Ebay is collecting this California E-waste recycling fee in error for most cases of laptop sales on their platform. They are absolutely, explicitly, and without shame collecting the fee on laptops that are listed as "used" or "for parts/repair" by their sellers. Ebay should only be collecting the fee for "new" or "open box" or "manufacturer refurbished" laptops. The appropriate California regulation that covers this fee is located here:
https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/formspubs/pub95.pdf
And the relevant part of the official California state publication is this - quoting directly:
"The fee does not apply when a customer purchases a video display device that is any of the following:
• Used but 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.
• 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, freezer, oven or range, microwave oven, dishwasher, room air conditioner, dehumidifier, or air purifier.
• Contains Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED).
• Cell phone, including smartphone with screen size greater than four inches.
• eReader/eBook-Reader or eInk"
(Bold emphasis above on "Used but not refurbished" is my own)
I contacted Ebay several weeks ago about this, and mentioned that the fee was also incorrectly collected several years ago before they fixed the bug in their software that runs the checkout process. The Ebay rep said I should receive a refund after she presented the info I provided to the appropriate higher-ups, but that has not yet happened. Shocking, I know.
The history of the incorrectly applied fee is simple: Recently (sometime around early October, 2022), Ebay "overhauled" their checkout software and once again the "bug" crept back into the code from the earlier version from many years ago, and they've been collecting this fee ever since. California explicitly does NOT require the fee to be collected on the vast majority of laptops sold on Ebay's platform (which are used and sold by their original owners after perhaps an upgrade). What's happening with all of this money, quite likely millions of dollars that should not be collected? Why can't Ebay just fix their code again? It gets updated regularly with new fees/taxes/surcharges/payment options/etc., so it's not like nobody there is familiar with the code base!
To be fair to the state of California, I personally believe that this is a VERY sensible fee to collect on new items that will eventually make their way to a dump or recycling center (preferably the latter). California would prefer (and they mention this in their publications and videos) that items be reused as often as possible before finally giving up the ghost and hopefully being recycled into new products, as certain metals, plastics, glass, etc. is extracted from the original item. Philosophically, I'm totally on board with this. But even California will admit that you can only send a covered item into the recycling system once - you can't keep doing it each time the item is resold as used (hopefully several times) in its lifetime. That's why they only require the fee to be collected once, when a covered item is purchased as new or manufacturer refurbished by its original/first owner. Simple, right? So what's the problem, Ebay? FIX YOUR CODE!!!
