Legal Issue with EBAY

[Howard-]

I thought eBay capped their final value fees at £75, or has this changed?

[Shedding]

Thanks for all the replies, it's good to get some different points of view.

To clarify, I was definitely signed up for the £1 maximum selling fee (which I subsequently paid as I agree, ebay did introduce me to prospective buyers). I didn't mark the item as sold, just no longer available or similar. The item was collection only so letting the seller inspect before they hand me cash seems pretty reasonable to me, no need for Paypal to be involved.

With hindsight, I agree I have made a mess of this. You might now conclude that if ending an item for sale, it would be best to drop the buy-it-now to 1p before doing so.

In relation to the next steps, I'm going to email both ebay and Ardent Credit Services Ltd (the ebay debt collector) a final communication stating my case and that they will need to take me to court to go further. If they don't drop it then I want to start causing them hassle and counter claim for the cost of my time. Any advice on how to do this?

Thanks again.

[CubanPete]

Shedding said:

Thanks for all the replies, it's good to get some different points of view.

To clarify, I was definitely signed up for the £1 maximum selling fee (which I subsequently paid as I agree, ebay did introduce me to prospective buyers). I didn't mark the item as sold, just no longer available or similar. The item was collection only so letting the seller inspect before they hand me cash seems pretty reasonable to me, no need for Paypal to be involved.

With hindsight, I agree I have made a mess of this. You might now conclude that if ending an item for sale, it would be best to drop the buy-it-now to 1p before doing so.

In relation to the next steps, I'm going to email both ebay and Ardent Credit Services Ltd (the ebay debt collector) a final communication stating my case and that they will need to take me to court to go further. If they don't drop it then I want to start causing them hassle and counter claim for the cost of my time. Any advice on how to do this?

Thanks again.

You can only claim for direct losses. It pains me to say this, but eBay don't appear to be the ones at fault here.

[BertBert]

Durzel said:

Marking it as sold is the dumb part

As is not reading the thread. He didn't mark it as sold

[stevensdrs]

Here is my opinion.

The seller has breached the terms and conditions so no longer qualifies for the £1 selling fee.
Ebay cannot legally charge 10% of a fictitious selling price. The wheels were worth £200 as advertised. No one would pay £2000 for them.

The seller owes Ebay a maximum of £20.

I doubt they will go to the lengths of trying to obtain a court order but if they did I am sure they would lose.

[Helicopter123]

stevensdrs said:

Here is my opinion.

The seller has breached the terms and conditions...

I doubt they will go to the lengths of trying to obtain a court order but if they did I am sure they would lose.

Not sure these two statements make logical sense?

[anonymous-user]

Helicopter123 said:

Not sure these two statements make logical sense?

Maybe because you missed the quoted bit that explains it. In context it makes perfect sense.

[acealfa]

Just reading this thread I thought I'd chip in with how I've been caught out & eBay have charged me.

Selling some car seats. A guy messages me saying he's interested but wants to come and measure up before committing to buy. Fair enough request so I send over address and contact number. Ebay then message me saying because I've sent over contact details they've charged me the final sale fee! Absolutely ridiculous.

[Chester draws]

It's in their terms..

I'd say best bet is to hold your hands up to selling for £200, and offer them 10% of that.

Trying to hold onto the £1 offer I don't think will go well.

ebay said:

If your item doesn’t sell you usually don't pay any final value fee. However, if you offer or reference your contact information to another user or ask a buyer for their contact information, in the context of buying or selling outside of eBay, we will charge a final value fee for introducing you to the buyer. In this case, the final value fee is the higher of the fixed price, auction start price, Buy it now price, Reserve price or the price identified between the buyer and seller, as the case may be.

[NGee]

Chester draws said:

It's in their terms..

I'd say best bet is to hold your hands up to selling for £200, and offer them 10% of that.

Trying to hold onto the £1 offer I don't think will go well.

ebay said:

If your item doesn’t sell you usually don't pay any final value fee. However, if you offer or reference your contact information to another user or ask a buyer for their contact information, in the context of buying or selling outside of eBay, we will charge a final value fee for introducing you to the buyer. In this case, the final value fee is the higher of the fixed price, auction start price, Buy it now price, Reserve price or the price identified between the buyer and seller, as the case may be.

