Letter From HMRC Re: Ebay Account

TELLIT01

As others have said, there is a massive difference between selling items you no longer want on Ebay and purchasing items which you then sell one. The first is nothing more than realising money from your own assets, the second operating a business. Whether the individual sees this as a side-line or hobby is of no interest to HMRC.
I've been on to a friend of mine for ages because they purchase items on-line and then sell them on either at car boot sales, which they attend on an almost weekly basis, or on Ebay, and they are making a considerable amount of money doing so, and I'm talking about thousands of pounds a year. They refuse to accept that they are running a business and insist it's just a hobby and nothing to do with the tax man.

Flyonthewall

listonosz wrote: »

I don't disagree with many of your comments.
I just think that eBay Etc has a responsibility to make sellers more aware that they could be flouting tax rules.
Selling limits can be easily implemented if they choose to do this.
Ebay routinely break the law every day by allowing counterfeit coins to be sold on their site,even when this is pointed out to them they do nothing about it.
But they are a huge corporation so the law does not apply to them.

They do. Go to the ebay section on these forums, you'll see how often it happens, plus all the information is on their help pages. It gives a guide as to what makes you a business seller.

Before using ebay to sell you should read that and know the law, plus you agree to ebays terms and conditions when you sign up.

However, it is the responsibility of the individual to be sure you are following the law. It is not up to the site to tell you the law, how to follow it or be sure you are follow it. If you're breaking the law it is entirely your own fault.

Ebay is a selling platform, nothing more.

Ebay are the middle man and so they are limited as to what they can do. They don't know the sellers or the buyers and they have a process to help resolve issues. They also give users a report button and they do look into situations, especially when multiple people report them, even if it is just keeping a watch on them until something more happens. Maybe they could do more to investigate and some sellers should clearly be banned, but ebay have hundreds of thousands of items listed. Listings are being added all the time. So it'd be far too hard and time consuming to look fully into every single listing and to gain the knowledge to know what are counterfeits for every single item and to act accordingly.

The law still applies to them, but they're not the law and therefore are limited as to what they can do. Do you realise how much time and money it takes to monitor a site as massive as ebay?

listonosz

Flyonthewall wrote: »

They do. Go to the ebay section on these forums, you'll see how often it happens, plus all the information is on their help pages. It gives a guide as to what makes you a business seller.

Before using ebay to sell you should read that and know the law, plus you agree to ebays terms and conditions when you sign up.

However, it is the responsibility of the individual to be sure you are following the law. It is not up to the site to tell you the law, how to follow it or be sure you are follow it. If you're breaking the law it is entirely your own fault.

Ebay is a selling platform, nothing more.

Ebay are the middle man and so they are limited as to what they can do. They don't know the sellers or the buyers and they have a process to help resolve issues. They also give users a report button and they do look into situations, especially when multiple people report them, even if it is just keeping a watch on them until something more happens. Maybe they could do more to investigate and some sellers should clearly be banned, but ebay have hundreds of thousands of items listed. Listings are being added all the time. So it'd be far too hard and time consuming to look fully into every single listing and to gain the knowledge to know what are counterfeits for every single item and to act accordingly.

The law still applies to them, but they're not the law and therefore are limited as to what they can do. Do you realise how much time and money it takes to monitor a site as massive as ebay?

I believe that eBay has a duty to its members to act upon information from members and protect people from counterfeit items.
It has the money, resources and time to police its site properly but chooses not to.
You seem to be willing to give the benefit of the doubt to a large corporation but your leniency does not extend to the man in the street.

TELLIT01

listonosz wrote: »

I don't disagree with many of your comments.
I just think that eBay Etc has a responsibility to make sellers more aware that they could be flouting tax rules.

If you buy a car the garage won't go through the highway code with you before you drive away. It's your responsibility to know, or learn, the rules applying to anything you do in life.

listonosz

TELLIT01 wrote: »

If you buy a car the garage won't go through the highway code with you before you drive away. It's your responsibility to know, or learn, the rules applying to anything you do in life.

Sorry but I am a realist, who can honestly say that they read through the terms and conditions of every transaction they participate in.

Flyonthewall

listonosz wrote: »

I believe that eBay has a duty to its members to act upon information from members and protect people from counterfeit items.
It has the money, resources and time to police its site properly but chooses not to.
You seem to be willing to give the benefit of the doubt to a large corporation but your leniency does not extend to the man in the street.

It has systems in place for that reason. Not just a system, but multiple systems. Report a member, open a case and feedback.

