BEWARE - eBay £1 Promotional Final Value Listing Fee

[Trojmiasto]

Just thought I would post this here for the benefit of the modelling community. Long story short - if you have sold items recently under eBay's £1 max final value fee promotion, just be wary on your invoices that eBay have not charged you the 10% rate.

 

Long story:

 

During the lockdown, I have been quite efficient in sorting through some items in and around the home to sell on eBay. Given their recent £1 maximum final value fee promotional days and the ability for courier services to collect items with a door to door delivery, it seemed an ideal opportunity to clear out some of the clutter from home. I promptly accepted the promotional offer that was sent to my email address, and began selling. Each time an item was listed, the wheel in my seller dashboard on my phone was notifying me of the number of items I had remaining as part of the promotion that I could list, and was reducing on each occasion.

 

Having checked my invoices following these sales and delivery of items, I found that I was due to be billed a fairly alarming amount on my monthly invoice on my sellers account. When investigating further, I found that the items that had been sold had a 10% final value fee applied - not just to the item itself, but to the postage also.

 

It took approximately five hours of waiting and talking to numerous different representatives on eBay's live chat service to try to get to the bottom of what had happened. Firstly, I was accused of relisting the items. I had used a template from another item through the `Sell a Similar Item' function for certain listings, and had to advise that it was not that. Then I was told that it was because the email within my eBay inbox with the link to accept the promotion was showing as unread. Again, went back to them to advise that I had signed up through email.

 

On the third occasion, there was an admittance that there had been a glitch in the system and that my transactions would be refunded. On checking a short while later, some had, but the ones that I had accepted best offers on had been missed off. Back onto them again - this time, there was less hanging around to get to where I needed to be, but after the representative saying they would process this for me, I then found that they hadn't deducted the postage. When I asked why, they said that final value fees for postage are excluded from the promotion. I asked them to show me this in their terms and conditions as the other representative had nulled off the fees applied to the postage, to which I was promptly disconnected from the chat. I then spoke to yet another representative, having gone through everything again including the above, and finally managed to get corrected totals applied to the postage.

 

I have read at least one thread online of others who have also experienced issues with the above. It is not just the fact that there seems to be a lack of standardisation in training at eBay along with the time spent waiting that has made me annoyed, it is to think of how many other people could potentially be in exactly the same position as me, have perhaps skipped checking over their bill this month thinking `it'll be fine' and being excessively charged for something without knowing. I am not trying to suggest that eBay are in the business of doing this, but I would just advise others that have sold items during a recent promotion to make sure they check their invoices thoroughly if the amount charged appears to be excessive.

 

If anyone has come across anything akin to the above, I would be interested to hear from you. 

Edited May 31, 2020 by Trojmiasto
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[gordon s]

Thanks for the tip, but just checked and I was charged £8 for 8 items for sales in May. All had courier service at £7.50 and no additional charge on postage.

[hayfield]

I have checked the past month when they have had 2 lots of Max £1 selling fees, all looks fine to me. Thanks for the heads up though

[hayfield]

5 hours ago, gordon s said:

Thanks for the tip, but just checked and I was charged £8 for 8 items for sales in May. All had courier service at £7.50 and no additional charge on postage.

 

 

Gordon

 

Your savings on fees were excellent and just shows by biding your time the costs can be minimised.

 

I have sold 6 items this weekend, nothing fantastic but saved well over a £15. More over have sold quite a few items the past 2 months which otherwise would have stayed in the cupboard. I have one brand new kit on the way (something that rarely comes up and when it does its expensive) and quite a healthy modelling fund.  Cannot make my mind up on another small industrial tank, too much choice

[Les Bird]

It definitely pays to watch Ebay, It annoys me that they charge commission on postage too.

[gordon s]

Yes, thanks for the tip off, John. From memory the total was around £860, so certainly saved around £78 on fees. Well worth doing.....

[hayfield]

8 minutes ago, Les Bird said:

It definitely pays to watch Ebay, It annoys me that they charge commission on postage too.

 

Les

 

This was down to unscrupulous sellers who sold items cheaply but ramped up the postage. 

Many companies do have issues with their software, if eBay was as bad as they are made out to be no one would use them

 

What other options do you have, shops and dealers will offer you about a third of what its worth

 

Auction houses charge both the seller and buyer 20% + each, which itself diminishes the items value and their exposure to potential customers is far smaller

 

Be a savvy seller, just be organised and patient. Like all online organizations they want your business   

 

  

[ejstubbs]

11 minutes ago, Les Bird said:

It definitely pays to watch Ebay, It annoys me that they charge commission on postage too.

 

Historically (many, many moons ago) people used to game the system by listing items at 99p (private sellers didn't get free listings regardless of the start price in those days) and charging an amount for postage which was effectively their reserve price for the item (less 99p, plus the actual postage cost).  That way eBay only got their cut on whatever the item made over the 'reserve'.  eBay shut that down by charging commission on postage as well as on the selling price.  So basically, some people took the proverbial and everyone ended up being 'punished'.

[hayfield]

10 minutes ago, gordon s said:

Yes, thanks for the tip off, John. From memory the total was around £860, so certainly saved around £78 on fees. Well worth doing.....

