What encourages ebay to take action against private aka business sellers?

[moonlight-rhapsody]

I gather ebay sometimes ebay takes action against private sellers that should be on a business account, and sometimes they don’t, even when it might seem obvious to most people.  

Are there circumstances under which ebay is more likely to take action?

And why *don’t* they take action if, say, virtually all the seller’s listings are for brand new items that have clearly been made to sell.  How do they justify not taking action?

If anybody has been successful in getting some action from ebay, how did you do it?

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[clydeandrascal]

It isn't clear that they should, to be honest.  Being a private seller isn't illegal - the problem with being an undeclared business lies in the hands of the Inland Revenue.   eBay has its own rules & regulations on what is allowed, IR have their own & that is all to do with tax brackets.   Unless an eBay rule IS actually being broken, they aren't about to wade in on ethical issues because to do so will cost them money.   There might be ways to report a seller breaching eBay's rules but, then again, there might not - in many cases there is no longer a way to report a seller who is breaking obvious rules (e.g. misleading title) so they aren't likely to police the difference between business & private.

[4_bathrooms]

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@clydeandrascal wrote:

It isn't clear that they should, to be honest.  Being a private seller isn't illegal - the problem with being an undeclared business lies in the hands of the Inland Revenue. 

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Inland Revenue ceased to exist in 2005 when it was merged with Revenue & Customs to become HMRC.

Anyway, the problem isn't whether such a business is paying tax on their income or not; it is a specific (criminal) offence for a trader to masquerade as a private seller (or as a private buyer). All private sellers' listings state "Registered as a private seller" along with a disclaimer about consumer protection laws not applying to their sales. Such a seller is committing further offences under consumer law such as the Consumer Rights Act and the Consumer Contracts Regulations by not identifying themself as a trader, failing to provide their contact details prior to the sale and in most cases failing to provide consumers (private buyers) with their legal short term right to return for reasons of remorse.

The proposition that a trader can sell via a private account legally provided they declare their income to HMRC is wholly incorrect and is the most often used defence by those who choose to engage in the practice.      

[4_bathrooms]

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@moonlight-rhapsody wrote:

Are there circumstances under which ebay is more likely to take action?

And why *don’t* they take action if, say, virtually all the seller’s listings are for brand new items that have clearly been made to sell.  How do they justify not taking action?

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eBay don't police their platform unless an organisation with teeth forces them to. Trading Standards are far too underfunded to care so they're (currently) not doing anything about it either.

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@moonlight-rhapsody wrote:

If anybody has been successful in getting some action from ebay, how did you do it?

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It is all but pointless reporting such businesses to eBay. You can try reporting them to Trading Standards but you'll likely be directed to Citizen's Advice who will almost certainly tell you eBay should be sorting it out.

[cobwebcottage]

They justify it by adding the statement 'Registered as a private seller Thereby, consumer rights stemming from EU consumer protection law do not apply'. underneath the sellers details on each listing thereby putting the onus on them. 

Once in a while, they will have a purge and send out messages to upgrade your account to a business account. No one knows what formula they use to select these. Probably eenie meenie miney mo.

The reporting process has been tried and tested numerous times over the years and is not fit for purpose.

You only have to look at a small snapshot of sellers posting on the boards who are trading on private accounts to see that it is out of control.

The drop shippers and traders on private accounts are all subjecting their customers to an unnecessary and possibly fraudulent BPF which is the worst offense ( IMO) and discredits the whole platform.

[ile136yz]

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@moonlight-rhapsody wrote:

I gather ebay sometimes ebay takes action against private sellers that should be on a business account, and sometimes they don’t, even when it might seem obvious to most people.  

Are there circumstances under which ebay is more likely to take action?

And why *don’t* they take action if, say, virtually all the seller’s listings are for brand new items that have clearly been made to sell.  How do they justify not taking action?

If anybody has been successful in getting some action from ebay, how did you do it?

- 

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Probably takes action when an eBay Seller has racked up too many defects and it is affecting the way they run their sales for either a Private or Business Seller.

For Business eBayers using SD as a Private Seller - eBay makes no money on the 'no fee' for UK sales but must make money from the Buyer's fees & postage. 

[suelel1968]

Hi, just read a report online from the Ebay Open UK 2025  where this was apparently addressed.

Eve Williams saying that business sellers benefit from the practice because these private consumer to consumer sellers also often buy on the platform too. 

Don't shoot the messenger.....

[pegr-834437]

I brought this exact thing up with Eve Williams at the Open event and as much as she tried to answer it the basic issue much like a lot of the issue son eBay is they dont have a clue on how big the problem is. Eve and everyone within the trust and safety team are not using the site like genuine business sellers do, they dip in and out and thats it. Your message is appreciated and has been passed to the relevant departments is now beyond a joke, speaking to the relevant departments they don't ever get these messages/complaints/issues. 

One thing she did say is there is limits but not a specific monetary or quantities figure so in my simple understanding it must tick a few boxes before anyone looks at it. As we agreed somebody selling 1000 items at £3 should get looked at before somebody just selling 2 items at £2000 each.

I also mentioned which has been put to ebay at least 582 times that the report system isnt fit for purpose, if you report too many people you run the risk of having the option removed and you can be dinged for it to them and again even though we have been told its passed to the relevant teams both Eve Williams the VP of eBay and a member of the trust team both didnt know these issues.

Bottom line is that communication both from eBay and to the relevant teams in eBay is shocking, if users had such bad communication their accounts would be closed but we just get copy and paste replies saying this has been passed onto whomever and nothing gets changed. As previously mentioned unless a body with teeth come after eBay they wont change, especially when you have hundreds/thousands of users willing to break the law and slightly less saying they are not doing anything wrong.

[moonlight-rhapsody]

Thanks for all the responses.  I asked the question because there’s a particular seller - an artist - who puts spurious details in the Item Specifics on their listings, which skews the results for certain search terms.  I discovered that this artist is on a private account, even though all their listings are for Brand New items and many of their listings are original paintings.  Ebay took no action when I reported them for manipulating the search results because of the incorrect Item Specifics, so I wondered about reporting them for using a private account for commercial trading.  However, it sounds as if there is just as much point in reporting private/business sellers as there is in reporting sellers who manipulate search results.  Shame on you, ebay.

[suelel1968]

Hi Moonlight @moonlight-rhapsody Why does the search results issue niggle you so much? Is it because you want to buy certain things or because you would like to sell those things also, but get pushed down the results by sellers with scatter gun approach to descriptions? 

I get narky (about many things TBF) when the price is manipulated by samples for £1 when you really want a whole roll of something. 

[moonlight-rhapsody]

Hi suelel1968, yes both buying and selling, and the fact that ebay not only facilitate absurd search results due to the algorithms, but also the fact that ebay agents condone the blatant misrepresentation on listings by denying that there is anything wrong when it's drawn to their attention.

"I get narky (about many things TBF) when the price is manipulated by samples for £1 when you really want a whole roll of something."

That and also selling the same items on multiple accounts are further examples of how ebay fail to uphold their own policies, and although I haven't reported those instances myself, I gather that reports on these matters aren't acted on either.  The ebay experience would improve exponentially if only they would clean up their act in accordance with their policies.