ebay fee on item ended early.

Jerry_Cornelius

Hi, so, like I always do, I recently listed some items on the 70% of selling fees promotion at weekends, one of which was a camera for £59.99. I got a bid on it soon after (24th Nov) but then the bidder asked me to cancel his bid, so I did (25th Nov). A day later some else emailed me about the listing and pointed out I had described it as Used in the description but marked it New in the condition category. As I tend to copy old listings to make new ones, I realised I hadn't changed the condition from the previous listing, but when I went to try and edit it it wouldn't let me - saying that as my listing had a bid on it I couldn't edit that entry - there were no current bids, just the one I'd had to cancel. So I gave up and ended the listing with the intention of relisting it on the next promotion weekend. But today I had an email from ebay saying they had charged me £7.68 (£6.40 fee, £1.28 Tax) for ending the listing early! I don't often have to end a listing early, but I'm sure I've never been charged before, unless I've missed it, certainly never had an email like this before. I did check it wasn't a scam, and under Seller Account I can see the fee was recorded on the day i ended the listing (26th Nov) and my card was charged with it today (when I got the email). Is this normal practice now to charge a fee?

soolin

Yes this is normal and the fee was charged as you had had a bid. If there hadn’t been a bid then you could have cancelled without charge. 

Sellers pay a FVF based on the highest bid received even if that bid is removed. 

GadgetGuru

They do this since as they assume you have sold the item to that bidder outside of eBay to try to circumvent fee's. As they introduced the buyer to you, they take the fee regardless. 
You could try to contact eBay and put it to them to see what they come back with......

soolin

IftiBashir said:

They do this since as they assume you have sold the item to that bidder outside of eBay to try to circumvent fee's. As they introduced the buyer to you, they take the fee regardless. 
You could try to contact eBay and put it to them to see what they come back with......

There is no point in raising this with ebay- the fee is chargeable and best not to give any suggestion that there might be an off ebay sale- best left alone in case ebay get the wrong idea. 

km1500

mentioned before, but another gotcha is if original buyer doesn't pay and you sell to second chance offer you don't get fvf reduction.

Jerry_Cornelius

soolin said:

IftiBashir said:

They do this since as they assume you have sold the item to that bidder outside of eBay to try to circumvent fee's. As they introduced the buyer to you, they take the fee regardless. 
You could try to contact eBay and put it to them to see what they come back with......

There is no point in raising this with ebay- the fee is chargeable and best not to give any suggestion that there might be an off ebay sale- best left alone in case ebay get the wrong idea. 

Yeah, but there was no intention of that - ebay can see the message the bidder sent to my Inbox as below:

And they can also see the second message whereby I was told it was described incorrectly. Now that I think back when I ended the listing, it just ended; there was no option to select a reason like "Error In The Listing" etc. The truth is the item is going to be relisted next FVF Offer day, so it does seem that ebay are assuming I'm guilty by default of assuming I sold it offsite! But there is nothing to suggest that. I don't understand why if the item receives a bid then its cancelled, and its the only bid, why the listing, in terms of editing certain information, is still treated as if it has a "live" bid.

km1500 said:

mentioned before, but another gotcha is if original buyer doesn't pay and you sell to second chance offer you don't get fvf reduction.

Yeah, knew of that one from past experience.

soolin

You are not being penalised because ebay believe you are selling 'off' ebay- you are just falling foul of the rules that say f a listing is cancelled after receiving a bid then you pay FVFs based on the highest bid received. 

GadgetGuru

I would still try to call eBay (actually speak to someone) and say there was an error in the listing so you removed it, and it is being relisted. Probably wont get you far but you can only try.....

km1500

to be fair, ebay have been surprisingly reasonable on the few times I have had to call.them