the buyer see which includes the protection fee and the bid based on what they see the value at but when the offer comes through it will be less as ebay remove the the protection fee accordingly.

I may have got this wrong but during this transaction I was talking to the buyer via messages and I was looking at the selling dashboard and not the listing itself so wasn't aware the price was higher than I had initially set in the dashboard.

It wouldn't take much to addin to the overview dashboard the advertised price including the fee and then when offers come through the offer is based on the actual item cost rather than the advertised cost.

It need to be made transparent to the buyer that the price is not really the price it the price including ebays buyer fees (already included)

So when they bid, they bid based on the sellers price and the inclusive price is adjusted inline with the ebay protection fee.

The fee wont be going anywhere but just makes it more transparent just needs the fee shown separate and then offers will be based on the sellers price not the total price. 

[bogush75]

they don't care as long as the money flow to their account (must be billions),

it is called business..

[pjbracer1]

Not on about the charges! Yes its a business and there to make money for sure, like many others but that doesn't make it right to hide things or make it more complicated than it needs to be. The point is and many will not be aware. When its all there in black and white there is nothing to argue about! 

Lets face it selling on there is fraught with issue these days and the whole reason they have made it free to sell is the illusion its free when actually its the buyer paying more for an item (we are not talking business seller this is private sellers, the Ebay will have seen a dip in sales as other platforms have gained more traction at the low end. 

All they needed to do is show the full figures and not hide them then everyone know where they are. 

This is the Ryan Air principle cheap flights but then through on some additional's so the price you see is not the actual price, it just misleading.

[f3speech]

When you put up an item for an amount buyer will offer you what they think it's worth to them. So if it's £100 and they think it's worth £80 to them, they will offer £80 total. They're not going to offer £80 plus fees they have to pay, or more pricey postage... They offer what it's worth to them. It doesn't matter to a buyer if it's extra postage or fees or the buyer protection racket. They'll base what they offer on their bottom line

[edwardian-dreams]

But  buyers know about the bpf .it isn’t  always true that what they offer includes the bpf in their mind

I got offered an amount via private message and I said that would be fine give me a second to amend the listing. Pls note I don’t know what the bpf would be on top

they bought it