Spread the word of ebays criminal practices!

[nursediesel]

Please spread word of ebays manipulation and total control of our funds after a sale! Highlight their monopolizing of shipping options for sellers! Their removal of all ways to make formal complaints! There feedback system for sellers that has "one" positive button! Here is a form letter I have been using and feel free to use it or edit it for your own experience or if you see any inaccuracies. Send it Citizen Advice, CMA, Reddit, social media, BBC and all other media outlets! 

> NAME
> ADDRESS
> POST CODE
> EMAIL
> DATE

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**Subject**: Restriction of Seller Autonomy and Potential Abuse of Market Position by eBay UK

To whom it may concern,

I am a UK-based seller on eBay and wish to raise a formal complaint concerning what I believe to be **anti-competitive practices** and **unfair restrictions on seller autonomy** imposed by eBay UK.

As of "ENTER DATE YOU STARTED HAVING ISSUES", eBay has removed the option for sellers like myself to **opt out of their proprietary shipping program**

This program forcibly overrides my own shipping preferences and compels me to use eBay as a freight broker—without meaningful consent, transparency, or control over the delivery process. Previously, sellers had the ability to disable such programs or choose direct services (e.g., Royal Mail, Evri, UPS) with full control over pricing, service tiers, and tracking. That ability has now been silently and irreversibly removed.

This situation raises several serious concerns:

1. **Loss of Commercial Autonomy**: I am unable to fulfil orders using carriers and service levels I trust and prefer. eBay’s system overrides this and masks actual shipping choices from buyers.

2. **Hidden Fees and Inflated Costs**: Buyers are charged inflated shipping rates, but I do not receive this money nor do I have clarity on how it is used or calculated.

3. **Forced Use of a Single Intermediary**: eBay inserts itself as a mandatory shipping broker, effectively **limiting my right to contract freely** with a third party courier. This could be seen as an abuse of market dominance under UK competition law.

4. **No Redress or Complaint Mechanism**: eBay offers no internal complaint route for challenging these policy-level impositions. Attempts to contact eBay UK support yield only generic responses or redirection to irrelevant help articles.

This is particularly damaging for small and individual sellers who rely on transparent, competitive shipping options to offer value and retain customers.

I believe this policy change may breach:

* **Consumer Rights Act 2015** – Unfair contract terms
* **Competition Act 1998** – Abuse of dominant position (Chapter II Prohibition)
* **Unfair Trading Regulations** – Lack of transparency and misleading omissions

I request that **this issue be investigated** by the relevant authorities and that pressure be applied to ensure eBay UK complies with fair competition and consumer protection standards. At minimum, sellers should have the ability to opt out of these shipping programs and regain control over how their items are delivered.

I am happy to provide screenshots, policy documentation, or further details on request.

Yours faithfully,
**YOUR NAME**

[jonatjonatjonat]

You may well have some complaints in there - and fair play for trying to push these things.

One point - how would loss of commercial autonomy apply in the case of a private seller?

[nursediesel]

As I stated, it is a form letter covering everything in one place and should be edited for their individual cases and complaints. In the year we live in, most people will not take the time to draft a letter and look to where they should send it unfortunately so I just threw out a catch all letter. Until CA and CMA get a trend of complaints, nothing will be done unless someone with big pockets takes them to court or the media starts running with it. Everyone is getting abused both private and commercial sellers so everyone should be offended by how they are being treated and do something about it.

[450-262541]

I'm on your side but I think you ought to edit the word 'criminal' in the title to something else if you still can.

On a public forum it may be taken as defamatory and at the very least you might get the post removed

[nursediesel]

I am done tip toeing around the mess that is eBay! Let them take it down as it is on many threads and I will continue to post it here and everywhere I possibly can!  It is criminal in my view and if I was a millionaire, I would be having my lawyer working on a plan for this so called company.  They have destroyed what was ebay in the last 5 years and so now they are now resorting to taking every coin and option away from their decade old customers! They had a working capital of 6.5 Billion Dollars in 2022 and went on a free fall to a little less than 1.5 Billion in 2024. Two years! Who is paying for that catastrophe? It is definitely not ebay standing up and taking responsibility but instead its their lawyers and accountants finding ways to get every bit of money they can from their customers. I am sick of it as you can see.

[450-262541]

Fair enough, best of luck 😃

[susapric-68]

All those outlets have been spammed over the months and so far your only result is 2 articles in the sun (Must have been a slow katie price day). Keeping on at the CMA could end up an own goal as a lot of the private sellers are really businesses and they are passing fees over to the buyer and the CMA can fine the seller and not eBay for that. There is no FORCED to anything, you agree to it when you list so can't be seen as forced. But good luck, maybe blame the tories and the guardian will run an article this time

[nursediesel]

Then they need spammed more. If businesses want to pass fees onto the buyers then there is nothing wrong with that as buyers can see the total amount they will have to pay for an item and then make an informed decision if they want to purchase it or not. What is not OK is ebay manipulating and freezing sellers funds on their own. What is not OK is ebay monopolizing the shipping option by personally becoming the only shipping broker for anyone wanting to sell on the platform at inflated prices. What is not OK is constantly telling sellers to leave feedback but only have one button that says "positive". What is not OK is slowly taking away all forms of access for making formal complaints through their website! I think by looking at the tons of threads, some now over 300 pages and some with over 6500 replies, that it is obvious what people think and it looks like the rebuttal of "There is no FORCED to anything, you agree to it when you list so can't be seen as forced." is definitely not one of them by the looks of things.

