Massive Seller Fee increases from 04/09/13

Road_Hog

George_Michael wrote: »

Instead of asking people to stop defending them, why don't you have the courage of your convictions and stop using them?
Surely by using them and paying them money you are just helping them.
Just about every single post of yours states how bad both ebay and paypal are, yet you seem happy enough to keep paying fees to them.

As to the tax avoidance.
What they are doing is perfectly legal, and if governments want to stop this sort of practice, why don't they change the laws?
Maybe because so many MP's also make use of tax avoidance schemes.

I pay as little tax as possible as I employ a tax advisor to sort this out for me and everything I do is above board and I see nothing wrong in this.

I'm sorry, but what do you mean by courage not to use ebay? I find that courage tends to mean whether you have a set of balls or not, I certainly do and have stood up to ebay/paypal twice - no lacking in testicles here. And I'm certainly entitled to legally use the services of any company that I choose and I choose to use them to get to buyers, I just expect them to adhere to the same moral standards that they expect of sellers. I also expect them to stop avoiding paying tax, which they do.

Just because their tax avoidance is legal, does not make it morally right or acceptable, it is one of the reasons that this country is bankrupt and in the mess it is in, because companies like ebay/paypal, Amazon, Google, Starbucks et al pay virtually no tax. And the reason the government don't do anything about it, is because they're all in the pay of these people and end up with jobs with these people once they leave government.

But hey, you just carry on, you defend the corporations that pay no tax, you defend ebay/paypal that hang onto the buyer/seller's money for 3 days but insist the item is shipped immediately.

Your thinking is perverse. Why should companies pay no tax and you think, that's alright, perfectly legal. Why should companies keep your money for 3 days, but tell you hey, we might give the money back to the buyer but you must ship today?

Seriously, I do wonder at the logic of people today, here is the crux of my argument - should ebay/paypal pay their fair share of tax and is it right for them to hang on to my money for 3 days but expect me to ship immediately?

George_Michael

Road_Hog wrote: »

I'm sorry, but what do you mean by courage not to use ebay? I find that courage tends to mean whether you have a set of balls or not, I certainly do and have stood up to ebay/paypal twice

So, you've stood up to both ebay and paypal, you keep complaining about how bad they are, yet you keep using them. Why?
By using them and paying fees, you are simply helping them to continue with what you consider to be immoral business practices.
Your point of view would have far more credence if you stopped financially supporting a business whose practices you strongly disagreed with.

Road_Hog wrote: »

But hey, you just carry on, you defend the corporations that pay no tax, you defend ebay/paypal that hang onto the buyer/seller's money for 3 days but insist the item is shipped immediately

Why shouldn't I defend a company that treats me well?
They've never screwed me over and they don't hold on to my money for 3 days. Whenever I get a paypal payment it goes into my account within minutes and it sounds like many other regular forum users are treated the same as me.

should ebay/paypal pay their fair share of tax and is it right for them to hang on to my money for 3 days but expect me to ship immediately?

The government decide what tax companies should pay, and if those companies pay little or no tax by way of legal measures, that's fine with me.
Should they hang on to your money?
If they feel that you are a risk, then yes.
You admit to being on your 3rd (or was it 4th) paypal account, and you have stated that as far as paypal are concerned, you owe them £2000, so as far as I can see, holding onto your payments is a wise secutity measure.

Road_Hog

George_Michael wrote: »

So, you've stood up to both ebay and paypal, you keep complaining about how bad they are, yet you keep using them. Why?
By using them and paying fees, you are simply helping them to continue with what you consider to be immoral business practices.
Your point of view would have far more credence if you stopped financially supporting a business whose practices you strongly disagreed with.


Why shouldn't I defend a company that treats me well?
They've never screwed me over and they don't hold on to my money for 3 days. Whenever I get a paypal payment it goes into my account within minutes and it sounds like many other regular forum users are treated the same as me.


