eBay

anne.craig · ‎07-07-2025

Hi, just thought I'd pick the brains on here to find out where I would stand. A company sent me a large box of new goods by accident. I informed them and after they tried to get them collected, they were unsuccessful in finding a carrier who would take them and told me they no longer want them back. If I were to list them on eBay would that constitute trading? I normally only sell items I've bought or unwanted gifts and I don't want to end up in any difficulties with eBay or HMRC! Any input appreciated, thanks!

4_bathrooms · ‎08-07-2025

@banditfrenzy wrote:

When/if HMRC look at all the info

Have you looked at the OP's sold items? In the last 90 days the OP has sold ~£260 worth of items. Assuming this is typical for them that would equate to around £1,000 per year. Even if the OP was trading - which I don't believe they are - they wouldn't need to register for self-assessment until they had sold over £1,000 in a tax year.

I don't think HMRC are going to be very interested in the OP.

Give me ambiguity or give me something else.

banditfrenzy · ‎08-07-2025

@4_bathrooms wrote:
@banditfrenzy wrote:

When/if HMRC look at all the info
Have you looked at the OP's sold items? In the last 90 days the OP has sold ~£260 worth of items. Assuming this is typical for them that would equate to around £1,000 per year. Even if the OP was trading - which I don't believe they are - they wouldn't need to register for self-assessment until they had sold over £1,000 in a tax year.

I don't think HMRC are going to be very interested in the OP.

Go & look at the OP's Vinted account, maybe get a tech savvy grandchild to help you with that one. Then go & look at all the other possible selling outlets that they may/or may not use. Then you need to compare what you know with what HMRC knows, maybe get your responsible adult to help you with that one. Then you need to rethink your opinion. Maybe only God can help you.

banditfrenzy · ‎08-07-2025

It gets more entertaining with every post, it really does. This is better than daytime TV by far.

OP contradicts themselve's almost every post, one minute does & next minute does not have box's of stock.

OP, you can blow smoke up anyone's backside but the ONLY people's opinions who matter here are HMRC, trust me that they are not human, they lack compassion & they are not easily fooled.

anne.craig · ‎08-07-2025

You are quite right, I don't need to justify myself to some random angry person on a forum and I've done trying. I know where I stand with HMRC currently, I will take on board the actual advice I've been given by other helpful posters and I'll leave you to explode with rage alone or with whatever fellow conspiracy theorists you have a relationship with. You've obviously had some bad dealings with HMRC in the past - whereas I have always worked with them, not against them. I even rang them yesterday on a voluntary basis to query underpaid tax. Enjoy your trolling.

banditfrenzy · ‎08-07-2025

@anne.craig wrote:
You are quite right, I don't need to justify myself to some random angry person on a forum and I've done trying. I know where I stand with HMRC currently, I will take on board the actual advice I've been given by other helpful posters and I'll leave you to explode with rage alone or with whatever fellow conspiracy theorists you have a relationship with. You've obviously had some bad dealings with HMRC in the past - whereas I have always worked with them, not against them. I even rang them yesterday on a voluntary basis to query underpaid tax. Enjoy your trolling.

Well, there you are. A response that is totally unrelated to anything I have ever said, yet gets across the message YOU need everyone to hear.

When we reply to your posts we are not just giving YOU our advice, we are giving our advice to anyone who might be reading & gathering their own information. People who might find themselve's here because of things like search engine queries, or maybe just genuine inquisitiveness . . . People who might not be in this echo chamber of traders masquerading as private sellers who are desperately scratching around to further justify their evasion of tax.

You are of course quite safe. HMRC will never visit you. They will never prosecute you for tax evasion & you are in no danger absolutely whatsoever of losing what little capital you have accumulated so far. Good luck with the collecting of cosmetics & hardly worn clothing hobby, maybe one day I might find myself walking past a tourist attraction museum dedicated to such a hobby with (no doubt) a gift shop, which is somehow totally tax free . . . .

4_bathrooms · ‎08-07-2025

@banditfrenzy wrote:
Go & look at the OP's Vinted account, maybe get a tech savvy grandchild to help you with that one.

Blimey, that's like calling a member of the Spice Girls "granny" (they're all older than me BTW). I don't have any grandchildren but I did try teaching my teenage nephew how to configure a LAMP stack once along with the basics of PHP, MySQL and the nuances of the Apache httpd.conf file. Unfortunately, none of it seemed to sink in so I doubt he is going to be of much help to me.

This is the trouble with making assumptions about strangers on the internet; they're usually wide of the mark. Also, I'm not on a witch-hunt so I'm not going to bother looking up the OP's other online selling accounts; especially as I don't believe they're doing anything wrong. Suffice to say that HMRC have a computer system called Connect that gathers data from online marketplaces (including eBay, Vinted, Etsy etc.), social media platforms, bank accounts, the DVLA, Land Registry etc. for discovering undeclared taxable income. Automatic one-to-many nudge letters - example here (PDF file) - are sent to anyone with suspected undeclared income so they can clarify their tax position. So, I'll leave the witch-hunting to the experts.

@banditfrenzy wrote:
Maybe only God can help you.

I'm an atheist so I obviously can't be helped.

Give me ambiguity or give me something else.

banditfrenzy · ‎08-07-2025

@4_bathrooms wrote:
Blimey, that's like calling a member of the Spice Girls "granny" (they're all older than me BTW). I don't have any grandchildren but I did try teaching my teenage nephew how to configure a LAMP stack once along with the basics of PHP, MySQL and the nuances of the Apache httpd.conf file. Unfortunately, none of it seemed to sink in so I doubt he is going to be of much help to me.

This is the trouble with making assumptions about strangers on the internet; they're usually wide of the mark. Also, I'm not on a witch-hunt so I'm not going to bother looking up the OP's other online selling accounts; especially as I don't believe they're doing anything wrong. Suffice to say that HMRC have a computer system called Connect that gathers data from online marketplaces (including eBay, Vinted, Etsy etc.), social media platforms, bank accounts, the DVLA, Land Registry etc. for discovering undeclared taxable income. Automatic one-to-many nudge letters - example here (PDF file) - are sent to anyone with suspected undeclared income so they can clarify their tax position. So, I'll leave the witch-hunting to the experts.

@banditfrenzy wrote:
Maybe only God can help you.
I'm an atheist so I obviously can't be helped.

One of my claims to fame is that a Spice Girl bought a house off me at the height of their fame, & I will forever worship her for how she treated my daughter & how she promised to look after something on that property that my daughter held dearly.

But, I digress. I made more money than most folk can possibly imagine before I hit 20 & I made that money in the very early days of computers & most of that came from converting my ideas into reality by use of the programming language called Perl.

Please don't ever assume that some random stranger on the internets is somehow more stupid than thy. Most of the atheists that I know will be insulted by your flippant comments.