Beware! Don't fall for the promoted listing scam!
I've been an eBay seller since 2001 and had many distasteful experiences with ebay but stuck it out, I had so many collectibles to sell it was my best option for world wide exposure. My latest experience blows everything else out of the water though! I listed an Ekornes chair table for CA$475 knowing it would be a quick sale, which it was. Went to a fellow Canadian back east, which was indicated in his buyer info. Crazy thing is, as soon as payment was received the listing magically changed to a promoted listing, adding CA$80+ onto the already exorbitant CA$70+ final value fee. I did not select promoted listing for this sale. When I contacted eBay about it they said I had once (long ago) selected that option and it was a permanent setting, until manually canceled. If this isn't a scam to pad eBay profits I don't know what is. Then to add insult to injury they charged an international fee as well, saying that my buyer was registered in Mexico even though it said registered in Canada beside his user info, with a Canadian shipping address. My CA$475 sale cleared me CA$300! Of course eBay refused to refund the fraudulently collected promoted listing fees. That's it, ebay! You've been trying for years and you finally lose a 22 year 100% feedback seller. If eBay had any customer appreciation those fees should have been reimbursed immediately and without question! Seller beware, you are of no importance to eBay. I hope this little rant helps those sellers that are not yet in a position to ditch eBay.
the-hook-and-the-loop
·2 years agoHow do you think they can have their positive quarterly earnings when every seller is complaining about sales being down?
eBay's magic This is eBay's magic.
treasuresnewandvintage
·2 years agoSame here. Originally began selling in 1998. Garage sale and hard to find treasures... glorious and fun money-making days before eBay restricted my both my accounts a few years back to nearly zero sales per month from 30-50 per month due to I refuse to pay the extra PL fees for the exact same fraudulent reason - added PL AFTER a couple of sales. I add no new items and I leave my existing items listed and catch a sale every month or so. There are thousands operating like me; eBay wants us gone. Yeah, eBay, ya do. PS, I buy what I need now from Amazon. No replies (or helpful) advice needed.
fbusoni
·2 years agoSir: for my own edification, would you please explain what you mean? Thanks.
flash7360
·2 years agoI'll answer you if you allow me (Google translation, sorry).
Ebay was born as a C2C platform (it was the Pierre Omidyar's great idea). Check my profile and you'll see a nice vintage image that proves what I'm saying.
Today, eBay has absolutely nothing to do with Omydiar's idea. The two attacks by aggressive investors that eBay suffered in the recent past, plus the logical intervention of governments to collect taxes, have dismantled what was left of eBay-C2C.
I guess the current CEO (who had already been on eBay staff during the C2C period) is doing what he can to save the platform. One way to do this is to increase commissions, those of class A (direct from the sale), and those of class B, the "voluntary" ones (I put voluntary in quotation marks because I'm sure that for the most common and competitive articles to be sold, the "voluntary" one is mandatory, that is, you have to pay A + B).
Obviously, this scheme is no longer for individuals, it is for professionals. In other words, eBay is currently a B2C platform. And that's why individuals are a nuisance, they only serve to come to these forums and complain. If these forums cost money, eBay will eliminate them, since the function for which Omydiar created them no longer exists. And for the same reason, the feedback system no longer makes sense.
Today, your items are sold by eBay, not by you (believe it or not, you are now a sort of outsourced operator). Ebay is no longer eBay, it is something else.
PS) Please show your operating ID, not a posting ID, thanks.
reallynicestamps
·2 years agoOnce you have checked and corrected any remaining listings, try the eBay employees* assigned to social media.
Here are your options for contacting Ebay Customer Service. Please be aware that for social media CS, you send them a Private Message and briefly explain what your problem or issue is. Feel free to leave your Name, address, phone number and/or your email address in this message. It is private and secure and it may help to speed up the response for you.

https://www.facebook.com/ebay— Message button in upper right on landing page.
#204760888466
https://www.instagram.com/ebayforsellers/

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/How-do-I-contact-Customer-Support/m-p/32016431#M1783851 -> Automated Assistant, type AGENT -> enter. You will then get more options.


The social media Chat accounts are covered by trained eBay employees with some authority.
And you get a transcript so you can compare what you heard with what you were told.
*The phone clerks are actually working for a subcontractor with call centres in Utah and the Philippines. None are well trained, nor do they have any authority.
reallynicestamps
·2 years agoWhen I contacted eBay about it they said I had once (long ago) selected that option and it was a permanent setting, until manually canceled.
You were on the phone , right?
The phone clerks have a quota and try to get you off the line as quickly as possible.
The clerk lied.
The PL option is near the bottom of every Listing form and can be turned on or off at will.
Then you get a choice of the rate you will be paying.
It is possible that you used it once and have never turned it off again.
Go to your Active Listings and look at the Promoted Listings column.
It will tell you IN GREEN if that listing is Promoted and the rate.
Then you can Revise the listing to remove the PL or to change the rate.
Note that the PL will remain on that listing for the next 30 days because... eBay wants it to.
@fbusoni PL like all other eBay fees is on the entire amount of the customer's payment. So you paid not only the 12.5%+ for the entire sale but 23.5% for the entire sale. Entire includes sales taxes and shipping fees paid by the customer.
Many sellers are confused by this and think their fees are only on the sale of the item. Nuh-uh.
fbusoni
·2 years agoThank you, again, for your clarification. I remember being absolutely flabbergasted at the amount of money I didn't make. Now I know why. Convinced me to never, ever use PL again.
fbusoni
·2 years agoYou have reminded me that -- contrary to what I have written here many times since signing up on the forums a few months back -- I DID in fact try promoted listings once.
An item that I had listed nearly 7 years ago -- a new cassette tape recording of a Beethoven symphony -- had languished. So one day -- pretty sure it was early in 2023 -- I was on my phone and looking at the eBay app and thought, what the hell, let's see what happens if I pay an 11% fee to promote this stupid tape. (I don't remember if they were called "promoted listings" back then or something else.)
When it sold, I was shocked to see that eBay took something like 30% (give or take). And then I saw: "Sold with promoted / enhanced listings."
Then I remembered and THAT was when I vowed to never again experiment with promoted listings.
And I am only remembering this incident now as your post has jogged my ancient memory.
eBay has a lot of shortcomings, but in 25 years of selling I've never personally encountered outright financial theft / fraud. It would have made news had it been a thing.
Just my 2 cents. regards
cal-ectibles
OP2 years agoYes, fraud may be a little harsh but it's very close. There was no indication in my items for sale page that it was a promoted listing, only after it sold did it become promoted.
fbusoni
·2 years agoSir: it cannot become promoted after it is sold. You had to have promoted it.
If it was promoted after the sale, that would indeed constitute fraud.