The government decide what tax companies should pay, and if those companies pay little or no tax by way of legal measures, that's fine with me.
Should they hang on to your money?
If they feel that you are a risk, then yes.
You admit to being on your 3rd (or was it 4th) paypal account, and you have stated that as far as paypal are concerned, you owe them £2000, so as far as I can see, holding onto your payments is a wise secutity measure.

Point one, I've explained, I use them to get to buyers. I noticed you skipped the courage comment. I am entitled to complain about a company that preaches the moral highground and then avoids taxes. Do you think it is okay for them to avoid taxes? Please note I didn't ask if it was legal, I was asking about it from a moral view.

And no, I did not admit to owing them £2,000. I admitted that they attempted to charge me £2,000 in fees that I questioned. I invited them to have a judge decide by law whether I owed them this money or not. They ran away and said 'not interested'. It's quite simple, they were trying to charge me for a service, to which I said that they had not provided it. If they felt they had provided it, then why didn't they get a solicitor to stand up in court and say so? I suggest, that they felt that they couldn't prove this and defend their case.

As to paypal holding on to MY payments, where do you feel that they have a right? The money belonged to my customer, they have (customer) given it to me in return for the goods that I'm selling. It now belongs to me - not paypal - it isn't their money - sure they can take their cut, but they have no right to sit on the money. My customer can't have his goods, because paypal want to sit on the money for 3 days.

How do you think this is helping the buyer? He's not getting his item. What do you think paypal are checking? They're not checking the goods that I'm selling (they're sitting in my spare room and nobody from ebay has been around to see them). They're not checking the pound notes the buyer has tried to send me. Paypal aren't checking anything, it is an automatic 72 hour restriction. The only thing that they are checking is how much interest that they're earning.

zerog

You want ebay to pay taxes, that's why they are now charging fees on postage...

Road_Hog

zerog wrote: »

You want ebay to pay taxes, that's why they are now charging fees on postage...

Yes, I want ebay to pay UK tax on their profits, just like I have to pay UK tax on my earnings. The thought that ebay should be able to take 10% of postage costs to cover their tax bill is laughable - sellers and buyers should give them 10% on top of postage costs - what world do you live in?

You pay taxes on profits, ebay/paypal make loads of profit in the UK, but use tax avoidance to avoid paying tax.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/9623637/eBay-avoids-paying-50m-tax-in-UK.html

The top and bottom of this is, you (as an individual, not you personally) will have to pay extra tax, as ebay/paypal are paying virtually no tax. Please keep defending them, whilst they profit and don't pay tax, whilst people struggle to make a decent living and have tax deducted at source.

ballisticbrian

The tax game corporation play isn't one of my main gripes. I'm sure while Britain looses to online retail giants, they attract other taxes from their rightful countries on trading commodities in a certain currency or taxes in the finance sector. It's all a game of musical chairs played out between governments and corporations.

I certainly agree with you that eBay have got it completely wrong this time charging a percentage on postage, and I can't really see how this isn't going to hit their profits and shareholders where it hurts.

What some companies such as eBay, but including Royal Mail and My Hermes have overlooked is, when you try to drive more money out of people you think have no alternative, you will either destroy that market or drive up the heat for competition.

soolin

One of the ebay pinks has posted this as part of a slightly longer post on the ebay boards, it covers approx 50 pages of people asking whether it is legal and saying that trading standards have got involved.

The changes to our Fee Structure will be implemented on September 4th, this
is not going to change, members should use this time to review their business
model and make any changes that they feel are necessary before the changes are
implemented.

virgil_tracy

so basically they're gonna take a chunk out of the postage costs as well now - ?

most of my items are around £5 -£10 .

oh well , I guess I'll just list less items .

.

purple321

It does double the fees I pay at the moment because I use FLW and most of my stuff sells around £2.99 with £3 ish P&P, so doubling from FVF of 30p to 60p. I'm going to try and list with P&P in the start price and add on the extra fee but i'm not convinced people will bid with a starting price of £6.30 for 2nd hand clothes (even though thats not much more than they would have paid in total with separate P&P!)

virgil_tracy

Did they email people to tell us of the changes? , 'cos I don't think I ever got one