Ebay is wrongfully adding the CA ewaste fee for electronics again

[campanaelia]

The glitch is back. I had a thread here 2 years ago about the same issue and everything was working fine until today. Here is the link to my old thread which has been locked due to it's age:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Buying/Why-is-ebay-charging-CA-buyers-addt-l-fees-on-electronics-not/t...

I buy about 10-15 laptops a month and refuse to pay it, the last time this happened I had to wait a total of 5 months to fix it after numerous chats with customer service. I already messaged my current sellers to cancel pending transactions and included my chat reference # and screenshots. . Customer service said they noted my account to remove any unpaid strikes. What a big waste of time. Guess I'll be buying laptops elsewhere for a while now until it is fixed...

[simba6]

It's the state of CA that needs to be fixed.  That has to happen at the ballot box. 

[campanaelia]

Ebay charging the ewaste fee incorrectly was fixed about 5 days after I started this thread. And as of today it is back again. The fee is only for "New" and "Mfg. refurbished" items. I bought 2 "for parts/NW" laptops and it is being added at checkout.

@simba6 

This is an ebay programming error, nothing in CA needs to be fixed, nor do I care about your political opinions.

[the_tech_vault]

I also just not nailed $5 for the fee in error on a used computer.  Escalated to Ebay tax dept. TBD

A link on Ebay to The state of California states:

Are any sales exempt from the fee?

Yes. The fee does not apply to the sale of a video display device that is any of the following:

• Used and not refurbished.
• Part of a motor vehicle, as defined in Vehicle Code section 415, or a component part of a motor vehicle assembled by or for a vehicle manufacturer or franchised dealer. This includes replacement parts for use in a motor vehicle.
• Is contained within, or a part of a piece of industrial, commercial, or medical equipment, including monitoring or control equipment.
• Contained within a clothes washer, clothes dryer, refrigerator, refrigerator and freezer, microwave oven, conventional oven or range, dishwasher, room air conditioner, dehumidifier, or air purifier.
• A sale for resale.
• Shipped by you to a location outside of California.

[campanaelia]

@the_tech_vault 

Have you received your refund yet? I went ahead and paid the fees also but not bidding again until this is fixed..

I also called the CA tax dept. to let them know of this recurring issue. You can call Michelle at 916-309-8009 , or email complaints to michelle.cano@cdtfa.ca.gov

[janet9988]

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@simba6 wrote:

It's the state of CA that needs to be fixed.  That has to happen at the ballot box. 

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Is that who is responsible for ebay glitches? I never knew it was politicians who caused ebay glitches.

[stainlessenginecovers]

Could it be the category that the seller is putting the item? 

[albertabrightalberta]

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@campanaelia wrote:

Ebay charging the ewaste fee incorrectly was fixed about 5 days after I started this thread. And as of today it is back again. The fee is only for "New" and "Mfg. refurbished" items. I bought 2 "for parts/NW" laptops and it is being added at checkout.

@simba6 

This is an ebay programming error, nothing in CA needs to be fixed, nor do I care about your political opinions.

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Why was the fee $5 in October and $9 on this invoice? 

[campanaelia]

The ewaste fee is $5 for 15" screens and $4 for 14" screens.

In october the invoice was for one 15" laptop, so the fee was $5.

This new invoice is for 2 laptops, one 14" and one 15", the fees are $4+$5= $9

[campanaelia]

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@stainlessenginecovers wrote:

Could it be the category that the seller is putting the item? 

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No, they are in the correct category. The problem is the ewaste fee only applies to "New" and "Manufacturer refurbished" items only. I purchased "Used" and "For parts/NW" which are exempt.

This is a recurring ebay issue I've had to deal with many times.

https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/taxes-and-fees/ewfaqsgen.htm#exempt

[valueaddedresource]

There's a similar issue that has occurred off an on with batteries over the last couple years. Recycling fees that are only supposed to be collected for lead acid batteries (like in your car) are instead applied to any kind of battery or any item within any category having anything to do with batteries (like a plastic battery storage box).

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/eBay-Overcharged-Tax-on-Battery-Sales/td-p/31458236/highlight/...

I haven't seen the battery issue pop up recently, but when it did, it was usually after a sitewide update where eBay may have moved categories around - my guess at the time was that somewhere in the process of moving/renaming/consolidating categories, eBay may have "forgotten" to apply whatever settings had previously been in place to prevent tax/fees being collected when it shouldn't be.

I know eBay did another round of category changes in September, but not sure if these electronics categories were impacted or if that really has anything to do with it.

devon@ebay  - can you get this issue with the CA eWaste fee being charged in error reported to the right department please?

[devon@ebay]

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@valueaddedresource wrote:

There's a similar issue that has occurred off an on with batteries over the last couple years. Recycling fees that are only supposed to be collected for lead acid batteries (like in your car) are instead applied to any kind of battery or any item within any category having anything to do with batteries (like a plastic battery storage box).

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/eBay-Overcharged-Tax-on-Battery-Sales/td-p/31458236/highlight/...

I haven't seen the battery issue pop up recently, but when it did, it was usually after a sitewide update where eBay may have moved categories around - my guess at the time was that somewhere in the process of moving/renaming/consolidating categories, eBay may have "forgotten" to apply whatever settings had previously been in place to prevent tax/fees being collected when it shouldn't be.

I know eBay did another round of category changes in September, but not sure if these electronics categories were impacted or if that really has anything to do with it.

devon@ebay  - can you get this issue with the CA eWaste fee being charged in error reported to the right department please?

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Hey @valueaddedresource! I will be sure to go ahead and get this reported on my end. I also recommend if the seller has not done so already to go ahead and reach out to customer support to have this issue reported on their account as well. 

[janet9988]

It affects BUYERS Not the sellers.

Sellers can not be held responsible for for buyers having this problem.

[friendly_lamar]

delete

[valueaddedresource]

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@janet9988 wrote:

It affects BUYERS Not the sellers.

Sellers can not be held responsible for for buyers having this problem.

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@janet9988 - good call that the buyer needs to contact support as well but this does actually affect both sides of the transaction. Obviously the buyers are paying a fee they shouldn't but so are sellers.

eBay assesses final value fees and promoted listings ad fees on the total amount of the sale, including shipping, sales tax, and any other taxes or fees. So if an extra $5 fee is tacked on that shouldn't be there, the seller is paying fees on that amount too.

And here's were it gets interesting, in my experience with the issue with the recycling fee on batteries, buyers who called support to complain were given refunds paid for by eBay to reimburse them for the fee that was paid in error, but eBay did *not* automatically refund the extra fees the seller paid.

There are two things that eBay needs to do here - first, fix the issue so it doesn't happen again and second, refund all the buyers and sellers who were impacted by it.

They have records of every sale that has had the fee tacked on and there's absolutely no reason they couldn't use their amazing machine learning AI powered systems to pull those records, sort by "condition", refund the fee for any that were not new or refurbished, do the math to figure out what the seller's fees were on that amount and refund that too.

After my experience with the batteries, I do not expect that to actually happen, but there's no technical reason it couldn't - eBay just won't do it and will instead simply take care of the few squeaky wheels that pop up...maybe...if they can manage to get through to a support rep who can actually help them.