Yet another buyer protection fee thread

[johnjaybikebits]

I'm sure I'm not alone in having not quite got my head around this yet. I have an item for sale at the moment... It's up for £275, which with the buyer protection fee comes to £286.72. Someone has made me an offer on it: my seller dashboard tells me the offer is £270 including buyer protection fee; in other words, the offer is £258.92. Does that mean that the buyer has offered that very precise amount, or that I'm paying the buyer protection fee on a £270 offer? I can't quite wrap my head around those figures. All advice gratefully received.

[micbr_8101]

OK, so one half of my question is invalid (see response from sml192) - my apologies.  I will check with the buyer.

The second part of your response is interesting.  You imply that BPF has nothing to do with a payment protection guarantee for buyers, that it is actually a disguise for a credit card payment fee, payable by buyers on top of the price of the item(s) being purchased - which I understand to have been illegal (since 2018?).

As far as credit card payment processing is concerned, I have no idea what Ebay pays for the privilege but the last quote I saw (admittedly for a small business - the bigger the turnover the lower the overall costs)  was £20.00 per month + 1.75%.  My local fish and chip shop says it costs them on average 3% per payment.  Given the volume involved I'm sure Ebay will have been able to negotiate much lower average transaction fees than many businesses, but 75p +4% per transaction (how many millions?) will produce a huge amount of cash in total - considrably more than an average of 3%.  Still looks like a good earner!.

[micbr_8101]

Thank you for the clarification.  I will check what has happened with my buyer.

[lucy_farmer]

'You imply that BPF has nothing to do with a payment protection guarantee for buyers, that it is actually a disguise for a credit card payment fee,'

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The BPF is very badly named.  Ebay marketing dept got this very wrong.

The buyer's protection (money back guarentee/MBG) has been around for a very long time.

Customer Support (C.S.) have also been around ages, and obviously so has payment proccessing.... or nobody would have been able to buy anything....!

All this used to be paid for with private sellers' fees.

But ebay wanted to be 'free to sell' so they could compete with Vinte*, et al.

So they have transfered the seller's fee to the buyer.

All they seem to have achieved, by calling it a 'Protection' fee, is confusion and a great deal of insult to long-standing, honest and experienced private sellers, by implying that buyers need 'protection' from them ☹️

[jonatjonatjonat]

Well it is and it isn’t. You can see what eBay state is in the BPF. One is 

• Secure transactions: All payments are encrypted end-to-end and handled by our trusted payments partners.

that would include the continued security processes required to keep eBay secure but also dealing with Visa and PayPal and the like. The trick is, it isn’t JUST a card processing fee. eBay have far more costs than paying what they owe the payment processor. Servers, staff etc. none of this is free, the fees need to come from somewhere. 

what it isn’t though is any form of protection (well except for the fact that paying the fees is what goes towards keeping the site secure does in a round about way, protect the buyer). It would have been if eBay had folded the money back guarantee into the BPF, but for reasons only know to ebay, they chose not to do this.

[swampy001]

I'm so pleased I've found your post. I've gone through exactly the same seller issue, accepting an offer on a low priced item to understand how much I would receive. And yes, by accepting the offer the seller (me) pays the Buyers Protection Fee. 

And, while I'm in rant mode, Simple Delivery. I mistakenly thought that any issues would be sorted by Ebay but no we the seller have to take up any issues of damage etc. with the appointed courier. 

I'm reminded and thanked every time I call Ebay that I've been a member for 20+ years however I don't think I would have been a member for so long if this level of service or selling features was in place originally. 

[xyz307xyz]

Regarding the SD - what type of case did the buyer raise and what was the main "selectable (I think)" reason they chose?

[swampy001]

When the item (PA Mixing Desk) was received by the buyer they discovered a slight issue one component. I offered to take the item back and they duly returned it. I then made a call to Ebay as I thought the benefit of SD was that Ebay stepped in in a case where they was an issue following delivery. That is , potential damage by the courier. Unfortunately this is not the case, Ebay don't do that. Ebay agent advised I need to take up the 'fight' with the courier.  

[xyz307xyz]

I'm not an expert but I think it depends on whether the raised case was

-Item doesn't match description or

-item damaged [in transit] or

-something else

which was what I was referring to.

[sml192]

The buyer needed to open a return request on eBay and then specifically select the reason 'Arrived damaged'.  Ebay would then have refunded the buyer at no cost to you and no need for the item to be returned. 

If the buyer selected a different reason or you refunded outside of a return request then you wouldn't be automatically protected.

The eBay agent's advice to take it up with the carrier is incorrect as you have no contract with the carrier. 

[papso22]

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@swampy001 wrote:

When the item (PA Mixing Desk) was received by the buyer they discovered a slight issue one component. I offered to take the item back and they duly returned it. I then made a call to Ebay as I thought the benefit of SD was that Ebay stepped in in a case where they was an issue following delivery. That is , potential damage by the courier. Unfortunately this is not the case, Ebay don't do that. Ebay agent advised I need to take up the 'fight' with the courier.  

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Seller protection under Simple Delivery is only for when the buyer claims specifically that the item was damaged in transit (or lost).  Any other claims are for the seller to sort out as was the case before SD.

Unless the buyer uses 'arrived damage' as the reason for the claim, ebay will not get involved.  'Potential damage' is not clear enough, although the ebay agent was a little disingenuous when they told you to take it up with the courier as this implies damage in transit nut also you have no contract with the courier under SD. 

However they (ebay) might have incorrectly suggested this as you had already taken some action regarding the claim rather than leave it to them to deal with and it seems your buyer used a reason for the return that was not the one that means ebay takes over.   So it was then impossible for you to get the seller protection.  

[schulme123]

no one would pay it if it was optional 

[micbr_8101]

But ebay wanted to be 'free to sell' so they could compete with Vinte*, et al.

So they have transfered the seller's fee to the buyer.

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I can understand that.  I can't rememberwhat the seller fee used to be, but I suspect that 75p per transacton plus 4% might be quite a bit more lucrative.

Anyway, I have to thank all those buyers out there who it seems are meeting the costs involved in my selling activities - it's my misfortune that the resultant uplift in purchase price of all my small value items makes them unsaleable.  Current sales are a small percentage of pre BPF sales, resulting in virtually no revenue for me  - nor, indeed, for Ebay!