Option to send invoices disappeared

[s2000king_123]

Option on sold listings to ‘send payment details’ has disappeared and I’m unable to send people invoices for combined orders like I normally do. I did a live chat with customer service, but I don’t really think they knew what I was talking about.

I have buyers waiting to pay, but are reluctant to pay for the entire postage cost in one go and have me refund due to the amount of money they would have in limbo. 

anybody else having the same problem? Anyone at eBay able to confirm it’s being looked into so I can tell my buyers? 

[yoganutvmw]

True we are or was

[yoganutvmw]

Insider intrusion?

[yoganutvmw]

Yes thats the option fix ebay have suggested

[thomaburn]

i am now in this situation.buyer brought 3 items last night and i cannot combine postage.any solutions for it?

[andha-21]

@thomaburn 

Only 2 eBay authorised workarounds 

1) Buyer pays everything and you partially refund afterwards.

But you'd probably be doing that from your own funds as eBay aren't using the sale funds to do that, at least so far.

So you'd potentially have to pay postage and refunds before you see any money yourself.

2) cancel the orders and relist everything together. Only 1 post charge and only 1 BPF fee of 75p. 

You still have to pay for postage upfront but nothing else.

It is the better option for both parties.

[oldgreypunk66]

Something which clearly needs to be pointed out here, which seems to have got lost in all this:

If you are 'acquiring' your items from car boots/house clearances/charity shops/auctions etc etc, then YOU  ARE A BUSINESS SELLER!!!  One of the drivers behind these disastrous latest eBay changes is that they have come under increasing pressure from HMRC to clamp down on business sellers masquerading as private sellers, and one of the simplest ways eBay can do this is to make private selling a really unpleasant experience, something they've now spectacularly succeeded in achieving.

Just to reiterate, to qualify as a private seller you can only sell items which are yours, have been yours for a good while and have been used by you. If you are unsure of this, (though of course in reality you're not), go onto HMRC's website and read up on  'personal  chattels'. As a genuine private seller it does annoy me that I am now being penalised because so many 'private' sellers are nothing of the sort, they are cheats and liars, and it is largely down to them that we are where we are now.

[thomaburn]

thanks will give it a go.such a shame ebay is going down like the titanic

[rusticwallet]

I am afraid not. This thread has been suggesting many options but the ball is in the court of Ebay. Personally I have listed one item this morning on the site as I can afford to. This gets me around the multiple purchases issue. It is not a fix, posting on Gumtree is another avenue I am testing. As mentioned in earlier responses, I have been on the site for over 23 years with generally good results for both myself and Ebay. I, and private sellers are now on the receiving end of some badly thought out modifications to the selling experience in my opinion.

There have been a few posts from Marco (?) who is looking into the issues and has stated he will be addressing these on his return on the 18th March.  I'm not at all sure who Marco is of what influence he may of may not wield. I would love to be able to fix this and other issues but it's outside of my brain capacity as, apart from anything else, I am just a simple seller. 

[andha-21]

@oldgreypunk66 

Whilst I do understand the point of view I believe eBay shoulder the majority of blame here.

Allowing private seller accounts virtually unlimited listings. They've been encouraging it for years.

[a45heaven]

 virtually unlimited listings.

And grossly multiple accounts too - as you see from these boards and also a way round the self created problems maybe - just feedback is zero or low on them, unless manipulated a tad.

[halea35]

Hi,

Ask them to pay and refund straight away.  Explain what is going on.   I asked my buyers to ask for an invoice from me which they use to be able to do.   They will realise things have changed, not for the good.   Fortunately my regular buyer are happy to do this.   I don’t wait until EBay release the funds incase I forget.   Good luck 

[oldgreypunk66]

@andha-21 

Agreed, the 300 free listings per month limit (I think that's it?) is ridiculous, although they did drop it from the previous 1000(!!!) last October. But nevertheless business sellers masquerading as private sellers has definitely contributed to the current state of affairs. Maybe if this change drives a good proportion of those cheating sellers either to business accounts or away from eBay altogether then perhaps in a few months eBay might remove some of these current painful hindrances from private selling (unlikely I know but one lives in hope......) 

[oldgeezer3345]

I do exactly the same. Not perfect, but it's the best that can be done for now.