[susapric-68]

It's been months, don't you think if you had any leg to stand on you would have started to see a result? This is not a sit in the back seat and keep saying "are we there yet" in the hope it will get you there quicker. Spamming them will get you nowhere. I'm all for fairness, why should i have to pay to list when private sellers get over 300 FREE a  month that rolls over. Be careful of what you wish for, If any fairness laws, consumer rights and anything had been broken you would known by now, time to move on or move away to another platform. Like i said no one is forcing you to list. As no laws have been broken your claim of criminal action could lead you to a slander case if ebay wanted to do that

[crafty_cat_lover]

I'm curious - if Ebay is so bad then why are you still listing items for sale?

Also you missed the word "some" in your post - 'that it is obvious what some people think' - we don't all share your views.

[nursediesel]

Saying "Spamming will get you nowhere" is just what the people at ebay want posted in response to the torrential cascade of posts from furious people, who unlike you see the total injustice of hiding fees, monopolizing 3rd party services and removing formal complaint avenues. You seem to have a problem with businesses posting as private sellers which is not what anyone in any of these epic threads or posts are talking about. We are talking about taking away every option as a seller and manipulating our funds. I think your issue would benefit from its own post as it has nothing to do with what the current flood of posts are talking about.

[susapric-68]

Doubt ebay even care if you spam. If i complain to an organisation about what i think is a wrongdoing and get it rejected then spamming them won't change that. They're not going to change that just to get rid of the spam. Just because you do not like it does not make it criminal. If you don't agree with it then take down your listings and move to another platform, that is really all you can do. Most people have adapted or moved on, time for you to do the same. Everyone that can be spammed has been spammed and it got you no results, only person left to spam is wait for December and spam Santa in the hope he will do something. That's all from me on this, hopefully this will be the last post about all this

[nursediesel]

I am not still listing! I am active in many other threads and we are looking at different selling avenues. My listings were a test of selecting Freight as my shipping option for small packages as you can see by my test listings. Two days after I created these test listing, ebay removed the freight option from all sellers listings! Can you tell me what items I am listing that are using the mandated Simple Delivery option that we are discussing? You try and call me out as a hypocrite without even looking at my listings which should say something right there about your reply. You comment about the "some" omitted but I and MOST others posting on these threads are discussing the Simple Delivery fiasco and ebays actions. Most people who dont have a problem with ebay, dont read threads labelled as such, so the wording I and MOST others use reflect that. Go ahead and continue selling through ebay but dont use word semantics or shallow attempts at making me look like a hypocrite to make your point!

[bojangled]

@nursediesel I have to agree with @susapric-68 on this. 
When eBay first announced free to sell for private sellers in October last year, they also advised of forthcoming SD and payment holds coming in early 2025, it all got lost in the free to sell noise.

I understand your frustrations, but it’s their T&C and if users want to use the platform then that’s what you agree to when creating a listing.

It doesn’t mean I agree with all these changes, I think business sellers have been well and truly shafted over the last year, which is why I’ve moved elsewhere. 

Jo

[papso22]

"I am not still listing!"

You have 6 active listings.

[nursediesel]

They are all listed as Freight just like I told you if you actually looked at them. Why would you reply to my previous post without actually pulling up the listings and looking at them? Its mind boggling. Do you just like arguing with people for the sake of arguing without any knowledge of the subject or investigating what was previously said? If you think ebay is a bed of roses and agree with their decisions then why are you on these threads which are talking about this ongoing issue? 

[plpmr]

“Spread the word of ebays criminal practices!”

Criminal matters should be reported to the police not the organizations you cite.

However as you have Mel Brooks and Cloris Leachman on your side how can you go wrong?

[crafty_cat_lover]

Whether or not your listings were a test you ARE still listing so surely that does make your comments hypocrital. And I still don't understand why, if you think Ebay are using criminal practices, you are still listing items for sale, whether or not they are test items. If I thought a company that I was a customer of were acting criminally, I would immediately cease to be one of their customers.

Some people, like myself, like to keep an eye on what is going on and the best place for that for Ebay is on these forums.  I read this thread because of the title claiming that Ebay's activities are criminal and wanted to see what that was all about, I'm pleased to note that there is nothing to see here.

[papso22]

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@nursediesel wrote:

They are all listed as Freight just like I told you if you actually looked at them. Why would you reply to my previous post without actually pulling up the listings and looking at them? Its mind boggling. Do you just like arguing with people for the sake of arguing without any knowledge of the subject or investigating what was previously said? If you think ebay is a bed of roses and agree with their decisions then why are you on these threads which are talking about this ongoing issue? 

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You said quite clearly that you were no longer listing, I replied to that very clear comment by you that you were wrong as you were still listing.  If you meant that you were no no longer listing with specific postage options, then your "!" should have come after a few more words.

Accuracy is very important, especially if you are writing to so many official bodies.

[nursediesel]

That is incorrect. If a company is involved in criminal practice, it is not always a matter for the police to resolve but regulatory agencies or specialized groups. If I own a company and purposefully create a monopoly and break anti trust laws for example, the police would not get involved or investigate. That would be entirely up to for example in the states it would be the FTC who would be the ones to be made aware and they would be the agency investigating that crime and the police would not be involved in any way.  Here in the UK the CMA would be responsible for investigating that crime and not the police in any way.  

You have no idea how many times I get asked if I am a nurse. Very few people get the high anxiety reference! Cheers.