Interesting and disturbing ebay invoice 0

[bluechip]

I was out of the country for a couple weeks and right as I was leaving I took an item down from ebay when a buyer agreed to a price via message.  I knew I couldn't send it while I was gone, so figured I would suss out how to offer it (via ebay, by the way), when I returned.

Well I returned last night and as I was gearing up to do business I see that ebay has invoiced me and billed my credit card for final value fees for the transaction which has not yet occurred and which is still uncertain because the buyer is in no way legally obligated to follow through on our messages to an offer which he hasn't yet received.

If I had an hour to type them all here I would not be able to list all the uncountable and various ways I find this utterly unacceptable behavior by ebay.    Even if they have a squad of spies poring through your emails to root out people who evade their fees by making deals via IM, a reading of our messages made it clear I did not have his contact info and that the deal was planned through ebay when I returned.   Ebay sent me no messages inquiring whether this deal was going to occur as planned, and if they thought we spoke in some kind of code (though not a single name, address or number was exchanged aside from the agreed price), then there should have been some sort of passive-aggressive "gotcha" email that informed me they were charging me these fees.   

I find it not at all fanciful to conclude that this is more than just a way to catch feevaders (my term for "fee evaders" TM)  but also a way, an excuse, to stick people with fees who just might have been making a deal with somebody they have reason to know outside of the 'bay.   And the lack of notification seems like a deliberate choice made which will, incidentally or intentionally, ensnare and charge many people who did NOT in fact make a deal outside of ebay and also failed to notice the extra charges on their invoices.

 

 

  

 

 

 

[Rick2you2]

24 minutes ago, bluechip said:

I was out of the country for a couple weeks and right as I was leaving I took an item down from ebay when a buyer agreed to a price via message.  I knew I couldn't send it while I was gone, so figured I would suss out how to offer it (via ebay, by the way), when I returned.

Well I returned last night and as I was gearing up to do business I see that ebay has invoiced me and billed my credit card for final value fees for the transaction which has not yet occurred and which is still uncertain because the buyer is in no way legally obligated to follow through on our messages to an offer which he hasn't yet received.

If I had an hour to type them all here I would not be able to list all the uncountable and various ways I find this utterly unacceptable behavior by ebay.    Even if they have a squad of spies poring through your emails to root out people who evade their fees by making deals via IM, a reading of our messages made it clear I did not have his contact info and that the deal was planned through ebay when I returned.   Ebay sent me no messages inquiring whether this deal was going to occur as planned, and if they thought we spoke in some kind of code (though not a single name, address or number was exchanged aside from the agreed price), then there should have been some sort of passive-aggressive "gotcha" email that informed me they were charging me these fees.   

I find it not at all fanciful to conclude that this is more than just a way to catch feevaders (my term for "fee evaders" TM)  but also a way, an excuse, to stick people with fees who just might have been making a deal with somebody they have reason to know outside of the 'bay.   And the lack of notification seems like a deliberate choice made which will, incidentally or intentionally, ensnare and charge many people who did NOT in fact make a deal outside of ebay and also failed to notice the extra charges on their invoices.

 

 

  

 

 

 

Consider notifying your credit card company about an improper charge.

Are you also sure the charges were really from eBay?

[bluechip]

16 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

Consider notifying your credit card company about an improper charge.

Are you also sure the charges were really from eBay?

I haven't checked the card charges.   Just got an invoice from ebay.   I will probably insist they reverse the charge even though I intend to follow through on the sale.   Ebay can charge my card THEN, after the sale is made, and not just because they claim to think I made a sale which wasn't made. 

 

[malvin]

31 minutes ago, bluechip said:

I haven't checked the card charges.   Just got an invoice from ebay.   I will probably insist they reverse the charge even though I intend to follow through on the sale.   Ebay can charge my card THEN, after the sale is made, and not just because they claim to think I made a sale which wasn't made. 

 

I wonder if it was more innocuous than that.  Did you end an auction early when it had bids?  Ebay charges for what the auction is at if you end it early.

If it had no bids, then there would be an issue.

Malvin

[bluechip]

15 minutes ago, malvin said:

I wonder if it was more innocuous than that.  Did you end an auction early when it had bids?  Ebay charges for what the auction is at if you end it early.

If it had no bids, then there would be an issue.

Malvin

There were no bids.   It was a BIN accepting offers.   Potential buyer did not make an offer but asked what I would take and I named a price, specifically saying I would make the offer VIA EBAY in a couple weeks' time when I was back from Europe.   But before that I noticed they had invoiced me the Fees.   The buyer sent me no money, messaged me no contact information except the country he lives in.   He is under zero legal obligation to buy it or even to follow up in any way.

 

 

 

Edited March 4, 2020 by bluechip

[Varanis]

eBay explicitly states somewhere in their terms or policies that they'll do this. As you guessed, it's to prevent sellers from dodging fees. I believe they use messages to determine the likelihood you took it down to sell off eBay. I always try to make any sale on eBay that starts on eBay even if I'm negotiating via message.

[bluechip]

25 minutes ago, Varanis said:

eBay explicitly states somewhere in their terms or policies that they'll do this. As you guessed, it's to prevent sellers from dodging fees. I believe they use messages to determine the likelihood you took it down to sell off eBay. I always try to make any sale on eBay that starts on eBay even if I'm negotiating via message.

I remember seeing something in which they say they will charge you if you use them to contact somebody and then sell it off ebay.   But the potential buyer and I did not exchange any contact into and I had clearly established a time line in which I would make an offer via ebay (sometime this week) 

Following this up I looked for the unsold item listing so that I could use the link to relist and make a direct offer, only to find it was listed as waiting for payment.   I never sent an actual offer that was accepted and never received an offer from the buyer.   I used the link to send an invoice to the buyer, but wondering what happens if he simply ignores it.  

I went looking for my invoices and have found it difficult to do so.

Then I thought I'll just look for "completed sales" which I figured would also be easy to do, and still haven't seen where I can easily do that on my profile.  

Can't help wondering i they've done this before simply because somebody asked me via message "are you on the board?" or volunteered their email, even though no deal was utimately made.   And if so, whether tucking the fees for unsold items into monthly invoices might be something they do often and  in a manner that sometimes goes undetected.  

 

 

 

Edited March 4, 2020 by bluechip

[ThothAmon]

The idea that eBay is a community is laughable.  Ebay had their chance and instead they built firewalls to prevent community.  If you explain it to customer service my hope is they will reverse the charge. 

[RBerman]

It makes a sort of sense, though. It protects eBay from sellers using eBay to find buyers and agree upon prices, then selling outside of eBay.  It also protects buyers from shady dealers. One time my sister tried to buy a car through Yahoo Marketplace or whatever it was called. The seller suggested that the transaction be completed outside of Yahoo Marketplace to save on the Yahoo fees. My sister agreed and sent a down payment to some international account. That was the last she heard from the seller. She told me about it a couple of days later, and we quickly determined that the whole thing was a scam. If she had insisted on buying through Yahoo Marketplace, escrow would have protected her from getting scammed, IIRC.