No, it doesn't. It is not possible to police a site the size of ebay, not to that extent.

I don't know how accurate these stats are, but they can't be far wrong:
http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/ebay-stats/

Another site lists very similar stats. Over 800 million items listed. 25 million sellers. 157 million users.

They do not have the time, money or resources to do what you're saying. Their profits have been down in recently, but regardless they'd have to hire a stupidly high number of staff including experts in every single field to be sure no items were counterfeits and even then there's nothing to stop people lying and putting up a photo of a real item so items would have to be sent to them for a decision to be made.

For all them staff they'd have to have the tools for them to check over items. Not always a case of just looking at them. Then you've got to have offices for these people to work in and massive warehouses to store potentially fake stuff in. Staff to work in the warehouses. You'd also have the postage costs they'd have to cover for items to be sent there as it wouldn't be fair to make a buyer pay if it's fake or the seller if it is genuine. Then don't forget lighting and heating the buildings.

It is impossible.

I'm not sure how you work that last bit out? Everyone should be following the law and paying tax where applicable. That includes ebay (which they do), the big sellers and the small sellers. All are responsible for themselves. Same goes for any seller anywhere, whether one person or a massive company.

Flyonthewall

listonosz wrote: »

Sorry but I am a realist, who can honestly say that they read through the terms and conditions of every transaction they participate in.

You should at least have a good idea of what they say and you should always know the law regarding what you're doing. It's 100% your responsibility.

If you agree to the terms and conditions it doesn't matter whether you read them or not they still apply and it's your own fault if you do something wrong and action is taken against you for it.

Takeaway_Addict

listonosz wrote: »

Thank you,another thought provoking and insightful comment.

Keep saying stupid things and I will keep providing you with thought provoking and insightful comments!

listonosz

Flyonthewall wrote: »

It has systems in place for that reason. Not just a system, but multiple systems. Report a member, open a case and feedback.

No, it doesn't. It is not possible to police a site the size of ebay, not to that extent.

I don't know how accurate these stats are, but they can't be far wrong:
http://expandedramblings.com/index.php/ebay-stats/

Another site lists very similar stats. Over 800 million items listed. 25 million sellers. 157 million users.

They do not have the time, money or resources to do what you're saying. Their profits have been down in recently, but regardless they'd have to hire a stupidly high number of staff including experts in every single field to be sure no items were counterfeits and even then there's nothing to stop people lying and putting up a photo of a real item so items would have to be sent to them for a decision to be made.

For all them staff they'd have to have the tools for them to check over items. Not always a case of just looking at them. Then you've got to have offices for these people to work in and massive warehouses to store potentially fake stuff in. Staff to work in the warehouses. You'd also have the postage costs they'd have to cover for items to be sent there as it wouldn't be fair to make a buyer pay if it's fake or the seller if it is genuine. Then don't forget lighting and heating the buildings.

It is impossible.

I'm not sure how you work that last bit out? Everyone should be following the law and paying tax where applicable. That includes ebay (which they do), the big sellers and the small sellers. All are responsible for themselves. Same goes for any seller anywhere, whether one person or a massive company.

There is no need for a storage facility to keep fakes in.
Your solution to a problem is to look for more problems so you don't have to resolve anything.
It is pretty obvious with Gold/Silver coins and bars from the listing if it is fake.
I myself and many other people from coin forums have reported sellers to eBay and nothing is ever done about it.
The system of reporting a buyer is a joke!

Flyonthewall

listonosz wrote: »

There is no need for a storage facility to keep fakes in.
Your solution to a problem is to look for more problems so you don't have to resolve anything.
It is pretty obvious with Gold/Silver coins and bars from the listing if it is fake.
I myself and many other people from coin forums have reported sellers to eBay and nothing is ever done about it.
The system of reporting a buyer is a joke!

Course there is if they've got to check items. They'd need to store them before and after they're checked, where else do you think they're doing to go!? There's no way they'd be able to check them all the moment they came in and get sent straight back out if genuine and destroyed if fake.

Although there's another issue I missed before - destroying items. That costs and may not be straightforward for all items.

Perhaps, but we're not just talking about gold and silver coins/bars we're talking millions of different counterfeit items.

You are the one that said about a solution for counterfeits but you clearly don't seem to understand what that would involve. I'm not creating more issues, I'm stating what would need to happen in order to ensure that all counterfeit items were dealt with by ebay.

How do you think they'd resolve it otherwise?