[lucy_farmer]

'Allowing private seller accounts virtually unlimited listings. They've been encouraging it for years.'

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The way ebay have finally decided to have a crack at making 'pseudo-private' sellers is  painful and unfair on genuine private sellers.

Look at how efficient ebay's bots are at stopping contact details being passed between potential buyers and sellers. 

So how hard can it be for a bot program to be written that, for example,  just picks up the words 'brand new', if repeated more than a handful of times, on a private sellers listings?  Or pick up multi listings of the same things?  etc.

There has to be a better way than screwing the original ethos  (private people buying and selling from each other) into the ground.

[rdavy]

I never thought it was ridiculous. I have a private collection of over 50,000 CDs, records, books, videos, and DVDs. If I choose to sell all those on ebay, it does not in any way qualify me as a business. 95% of those items won't sell first time, so if you list 300 of the 50,000 and only 5 sell, then relisting the remaining 295 items two weeks running would then use up the 1000. If businesses were taking advantage of that, then under new laws ebay would be reporting them to HMRC anyway. Sadly, genuine private sellers who happen to want to sell of their collections of items are being penalised.

As for the melon above who said you can only be a private seller if you "have had the item for some time" that's again totally untrue. If I buy a DVD from Tesco tomorrow for £10, watch it, and think it's rubbish, i'm totally allowed to then list it the next day, used, for £5 on ebay without needing to register as a business.

Sick of all these threads getting hijacked by the "private sellers are not private sellers blah blah blah" brigade.

[andha-21]

@rdavy 

I'm actually similar to you but my collection is split between DVD/Blu-ray/UHD and Warhammer models. Between those I could easily do over 10,000 listings but I only sell what I don't like or when I need to raise funds to buy something I like more.

So while I could list loads it's also highly unlikely I ever would.

As for your comment about timeframe of ownership. I actually found out about this a month or so ago. They aren't wrong. Forget exactly which site it was on, it was one of the gov UK sites but off memory, legally, you need to own something 6 months before it is legally yours and can't be regarded as a buy to sell item. 

Struck me as really bizarre.

[oldgreypunk66]

@rdavy 

Yes I take your point, and that situation could describe me (record collection of 3000+) amassed over 45  years, now due to life changes having to drastically down-size as quickly as I can, (although I've reluctantly stopped selling since this fiasco began), but I think the number of private sellers that genuinely fall into that category are very low, and I don't think you can deny that the issue of cheating business sellers has certainly contributed to where we are now. Don't get me wrong I'm not in any way trying to absolve eBay of blame on this, if they'd really wanted to there are many better ways they could have more effectively clamped down on the cheats, and this current mess is absolutely of their own (deliberate) making, but even looking through a thread like this shows up how many obvious cheats there are.

I'm the 'melon' by the way, I threw that last qualifier in without thinking it through, although even on HMRC's website what can be classed as a personal chattel is sometimes a but vague.

[lucy_farmer]

'I'm the 'melon' by the way, I threw that last qualifier in without thinking it through, although even on HMRC's website what....'

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Hello me ol' fruit! 😂

You're not wrong about having to own stuff for a  certain length of time for it to become 'sell-on-able' in the eyes of HMRC. I have read somewhere that it's about 6 months.

This does mean though, you'd have to keep all your reciepts for everything you buy in case you want to sell it on, so you know when you bought it......   but only if you were selling enough for HMRC to be interested in you in the first place!

[roberth5777]

Wait, this is affecting business sellers too? I thought it was an attempt to strong arm private sellers into paying for business accounts, lol.

[lucy_farmer]

'Wait, this is affecting business sellers too? I thought it was an attempt to strong arm private sellers into paying for business accounts....'

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I don't think  it's going to have much effect on business sellers.

The reason combining invoices has become a problem, is because apparently it's not compatible with the Simple Delivery system.

Simple Delivery is definitely something that's being aimed at private sellers; to the point of it being made compulsory for private sellers in the (somewhat murky) future.

I don't know whether or not business sellers can use the Simple Delivery system, but, even if they can, there is NO way it will become compulsory for them!   (can you imagine World of Books or Music Magpie being told how to do their posting?!! 🤣 not to mention they've probably already got well favourable delivery contracts of their own....)