Insertion Fees with fewer than 250 Listings

[fatgrandmafinds]

This is the 2nd month I've had this happen. I have under 250 items listed and last month on the 29th and 30th I was hit with multiple insertion fees for items that automatically relisted. I contacted eBay, they said there was a glitch reported by several people and they refunded my money within a few days. I just looked at my account and low and behold I was once again charged listing fees on the 29th and 30th when I have fewer than 250 items listed. Do they think we won't notice them chipping away at our profit? If I hadn't sold anything and didn't have funds in my account they would have billed my bank card for these stupid insertion fees I'm not even supposed to be charged. Used to be if we ran into a problem we could reach customer support any time of day but now we have to wait until "business hours" which just gives them more time to charge us for more unwarranted insertion fees. Get it together, eBay. You're not the only game in town anymore and people can take their business elsewhere.

[wastingtime101]

Hi @fatgrandmafinds .

1. Go to this page: https://www.ebay.com/sh/ovw

Under Promotional Offers where it says Used/Left - how many of the 250 are used/left for January?

2. Go to this page: https://www.ebay.com/mes/transactionlist?sh=true

Find item numbers for listings that were charged an insertion fee. Check those listings to see if they have a 2nd category applied or any type of listing upgrade.

[fatgrandmafinds]

This is what it shows, yet I was just charged 5 insertion fees for everything that's renewed this evening.

Used/Left: 6 used, 244 left 

I've kept my listings under 245. There are no 2nd categories or upgrades on any of my listings and I double-checked the ones that renewed to be sure and nope, nothing extra.

[wastingtime101]

You waited until February to check, so please go back to that page and at the bottom click "view expired offers" and see what the final used/left numbers were for January.

[fatgrandmafinds]

Okay, it says I used 250 and had 0 remaining but how is this possible when I kept my listings below 245 all month? I just pulled 75 listings so I have below 200 and that should stop this from happening again.

[wastingtime101]

OK that does indicate you're exceeding your 250 monthly allotment.

You kept your active listings below 245, but did you remember to factor in the approx 15 items you sold during the month of Jan and check to see if any of them were listed or renewed during the month of Jan? Did you check the renewal date of any ended listings last month to see if they had already used up a Jan insertion?

250 applies to all new listings, listing renewals, relists, etc. It's not just about what you have active.

You pulled 75 listings on Feb 1 - but how many of those had already renewed during the month of Feb? You said you already used 6 listings this month, so you'd need to keep track if those 6 listings are still active or if they're part of the quantity you pulled. I see 3 listings of yours that renewed on the 1st which means of those 75 pulled listings, 3 of them had probably already renewed in Feb before you pulled them. I didn't check your sold items yesterday.

[fatgrandmafinds]

Well, thanks for the info. I'm probably going to bite the bullet and do the $4.95 store to stop this from happening. I sold a whopping 1 item yesterday. LOL  I had a Basic Store for a year and when I moved across country I let my subscription expire and changed my quantity available to zero on all my listings so nothing could sell until I was settled and could do a full inventory, changing the quantity to 1 on each listing as I found the item. The items still count as listings with a zero quantity and I haven't been adding new listings, just changing the quantities. I have items to re-list as I ended over 150 items before I moved so I wouldn't go over the 250 during my transition. I'm still not sure why the rep said others had this happen last month because of a glitch and eBay refunded me for the insertion fees last month when this happened if they didn't screw up.

[wastingtime101]

The Starter Store won't change anything for you because it only comes with 250 listings, same as you're already getting.

If you want more than 250 insertions per month you'd have to get a Basic Store.

You didn't mention you're using the out of stock setting and keeping listings active with zero quantity. Yes, those also count towards your monthly insertions.

Reps often give out bad info, and you can sometimes get once per year low dollar courtesy credits so that's probably what happened.

It's in your best interest to know how it works and keep track of how many insertions you're using, and get a Basic Store if you have enough listings and sales to make it worth it.

[lacemaker3]

With the out of stock option, a seller should get a fee credit for any listings that had a quantity of zero for the entire month:

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/listings/creating-managing-listings/multiquantity-listings-listing...

[wastingtime101]

That's only if you paid a separate fee for that listing @lacemaker3 . If one of your free insertions is used there is no credit.

If a separate listing fee is paid and the listing is eligible for a credit, the process is automatic and CS wouldn't be manually crediting.

I use the OOS setting. I've gone over my store limits many times. I speak from experience. 🙂