"eBay may charge you a final value fee even if your item is not sold"

[ereiam-jh]

I just read the following in the T&Cs

Make sure that your message does not contain any contact information and that you do not request contact or other personal information; otherwise as a seller, eBay may charge you a final value fee even if your item is not sold.

Surely, they wouldn't have a legal leg to stand on if any such charge was contested.

[jonatjonatjonat]

No, what it says is that they may charge you for putting details in a message regardless of whether there is ultimately any sale or not.

because eBay, nor you could prove otherwise. The fine is for breaking a term of the eBay terms.  Given you read them, you’ve set a precedent that it seems possible for that to happen. 

[ereiam-jh]

Do you understand what a legal precedent is? Your responses suggest not.

[jonatjonatjonat]

Spell out to me just what you believe eBay should actually be doing to alleviate your perceived issue.

[ereiam-jh]

They should stop threatening to inflict charges that they cannot legally enforce. It's as simple as that.

[jonatjonatjonat]

Then people should be able to send messages containing information that could lead to off eBay sales.

[ereiam-jh]

There are plenty of ways eBay could discourage the sharing of contact information without resorting to the threat of legally unenforceable fines.

Your resposes are getting quite tiresome. You are arguing for the sake of arguing and with little to no intelligent thought.

[jonatjonatjonat]

I return to ‘what do you believe eBay should do then?’ How do they discourage people from sharing contact information?

they can fine people for breaking terms and conditions. why can’t they?

you seem to have all the problems but none of the solutions.

[ereiam-jh]

It's not my problem to solve but the obvious solution would be to serve temporary bans to sellers who exchange contact information. And permanent bans to repeat offenders.
Any more stupid questions?

[jonatjonatjonat]

Seems sensible as a solution. 

I mean the fines are also ok, but bans would work. Just more admin I imagine.

[ett1954]

"This is about consumer law, not contract law." - In this instance the seller is not the consumer; the buyer is and they are not affected by this charge.  The seller operating on eBay is bound by the contract they agreed with eBay; that is the terms and conditions they agreed by using the site.

[ereiam-jh]

Oh god, give me strength.
Anybody who uses eBay is a consumer.

[ett1954]

"Anybody who uses eBay is a consumer." - in the sense that they have, by using eBay, agreed their terms and conditions which form the legal basis upon which businesses trade with each other and their customers.  Terms and Conditions are a legally binding contract when offered by eBay and accepted by the other party through using the site and form the contractual relationship between the two parties.

Any subsequent dispute between the two parties of the nature you mentioned would then be dealt with through contract law and not consumer law which is generally covered by the Consumer Rights Act - 2015 as @papso22 correctly pointed out.

[ereiam-jh]

In a scenario such as this, a seller who contested eBay's charges would be protected by Consumer Contract Regulations, which still falls under the blanket of consumer law.

However, it makes no difference one way or another. Regardless of how "legally binding" you insist it is, for reasons I have already explained, eBay would never be able to enforce such a charge.

[jonatjonatjonat]

"for reasons I have already explained"

Are they buried in your terms and conditions?

[ereiam-jh]

No, buried amongst a barage of comments from people who are inexplicably defending eBay's arbitrary and ill-considered punitive threats.

[gjalp]

When it was brought in, an email went out to inform ebay members. The T&Cs were amended to include it and then everyone got a ‘we have updated our terms and conditions…’ notification. Ive known about it since it arrived. Im very careful how I word pre-sale messages.

[*vyolla*]

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@ereiam-jh wrote:

No, buried amongst a barage of comments from people who are inexplicably defending eBay's arbitrary and ill-considered punitive threats.

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Have you been charged this fee and feel that it's unwarranted and would like to challenge it, or do you know of somebody else who has?