Sly Ebay fee

[i prefer a flan]

Sold an item on Ebay - the item was listed under the '£1 selling' fee offer, so I was surprised after the sale to receive an invoice of 185+GBP.

I can only assume because it didn't sell in a specified time limit that Ebay did not notify me of, the 1 quid selling no longer applied.

I'm in my rights not to pay this aren't I. What are the consequences. I will be moving soon and I'm tempted to ditch both Ebay / Paypal account.

FYI the transaction was via bank transfer so there are no Paypal funds for Ebay to pilfer.

Cheers

[alistair1234]

i prefer a flan said:

Sold an item on Ebay - the item was listed under the '£1 selling' fee offer, so I was surprised after the sale to receive an invoice of 185+GBP.

I can only assume because it didn't sell in a specified time limit that Ebay did not notify me of, the 1 quid selling no longer applied.

I'm in my rights not to pay this aren't I. What are the consequences. I will be moving soon and I'm tempted to ditch both Ebay / Paypal account.

FYI the transaction was via bank transfer so there are no Paypal funds for Ebay to pilfer.

Cheers

It says when you list the item that the offer only applies to the original listing. If your listing auto-renews then the offer doesn't apply. It's quite clear.

[blue_haddock]

Ebay are pretty hot on chasing their fees so if you dont pay they will soon escalate it.

[eybic]

Ebay and Paypal are one and the same pretty much so they will take their money from your bank, if you cancel the DD, they will escalate it and get debt collectors involved.

[i prefer a flan]

eybic said:

Ebay and Paypal are one and the same pretty much so they will take their money from your bank, if you cancel the DD, they will escalate it and get debt collectors involved.

Might have to cancel the credit card then. For the sake of 200 quid it's worth it. F'k Ebay. Fact is they've got a hole in their business model.

[Fipster]

I made the same mistake, politely queried it with them and got a refund as a gesture of goodwill (it was about £50 from memory). They probably look at your history before making a decision. Worth trying anyhow.

[BoRED S2upid]

i prefer a flan said:

eybic said:

Ebay and Paypal are one and the same pretty much so they will take their money from your bank, if you cancel the DD, they will escalate it and get debt collectors involved.

Might have to cancel the credit card then. For the sake of 200 quid it's worth it. F'k Ebay. Fact is they've got a hole in their business model.

The only fact is you didn’t read the T&C. Easy mistake to make put it down to experience and pay up. As above they are very unlikely not to chase you for £200 and it will soon escalate to much more.

[i prefer a flan]

Fipster said:

I made the same mistake, politely queried it with them and got a refund as a gesture of goodwill (it was about £50 from memory). They probably look at your history before making a decision. Worth trying anyhow.

I will try that.

[alistair1234]

i prefer a flan said:

Might have to cancel the credit card then. For the sake of 200 quid it's worth it. F'k Ebay. Fact is they've got a hole in their business model.

You know they can still charge cards that have been cancelled?

[Dan_The_Man]

With those £1 max fee listing weekends, your item has to sell in the first 30 days. If not it will auto relist and you get stung with the full fees.
Trick is to cancel all of your £1 listings before the 30 days are out and relist when the next £1 listing weekend starts.

[devnull]

alistair1234 said:

i prefer a flan said:

Sold an item on Ebay - the item was listed under the '£1 selling' fee offer, so I was surprised after the sale to receive an invoice of 185+GBP.

I can only assume because it didn't sell in a specified time limit that Ebay did not notify me of, the 1 quid selling no longer applied.

I'm in my rights not to pay this aren't I. What are the consequences. I will be moving soon and I'm tempted to ditch both Ebay / Paypal account.

FYI the transaction was via bank transfer so there are no Paypal funds for Ebay to pilfer.

Cheers

It says when you list the item that the offer only applies to the original listing. If your listing auto-renews then the offer doesn't apply. It's quite clear.

Indeed, it's the very business model of assuming people didnt read the fees. Ebay will be ultra water tight on this and OPs feeling that they need to uphold their misguided principles will cost them.

[i prefer a flan]

alistair1234 said:

You know they can still charge cards that have been cancelled?

That doesn't surprise me. Good to know.

[i prefer a flan]

devnull said:

Indeed, it's the very business model of assuming people didnt read the fees.

I tried to find them - no results. Should be crystal clear. I will not be paying this come-what-may.

[NickCQ]

i prefer a flan said:

I tried to find them - no results. Should be crystal clear. I will not be paying this come-what-may.

You are only screwing yourself over.

[Kingdom35]

i prefer a flan said:

My mortgage is paid off.

And?

Pay up mate. Ebay are ruthless, for the sake of £200 this could escalate and turn into something it doesn't need to. Just see it a lesson learnt. Weve all been there through our lives. You wont win against a massive global company. Get back in line :-)

[Fastpedeller]

Unfortunately (like most organisations) Ebay tell the good bit (max £1 fee) but leave the less good bits in the T&C's so it's a case of looking carefully. I used to put items on as 'Buy It Now' but only do auction for selling anything since recent changes to Ebay. In particular 1) Buy it now listings can't be for less than 30 days. I've found that generally people (for some weird reason?) would leave buy it now until the last day before buying (maybe in case similar came up cheaper, who knows?), but I didn't want to wait 30 days for a potential sale. 2)I noticed that any Buy It Now would relist and generate a fee after 30 days, and I wasn't willing to pay extra, in case I forgot to end before 30 days (which was likely!) 3) If I listed as auction, I could make the starting price one I'd accept, and add (for free) a 'make offer' option, and occasionally someone might offer more than the starting price, and we'd both be happy.
I've yet to work out the psyche of Ebay buyers (maybe there's many different? A couple of examples
a) I saw an item listed at £35 starting, which I knew might go to £80, so early on I offered the seller £50, he accepted, both happy (presumably)
b) I offered an item for sale £25 start, suggesting an early offer (if accepted) would result in the buyer getting goods early etc. After a couple of days someone started bidding, (I could see after auction end) £30 - If he'd made an offer of this earlier (instead of placing bid) I would have accepted, however he was then outbid, with several bidders in succession.

[Simpo Two]

eybic said:

Ebay and Paypal are one and the same pretty much so they will take their money from your bank, if you cancel the DD, they will escalate it and get debt collectors involved.

On the two occasions where I've made a stand against what I felt was an unjustified bill, I've found debt collectors - ie automatic letters - pretty useless and easy to confuse to the point they give up. The best one was when, after we'd gone round in circles a few times, I wrote to them saying that if they contacted me again I'd charge them £50 for my time in dealing with it. They wrote again, so I invoiced them, and to my amazement they paid!

But my original thought was - will eBay use the same calibre of monkey, or issue a summons? IMHO those are much more serious than 'debt collectors' - then again, you could chance it, go to court, lose and pay a bit more, but you took the risk. As Mr Eastwood would say, 'How lucky do you feel, punk?'

ETA: You could also step back and take the view that you sold this item for, presumably, something like £1,800, and would you have managed to sell it for £1,580 anywhere else? It may be that even after the fee you still got the best price for it.

Edited by Simpo Two on Wednesday 19th February 14:05

[alistair1234]

I’d say you won’t have a leg to stand on when it’s this obvious. You don’t even need to go in to the T&C’s to find it.

[Simpo Two]

I imagine eBay would have to prove that their website said that at the time of the contract and not added afterwards.

Maybe I should have gone into law

[i prefer a flan]

alistair1234 said:

I’d say you won’t have a leg to stand on when it’s this obvious. You don’t even need to go in to the T&C’s to find it.

'The first listing period' is undefined.