 

Pleasure

 

First question    Have you placed your orders yet ?

 

Second question    Have you got some more redundant stock sorted out yet ?

[TheSignalEngineer]

My wife had a similar problem some time ago when she was invoiced £30+ 10% of shipping for one item when she had registered on the £1 listing offer. She argued the toss with them and got the bill reduced to £1. It pays to check and question, as they hope you will have automatic Paypal set up for paying your fees and won't notice until next month.

[adb968008]

Its always worth a check at the bottom of the selling page to see if your listings are being deducted “used” / “left” from your total of the promotional listings...

 

if the numbers not changing, the listing isnt qualifying..

[RFS]

13 hours ago, Les Bird said:

It definitely pays to watch Ebay, It annoys me that they charge commission on postage too.

 

It was users who forced that change - charging small amounts for the item and huge postage to escape the fees....

[Les Bird]

OK, I can see where Ebay are coming from. Perhaps if everyone was more honest this wouldn't have happened but I guess that's just wishful thinking.

Edited June 1, 2020 by Les Bird

[hayfield]

Les

 

In some ways eBay will protect you from dishonest buyers and sellers, providing you keep to the rules. I would be more upset at the charges made by auction houses, 45% commission plus high P&P charges 

[ruggedpeak]

Thanks, I thought it was a one off but they have done it to me. Sold 2 items in the deal, first one got £1, second one was full price (£11). Spoke to online assistant and they promised to refund. Just seen fees being paid without the refund. As a reasonably frequent Ebay user buying and selling I am very pee'd off.

[njee20]

I always wait for these before listing, I've sold hundreds of items and never been mischarged. The only thing that bit me was that if you lift multiples of an item they are exempt. So if I have (for example) multiple identical wagons now I list as 4 separate listings! Worth watching out for though certainly. I've relisted items and it's counted, but an item has to sell within 30 days. Indeed I ended and relisted several listings yesterday to take advantage of this month's offer.

I was interested that this one was 10 days long - generally it's a long weekend.

[ruggedpeak]

Just been online chat for 2nd time and promised a credit in 10 minutes.........

[ruggedpeak]

Fair play, applied the credit on 2nd time of asking.

[Il Grifone]

That always annoyed me on those antique programmes - buy from a dealer and then try to make a profit at auction. Sometimes it actually worked, but only because they ignored the commission!

[Trojmiasto]

16 hours ago, adb968008 said:

Its always worth a check at the bottom of the selling page to see if your listings are being deducted “used” / “left” from your total of the promotional listings...

 

if the numbers not changing, the listing isnt qualifying..

That was the peculiar thing with mine - they were being deducted from the total as you can see it in the Selling part of the dashboard within the app. However, they then tried to say to me that I hadn't signed up for it because the message they sent through my eBay inbox was showing as unread, as i'd actually signed up via the email link instead. They did accept my explanation, however to be double sure this time, I have taken a snapshot on my phone as proof in case that reason is used again.

[Trojmiasto]

2 hours ago, njee20 said:

I always wait for these before listing, I've sold hundreds of items and never been mischarged. The only thing that bit me was that if you lift multiples of an item they are exempt. So if I have (for example) multiple identical wagons now I list as 4 separate listings! Worth watching out for though certainly. I've relisted items and it's counted, but an item has to sell within 30 days. Indeed I ended and relisted several listings yesterday to take advantage of this month's offer.

I was interested that this one was 10 days long - generally it's a long weekend.

I have used the `Sell Similar item' before when doing this to retain the listing structure and amend the photographs, and have made sure that it is deducted from my total allowance. As per my original post, I was still charged for it as they suggested that the items were actually relists, but I advised them that they were not because there was no ended listing for them to be a relist of! 

[njee20]

Yes, but ignoring the error this time, relisted items are fine, as long as you actively relist them. The exclusions covers items that automatically relist during the period, or those that you list first during the promotion and then relist outside of the promotional window, or those that sell more than 30 days after listing.

 

It's an important distinction - you can relist items during a promotional period and they still count, you don't need to mess about with "sell similar" or anything. It just won't count if it automatically relists due to the listing expiring.

[Hal Nail]

Also be aware with these £1 offers that multiple items dont count. I sold a couple of identical kits so did one listing, 2 available and only discovered when the invoice came back that such listings are excluded in the terms.

 

My fault for missing this but a bit annoying as could just have easily have listed them individually in different periods. 

[ejstubbs]

How often do these £1 offers turn up?  I seem to remember taking advantage of one last autumn when I embarked on my first concerted bout of eBay selling for many years, but I've not had sight of them since.  Do people get e-mails to alert them when they're available, or do yuou have to be a regular visitor to eBay to see them?

[hayfield]

I thought these were blanket offers, however it has been suggested they are targeted

 

We have just had a first 10 day one, prior to that a few weeks earlier had a 4 day listing period 

 

These were the beginning and end of May, before this mid March

 

I guess they have a marketing plan based on listing activity and availability. Why give offers when you don't need to

 

My daughter regularly used on line shopping when it was far less popular, she rotated using 3 different companies based on free deliveries. If you don't use them for a few weeks they send you promotional offers. I guess eBay may use similar tactics