Ebay Seller asking for Vat after payment

abbadabbado08

Hi all,

I have had a trawl through the past threads and cannot find anything that fits this problem. I have seen threads about added vat to the invoice but not this one.

Anyway, Husband won and pay for an item on Ebay for £21 + P&P, no probs there.

Next day seller mails (to email address,not through Ebay messages) asking us to send and extra 15% for vat and then he will send the item.

When I checked the listing it did say to add 15% for vat, which we didn't notice when the item was won.

Now, I am wondering, as far as I can tell from Ebay Help page he cannot ask for the vat, am I right?

And, why if he can ask for the vat didn't it appear on the Ebay invoice and the Paypal invoice?

And, why send message through email address and not though ebay messages?

I know the vat is only around £3, and if the item had gone up another £3 we would still have wanted the item, but this does not seem right does it? or is it me seeing too much into it?

I'm sure that one of you will be able to point me in the right direction.

Regards

molerat

VAT must be included in the sale price it cannot be added afterwards. The rules changed a while back. Seller is wrong.

From eBay help pages

Remember that If you're VAT registered, and therefore must charge VAT on the items you sell, the prices visible to buyers in your listings must be inclusive of VAT.

Just politely e-mail that according to the rules the price charged is inclusive of vat.

Premier_2

abbadabbado08 wrote: »

...And, why send message through email address and not though ebay messages?
...

This is quite common with some ebayers. They have ebay messages forwarded to their email accounts to enure they receive prompt attention.
They then reply via their email account.

However, they can't charge more than you bid because of VAT.

Don't forget to ensure they provide you with a valid VAT receipt too, which must include their VAT number!

basilseal

technically the seller is in breach of ebay's rules, but, he did state in the description that the item was plus vat, so his terms were clear enough. It's up to you whether you want the item or not, you have a choice of either paying the vat or asking for a refund.

you could conceivably cause trouble for the seller by reporting his auctions to ebay, but surely life's too short for such things unless of course he get's awkward with you if you request a refund.

soolin

I would point out the rules politely to the seller and explain that you will now expect your item in a few days.

Depending on how he replies I would then just leave it if goods arrive without further payment. If however goods do not arrive or seller insists on extra then I would report to ebay and reclaim my payment via paypal, do a non performing seller complaint and neg.

Wait to see though what seller says first, he might be genuinely unaware that the rules changed.

NeilJung

Your initial thoughts are correct. Adding VAT after the sale has not been allowed for quite some time now, and your seller should know this if they are a registered business seller. Sounds like they are attempting a bit of fee avoidance.

It's up to you how you want to handle it, but you should at least inform them that they are in breach of ebay rules and what they are doing would also be classed as fee avoidance. Personally I would not have bid on this listing in the first place after reading that the seller wanted to add VAT. If it was an item I really wanted I would have contacted the seller in advance to enlighten them on ebay policy and depending on their reaction I would then decide whether to report them on not.

basilseal

NeilJung wrote: »

Your initial thoughts are correct. Adding VAT after the sale has not been allowed for quite some time now, and your seller should know this if they are a registered business seller. Sounds like they are attempting a bit of fee avoidance.

It's up to you how you want to handle it, but you should at least inform them that they are in breach of ebay rules and what they are doing would also be classed as fee avoidance. Personally I would not have bid on this listing in the first place after reading that the seller wanted to add VAT. If it was an item I really wanted I would have contacted the seller in advance to enlighten them on ebay policy and depending on their reaction I would then decide whether to report them on not.

If you bought an item at any real life auction your bid would be exclusive of vat, there are a number of reasons for this, auction buyers are usually businesses and hence will reclaim vat, also, only ebay have the raw nerve to charge commission on money that people are collecting on behalf of the tax man, and last but by no means least, HMRC's rules require that you charge VAT on the nett price, in an auction, for the purpouse of calculating vat the nett price is taken to be the highest bid, and this is the price to which vat should be added, by including vat in the high bid price you are depriving HMRC of revenue due, because the inclusive amount is slightly less, or at least this is what the HMRC help line told me a two seperate occasions.

for retail sales the price should include vat by law, some sellers were taking the mickey by selling consumer goods as plus vat, hence ebay's new vat rules to stop this (though knowing ebay i would guess that greed also played a part). ebay do however have a business section with hundreds of thousands of listings in it, where plus vat items would be entirely appropriate.

I can't really see the point in selling on ebay if you have to break the rules to do so, i no longer sell items from my vat registered business on ebay because the new rules mean it is no longer a suitable place to sell them. I would disagree with those who say the OP should bully the seller into supplying the item at the price without the vat element though. it's his item, and his terms, which were clear in the listing, if you don't want to pay vat, then don't bid, simple.

prowla

I think that it's the law of the land that sellers have to quote VAT inclusive prices to retail buyers.

TurkishDelight

Don't pay extra- we had a seller try this on last year, sent us loads of emails over two months eventually we just reported them to ebay- they stopped hassling us and none of their listings now say that. Shame though as I would've bought from them again if it weren't for that. It's too easy to overlook when it's in a listing and the price you bid plus p+p should be the price you pay.

abbadabbado08

Hi, Thanks for the advice.

I mailed the seller, yesterday, beening polite and friendly, heard nothing back all day.

This afternoon parcleman arrives with the item!!

But still no mail from the seller, I will mail him back though, to let him know it has arrived.

Thanks once again, keep up the good work

Regards