eBay's rip off new buyer protection fees and delayed payment for sellers

[rowater82]

I first posted on this last night and received dozens (possibly more than 100 in less than 24 hours) of emails and posts on seller centre and eBay community  sharing my objection to eBay's new rip off Buyer Protection fees and delayed payment for sellers. Re: Buyer protection fees. Unilaterally imposed on all listed items including those listed by sellers before the February 4 changes. I wonder if this is illegal? It is almost certainly in breach of UK Trading Standards Laws - to unilaterally increase the price of an item, publicly advertised, days, weeks, months beforehand,  without the seller's consent. I will be seeking pro bono legal advice. And may well move to another platform. eBay's actions are despicable, motivated purely by greed. BUYERS already had protection under the previous system. I have expressed these views to an eBay rep on the phone. If eBay had tidal wave of complaints and an exodus of items - removed from sale on eBay - maybe their powers that be might see sense and abandon this rip off policy.

[kath3735_wxmjn]

and a lot of those were the same people responding so not as many as you are implying!   The amount of comments is irrelevant if say there were a hundred but only actually a handful of people doing it.   No one likes the changes but i am pretty sure that they will turn out to be legal and within UK Trading Standards Laws, not that i am an expert but E Bay will have plenty of those that will have investigated just how far they can go!   As for 'without the sellers consent', you agreed to the T & Cs when you used the site and they were all updated and sellers informed about them  in advance.

[buffster1963]

There have been a lot of these threads over the last month with lots of replies, but i do have to agree that they are mostly the same posters replying, especially after the first few days. A lot of those posters are not even private sellers. 

[abrahamtoast]

You can't be very confident if you're only seeking "pro bono legal advice".

As mentioned in an earlier reply on one of the threads, you are VERY late to the party. We've all been through everything you're now saying, many times. If you take the time to read some of the huge threads on this subject, you will see that you are adding nothing new, Consequently, you won't get many responses from the most dependable members here as they are fed up posting the same thing over and over again.

Do you really think a huge multi-national organisation like eBay is going to implement a change which is illegal? Do you really think they didn't have their own high-powered legal teams investigating every possible scenario before they went ahead? Do you think they will be outsmarted by a couple of randoms on a discussion thread?

eBay will also have gamed the loss of members and will have decided they can bear it. Those leaving will be a mixture of sellers with low-cost items which are no longer economical to sell (regrettable), those business sellers masquerading as private sellers who just don't want to pay anything (good riddance), and those who are over-reacting and throwing their toys out of the pram (no great loss). Before these changes, these sellers were contributing a grand total of zero to eBay's coffers as sellers.

I'm not keen on the changes myself, and I do think eBay could have done things differently, perhaps concentrating on converting bogus private sellers into business sellers, but realistically, you either accept the changes, or you leave. As the above poster has pointed out, you have accepted the changes, as you continue to use the site.

[forestfeline62]

There are lots of people who are leaving ebay ,or left this new fee gives buyers 100% protection with sales ,and if they want to buy your item use it damage it and send it back ,ebay will support them all the way .Sellers won't be listened too when they try to appeal a returns case ,the buyer gets their money back and sellers are left with an item that they cannot resell . It is all a rip off ,ebay claim they have returns policies that protect sellers and buyers but there is no protection for sellers . 

[lucy_farmer]

'Do you really think a huge multi-national organisation like eBay is going to implement a change which is illegal? Do you really think they didn't have their own high-powered legal teams investigating every possible scenario before they went ahead?

Do you think they will be outsmarted by a couple of randoms on a discussion thread?'    

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👍👍👍 😂

I've been trying to say this more politely for weeks.... but you've summed it up with that last sentence!

[goodibags]

Buyer Protection Fees are also being charged in transactions where a buyer has agreed to pick up an item from a seller, often on the very same day.

On the one hand, the buyer is being asked to pay for a service which should very clearly be optional, given the circumstances.

On the other, the seller is still made to wait for receiving payment for the sale while the funds are held by Ebay. Up until a few months ago it was perfectly acceptable to pay by cash in such cases.