The bit I've highlighte in bold is the key to it all. You can give somebody contact details to inspect the item for sale and if they wish to buy it they MUST complete through Ebay If they don't wish to buy it the listing stays for the duration or until somebody else buys it, if it doesn't sell you don't pay the final value fee. It doesn't seem unreasonably for Ebay to assume that if, just after giving out contact details the item is no longer for sale, that the item has been sold outside of Ebay and that an introduction fee is chargable.

Whether you agree with this or not is besides the point, it is quite clear in their terms. Of course the problem here is that, at one stage, the Buy It Now price was £2000 (a BIG mistake!)

I agree with "Chester draws" post above and hope Ebay agree, however trying to pull one over on Ebay is never going to end well..

[NGee]

Shedding said:

To clarify, I was definitely signed up for the £1 maximum selling fee (which I subsequently paid as I agree, ebay did introduce me to prospective buyers). I didn't mark the item as sold, just no longer available or similar.

But you didn't sell it through Ebay so the £1 deal has got nothing to do with it.

Shedding said:

You might now conclude that if ending an item for sale, it would be best to drop the buy-it-now to 1p before doing so.

What if someone buys it while it is listed at 1p?
You might now conclude that ending an item for sale is a BAD IDEA.

[Hazuki]

Thesprucegoose said:

liner33 said:

I had a phone call at 9.30 one evening from Ebay to give me a telling off , I saw a trim piece for a Jaguar on ebay , the photos weren't great so I arranged to view the item in person prior to bidding as it was close to Heathrow and I was dropping the wife off there, as expected when i checked it over there were tabs broken on the back meaning about 50% of the fixing points were broken and it was useless

So got home, took the item out of my watch list and forgot about it

Few days later Ebay told me I had broken the T&C's buy contacting a member to view the item , they wanted me to bid , then pay for it , then collect it (seller wouldn't post) then if I wasn't happy I could apply for a refund

Ahhh no thanks , so stopped using it as much as possible , now use Amazon instead if I can

That sounds like bullst.

It's not.

I listed a laptop on eBay and got a message from a member asking the usual questions. I mentioned that if he's local, I'm happy for him to take a look and try it out in person if it makes his decision any easier. He told me he was from Barking (I was in the Midlands) and I casually mentioned that I was in Ilford earlier that day buying some alloys.

I got a warning from eBay 2 days later advising that attempting to sell outside of eBay is against the T&Cs. I spoke to eBay chat immediately, who informed me that it was because I mentioned Ilford and that it could be seen that I am trying to arrange a meeting??

It's basically impossible now to see an item before buying, unless it's a classified advert. Hundreds of examples of this online, look it up.

[Funk]

Forgot to say - OP, thank you for reminding me why I don't use eBay any more.

[pavarotti1980]

Funk said:

Forgot to say - OP, thank you for reminding me why I don't use eBay any more.

its now just another platform for business to sell online without creating their own websites.

It used to be crammed with bargains but its just Buy it Now for almost everything i look at

[shep1001]

Sir Bagalot said:

Do you know how difficult that is? And who owns Paypal......

Dead easy, all you need is two email & 2 bank accounts. Ebay used to own Paypal but I thought it was sold a while ago

[pavarotti1980]

shep1001 said:

Dead easy, all you need is two email & 2 bank accounts. Ebay used to own Paypal but I thought it was sold a while ago

They are also allegedly shifting over to a Dutch company to provide the pay facilities

[AlexRS2782]

pavarotti1980 said:

Funk said:

Forgot to say - OP, thank you for reminding me why I don't use eBay any more.

its now just another platform for business to sell online without creating their own websites.

It used to be crammed with bargains but its just Buy it Now for almost everything i look at

Isn't this because eBay effectively want the site to be used mainly as a business marketplace like Amazon, rather than it being for private sales?

Seeing as eBay own Gumtree i assume a lot of the changes made on eBay, including monitored messaging, increased fees / charges in certain categories, etc, would suggest they'd prefer people use Gumtree for listing their private sales, etc.

[anonymous-user]

Facebook marketplace has big potential but it is massively hit and miss.

[Funk]

Thesprucegoose said:

Facebook marketplace has big potential but it is massively hit and miss.

Mainly because younger people are abandoning it in droves and it's only older people using it now...

[anonymous-user]

Funk said:

Mainly because younger people are abandoning it in droves and it's only older people using it now...

That would fall difference on selling items, 44% of uk online population still use facebook and projected user still up another 10 million in 7 years.