Ebay have charged me £120 for two reserve listings

meester

Brooker_Dave wrote: »

If they don't cough up take them to court.

I assume you still have the email from them telling you to cancel?

Ebay are not above the law.

er, yes they are.

That is unless you have lawyers in Luxembourg and lots of time and money.

I have tried the 'I will take you to court line' with them. They don't care.

You can't sue them in the UK.

unrich

vincenz wrote: »

Not meaning to flame you here, but you are given the price and then you are asked to confirm it, which you did.

Ebay stated the listing price and you agreed, nothing more to it.

In the future to avoid such a high insersion get a friend to bid the reserve amount after listing it for £1, this way you avoid a big listing fee and reserve cost.

You could then get this friend to bid the item up to the max and if by accident they win it you could agree to .....

.....hang on, isn't that shill ....

Brooker_Dave

meester wrote: »

er, yes they are.

That is unless you have lawyers in Luxembourg and lots of time and money.

I have tried the 'I will take you to court line' with them. They don't care.

You can't sue them in the UK.

Isn't it just paypal that ran off to Luxemborg?

(why people would use any financial institution that offshored to avoid UK regulators and to avoid UK courts is beyond me - other than the fact ebay makes you use them...)

Ebay can be sued via their London address as far as I'm aware.

soolin

I am struggling though to see what possible good spending more money to sue ebay will do

The only thing that ebay have done wrong is to suggest cancelling the auction, and even if they had not suggested that the OP would still be out of pocket for the £120 fees that she confirmed she was happy with before listing.

One usually sues because advice puts you in a worse position but since cancelling or not cancelling would still have meant the OP paying the fees I'm not sure what can be achieved here. This is almost a buyer beware situation, OP agreed to fees being charged and then changed her mind is that a strong enough case to spend a great deal of money taking to court?

Brooker_Dave

soolin wrote: »

I am struggling though to see what possible good spending more money to sue ebay will do

The only thing that ebay have done wrong is to suggest cancelling the auction, and even if they had not suggested that the OP would still be out of pocket for the £120 fees that she confirmed she was happy with before listing.

One usually sues because advice puts you in a worse position but since cancelling or not cancelling would still have meant the OP paying the fees I'm not sure what can be achieved here. This is almost a buyer beware situation, OP agreed to fees being charged and then changed her mind is that a strong enough case to spend a great deal of money taking to court?

Ebay gave out the wrong advise, at least if the auctions had been left up, then there might have been some chance of the item selling, but as it stands OP has acheived nothing and is left £120 out of pocket.

So in that respect ebay's poor customer service has left OP in a worse position than before.

furrybloke

How do you get to £120 in fees???? I am not sure on this. I use reserves rarely only on high value items that I want to generate interest but protect myself such as a mototrbike start at 99p reserve of £1200

meester

Brooker_Dave wrote: »

Isn't it just paypal that ran off to Luxemborg?

(why people would use any financial institution that offshored to avoid UK regulators and to avoid UK courts is beyond me - other than the fact ebay makes you use them...)

Ebay can be sued via their London address as far as I'm aware.

what London address?

StaffsSW

eBay U.K.
P.O. Box 700
Richmond Upon Thames
TW9 1YR

Or this one

EBAY LIMITED
CARMELITE
50 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT
LONDON
EC4Y 0DX

meester

stevew8975 wrote: »

eBay U.K.
P.O. Box 700
Richmond Upon Thames
TW9 1YR

That's a correspondence address, not necessarily an address for service.

Or this one

EBAY LIMITED
CARMELITE
50 VICTORIA EMBANKMENT
LONDON
EC4Y 0DX

Status: Dissolved 16/10/2007

So that's not a valid address for service.

There is a new Ebay Limited at

POB 18A HYTHE STREET
DARTFORD
KENT
DA1 1BX
but it would seem highly unlikely that you would have any contract with this particular 'ebay limited'

Ebay state:

The services available at http://www.ebay.co.uk are provided by eBay International A.G. ("eBay", "we", "us" or "our"), located at Helvetiastrasse 15/17, 3005 Bern, Switzerland.

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/community/png-user.html
It would not appear that they have a trading presence in the UK.

Though:

"This User Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with English law and subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts. "

So they are subjecting themselves to UK Law, even though:

"Unless otherwise explicitly stated, notices to eBay must be sent by registered mail to eBay International AG, attention eBay UK Legal, Helvetiastrasse 15/17, 3005 Bern, Switzerland"

So it appears you sue Ebay International of Switzerland in your local court.
You cannot use MCOL because it will not accept service addresses outside the UK. So call the local court, ask for a form. The action will be sent to Switzerland, and ebay will respond.

StaffsSW

They do have an administrative centre in Richmond, and also have offices near Sunbury on Thames, Middlesex - both have been mentioned on the eBay PS Board, and the personal account managers are based in Sunbury.

Given the amount of disgruntled eBay users, it comes as no surprise that they are so secretive about their UK locations!!!