[kidmore_kats]

Well good luck with your endeavours.

I don't know if you were around when eBay introduced commission charges on postage, the forums went into the kind of meltdown that makes this current mess pale into insignificance.

Suddenly everybody had a solicitor in the family who had assured them it was illegal, they were taking eBay to the European Court of Human Rights, the would never sell on eBay again etc etc.

You get the picture.

Years later, eBay still charge commission on postage and people are still buying and selling.

[goodibags]

The Buyer Fees are not being charged on postage, except in the case of 'free' delivery where confusingly they are.

Of course, one day soon buyers may also need 'protecting' from simple delivery. Gawd help us when that happens.😁

[kidmore_kats]

I'm referring back to a time when private sellers still paid fees on sales and postage.

Should have made that clearer.

And yes, there are no selling fees for private sellers now

[andha-21]

No disrespect intended to you or the poster you replied to but it's like you've forgotten just how many huge corporation's have been caught and prosecuted for gaming the system.

Truly massive companies that have been operating illegally for years, know they are, but the business method is as simple as not being caught. They are fine until they aren't.

& I can guarantee you they would have had top notch lawyers too.

It's like you forget that lawyers are occasionally payed large sums of money to get very guilty, criminal types out of legal headaches. Again, some very famous examples of that. So they aren't all goody goodies.

[andha-21]

Something I spotted in your post

"BUYERS already had protection under the previous system."

It's not a previous system. It's current. Still active on every listing I have checked. Still advertised by eBay in their Help section last time I checked too.

So we have a free buyer protection and a paid one.

[goodibags]

Whereas I was referring to a company charging for a service that it DOES provide as opposed to attempting to charge for one it evidently does not.

But, as you say, Ebay has previous form. 😉

[racwat-7]

You might say you wait for your money on other platforms, yes true, I sell thru a bricks and mortar auction house, you might put your items in and wait 5-6 weeks for your money, however, with B&M auction there is no cataloging, no arranging and scanning, no uploading/listing and no dealing with messages, no time-consuming expensive shipping (against the clock), and no defects - it's just dump and forget. If ebay want to copy all the worst aspects of rival platforms, while keeping all the worst aspects of their own platform... sellers will walk. I dont think discouraging bona fide longterm users of your platform is a very good business model.

[foresterdon]

So I can now offer a cheaper price to my buyers by charging for postage than offering post-free!

Utterly insane decision by eBay

which will not hold and they will be forced to ditch it when buyers realise how they are being ripped off.

[papso22]

It seems you don't understand how the boards work.  Each time you start a thread, or reply on someone else's thread, you have enabled the settings so that ebay notifies (emails) you when someone replies to you, or anyone else, on one of those threads. 

Those emails are not from other members and they are not necessarily in response to what you posted.

You have three live threads on the boards, i.e started by you.  For those three, there are 24 posts from other members and you were given 4 thumbs up.  Not all the replies agree with you.

Your totals, including on other posts, are 40 posts and 21 thumbs up.   Many of those thumbs up (or helpful votes as they are also called) come from members who will give one to anyone who disagrees with ebay's actions. 

So there is no way that by 4:50 pm yesterday you had received more than 100 emails and posts supporting you, they were mostly just posts on the threads that you were receiving notifications for.

I find it odd that as a journalist you are too busy to take on something that you clearly feel very strongly about.

[wyntersemporium]

Vinted do the same yet no one complains there 

[vinylscot]

After I gave you a "thumbs up" for your post, it dawned on me that OP is just going to add that to his total, and claim even greater agreement with his original post.

He did have another post up briefly yesterday (now gone), where he complained that other posts of his had been removed by eBay for being "repetitive", so, being charitable, perhaps there were more "thumbs up" on these removed posts.

[papso22]

I guess that, being charitable, that might mean there were more replies in the count as well.  

I still think the OP is using 'journalistic licence' .

And now that's another notification!  I will stop now. 

[racwat-7]

If ebay want to copy all the worst aspects of rival platforms, while keeping all the worst aspects of their own platform... sellers will walk.