Ebay Warning...

Not really though because what if they paid someone else too or advertised elsewhere ect. Honestly I don't think it's anything but a scare tactic for small sellers. I cannot see how this would ever hold up if someone with the money to fight it did

 

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I was just thinking the same thing. Lol.

 

How is this legal? If you made a deal for say 1000$ and then he wanted a single coin for 2$. If the coin was talked about over the phone,how can they"Assume that the 1 coin was a 1000$ transaction " and dock you for that much. That just sounds crazy.
Correct me if I'm wrong on my assumptions.

 

I agree... How would they even expect to apply this to large sellers like JMbullion or Littleton who have their own websites selling the same inventory? ..probably the next step will be following Amazon's policies controlling the seller's product inventory in house (except in the case of official amazon distributors).

 

My guess is, they need at least reasonable evidence in their messaging system to pull it off. The seller is contracted with eBay to pay fees for advertising and a portion of any profit from the advertised sale. If someone sees a listing on their site...and buys the item (on eBay or not) they have a legal claim to those fees. If it was ever legally challenged, the burden of proof would be theirs (I assume)...but they have a claim to those fees.

I find it interesting how non-tangible things like advertising is hard for us to swallow paying for. As many negative things as there are about eBay...one positive is the amazing number of people they reach. Nobody else has that kind of customer base. They know it...so they leverage that to make money. It's smart business...and they have policies in place to try and prevent people from stealing from them (and yes, if you work out a side deal with a seller for an item you found on eBay to avoid paying eBay fees...that is stealing).

 

No it’s not. Every seller with a store has already paid eBay for the advertising of their listings.

 

Yes it is. Their terms include a sales commission. If someone finds the item on their site and ends up buying it...their service was used as part of the sale. They deserve that commission. Saying otherwise is just wrong.

You or I may not like eBay or their policies. But they are clearly stated in the agreement.

 

I really do miss the days when eBay was a complete free-for-all, although I guess that was never sustainable. You could request any other user's contact info (and they would automatically receive yours), you could leave feedback for anyone with or without an associated transaction, you could see everyone's buying and selling history.

Oh, and FVFs were 5% of the first $25, 2.5% of the first $1000, 1.25% thereafter. But everything had a listing fee. Those were capped at $2. That's not much, but it prevented an awful lot of garbage from being perpetually re-listed. I'd be a lot happier shopping on eBay, and maybe even selling there, if they went back to a model where every listing costs up-front but FVFs are lower.

 

Their service wasn't used though if their checkout process isn't used. Their service is the shipping discounts and printing and payment handling ect. Someone finding it there is just advertising which has already been paid for by the listing fee or the store fee.

The ill will they create with threats like they have more recently is going to cost them more in the long run then letting some things get sold off site.

I agree, but if someone were to really challenge it it doesn't mean every aspect would hold up.

 

On this we are in agreement. However, my issue is with one word in Baseball's earlier post....

"It’s better than that. Go read up on their policy of charge final value fees on things they think you sold off site from an on-site buyer."

I'm sorry, but in my eyes "think" simply isn't good enough and is why I was hoping someone could clarify as to exactly how this is accomplished, or if they're even attempting to do so. While a business has every right to charge and be paid for services rendered, using their power to force customers to pay for what may or may not have taken place is discomforting to say the least.

 

If you're referring to the insertion/listing fee, this is really an excellent point imo.

If eBay is charging separately for the act of listing an item, it's hard to see how this could not be considered as their fee for advertising said item. If they want to charge for things that were not sold using their checkout service, perhaps they should entirely change their fee structure.

 

They do, if you go over your limit they charge per listing and the store fee is really for the extra "free" listings ect. Even their "free" listings show what the charge would have been without the promotion.

Theirs even options where they charge more to have it displayed better

 

I'm guessing that there are still a lot of eBay buyers and sellers who try to have exchanges like this:

B: "would you take $X for this item"

S: "Can't do it with eBay fees, go to my website and you can get it for that"

B: "thanks, done"

S: (ends auction, "item no longer available")

 

I've seen this many times on watermarked photos with a company name across the photo. That's okay I guess? Time will tell.

 

They were going to eliminate that and disallow water marked photos, but I believe they changed their mind on that

 

I don't know if I really want to think that far ahead. This one transaction was difficult enough. It's all pretty crazy, but you sign a contract to follow their rules, whatever they may be, when you open an account. Very few probably read this policy in it's entirety and few more could probably figure it out unless they were a lawyer. Like has been said before, until someone with deep pockets challenges their policy in a legal manner, they will persist with all of their nonsense.

 

Don't get me wrong though. Watermarked photos are fine but not with company names on them as this would seem to violate similar rules I was called out on. But it does help to have some type of mark so others are less inclined to use mine or your photos to use for our listings. Of course I would never use such a deceptive tactic to sell, but plenty of others might and have.

 

And the bad part of that is it's based on key wording that a computer picks up and then auto generates a warning. No people are involved with this. So unless you call to question why you were warned there's no way of really knowing that you did wrong in just trying to be helpful and not attempting to sidestep policies. In my case, I was told the warning still applies but that they would remove the sellers phone number from the warning because I did not use it, he did. But if another seller does the same thing I am back to square one with another warning I must address. If another buyer does this I will make sure I message them that they are in violation of ebay policy. Very annoying but I'll protect myself should another warning happen as they will see this in my messages when I call them the next time.

 

There's several professional photographers on here and I believe they use their name as the watermarks.