eBay

squarebiz99 · ‎04-10-2023

I don't know why I didn't notice before, but I looked at a breakdown of 1 of my transactions and saw that I am being charged a final value fee on sales tax. I don't collect sales tax. eBay collects it from the buyer. It's bad enough being charged a final value fee on shipping. Sellers should only be charged a processing fee for the shipping charge, not a commission, but this FVF for sales tax goes too far. Call it what you want, but a FVF is a commission. Someone should start a class action against eBay, but the biggest problem would be the legal costs. That's probably why no one has yet

dbfolks166mt · ‎04-10-2023

Just when I though we may get through a week without seeing another one of these we start of the week with one. As others mentioned there are hundreds if not thousands of posts about this same topic. I have finally saved a canned response answer.

I have always considered the eBay FVF's on sales tax to be the best accounting bargain around. If you sell a $100 item to a buyer in a state with 8% sales tax the FVF on the $8.00 in sales tax amounts to 13.25% * $8.00 or $1.08 if you are promoting at 2% that adds another $.16 so the total FVF on the sales tax is $1.24.

For that $1.24 eBay keeps track of the 10,000 various state, county, city, parish, municipality..... sales tax rates and laws and applies and collects the proper sales tax from the buyer. They then remit those collected funds to the 45 states with sales tax laws on whatever periodic basis is required. There is NO WAY I want to take on that burden as a seller for $1.24 out of a $100 sale. "

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varebelrose · ‎04-10-2023

"...the biggest problem would be the legal costs. That's probably why no one has yet""
Or the user agreement that everyone who sells here has agreed to.

By the way, even paypal charged you a percentage of sales tax collected, it was just a smaller bite so less noticeable. It works the same way for brick and mortar stores that accept credit cards, the fee is always based on the total amount of the transaction, including tax.

my-cottage-books-and-antiques · ‎04-10-2023

@squarebiz99 "I don't know why I didn't notice before, but I looked at a breakdown of 1 of my transactions and saw that I am being charged a final value fee on sales tax. "

You didn't notice it before because you haven't been paying attention. It has been this way for a long time. It has been discussed countless times on this Board. It is legal.

house*of*paws · ‎04-10-2023

Hi @squarebiz99

Payment processors customarily base their fees on the total amount of the buyer’s payment … without regard to the components of the payment. PayPal did that as well. It’s legal … so suing won’t be fruitful. ☹️

squarebiz99 · ‎04-10-2023

How is it legal to charge me a fee on a tax paid by the buyer and passed on to eBay for payment to the respective state? I know the shipping charge has been in effect for several years now. I do pay attention as I've been at this for 20 years, but the sales tax? People just don't fight hard enough for what's right and also due to the size of almighty eBay, people simply get discouraged.

sakic92710 · ‎04-10-2023

The people who think eBay is their buddy will defend them & say it is better to pay that fee instead of having to take care of collecting the tax yourself, etc. As far as I am concerned, eBay TAKES a % of the S/H for offering no service at all so that more than covers the cost of them having to handle the tax issue.

squarebiz99 · ‎04-10-2023

As I said, I wouldn't have a problem if it were just a processing as before with pay pal

duffy4444 · ‎04-10-2023

@squarebiz99 :

You've been around for just shy of 20 years, are approaching 24,000 in feedback, and you were not aware of the breakdown in eBay fees? And you didn't think it through, that with every credit card sale at any store, the merchant is charged a percentage on the entire transaction including sales tax?

There seems to be a lot of online sellers who need to pay closer attention to eBay's TOS that they agreed to. In addition to that, they're not keeping things in perspective without getting their socks in a wad and spouting off about a "class action" case which would be easily dismissed in about 10 seconds. SMH...

Cheers, Duffy

my-cottage-books-and-antiques · ‎04-10-2023

@squarebiz99 "How is it legal to charge me a fee on a tax paid by the buyer and passed on to eBay for payment to the respective state?"

You are not the first person here to raise this question. If you can show the law that prohibits it, then you would be the first person to back up your claim that it is illegal.

I do not like it. I like it even less that ebay does the same thing with Promoted Listing Standard fees, but I have found nothing that says it is illegal.

house*of*paws · ‎04-10-2023

@squarebiz99 wrote:
As I said, I wouldn't have a problem if it were just a processing as before with pay pal

@squarebiz99

eBay adjusted (lowered) the percentage of the fee at the time it took over from PayPal to compensate for the FVF being based on tax. [Fees did NOT increase. Most objectors either aren’t aware of this or ignore it.]

chris13 · ‎04-10-2023

eBay collects tax for you then provides evidence/reporting for that tax being remitted to 46/50 states.

This is a service for which they can charge. I personally dislike that the 'fee' is based the amount of tax since each service instance is essentially the same effort - but I understand that it's a service provided as a way for my choice to sell here to meet current legal tax collection requirements.

I'd hate to collect all that tax myself and send quarterly tax checks to 46 states while aggregating my own reports for potential audits, but that's just me.

stainlessenginecovers · ‎04-10-2023

@sakic92710 wrote:
The people who think eBay is their buddy will defend them & say it is better to pay that fee instead of having to take care of collecting the tax yourself, etc. As far as I am concerned, eBay TAKES a % of the S/H for offering no service at all so that more than covers the cost of them having to handle the tax issue.

People that defend ebay simply understand how business works and therefore do what ANY and ALL businesses have been doing forever.....

Pass the cost on to the buyer.

djvp53 · ‎04-10-2023

There are lots of reasons people don't start a class action about this. The biggest on is that such a lawsuit is unwinnable. Ebay's fees are perfectly legal and clearly disclosed so there are no viable grounds for a lawsuit. Then, you get into issues like the user agreement, which bars class action lawsuits.

The uncomfortable thing for you should be that this escaped your attention for this long. What else are you ignoring that's costing you money? Try to pay attention to those things now.

maxine*j · ‎04-10-2023

You may care to read some of the many hundreds of threads posted on this topic:

https://community.ebay.com/t5/forums/searchpage/tab/message?advanced=false&allow_punctuation=false&q...

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stainlessenginecovers · ‎04-10-2023

@squarebiz99 wrote:
Someone should start a class action against eBay, but the biggest problem would be the legal costs. That's probably why no one has yet

1st; if it were illegal and they could be 'sued' and all that was collected was 'reversed', they wouldn't be doing it.

2nd- class action lawsuits don't cost a dime. Attny's are paid when the CAS is settled. No Attny will take it on because there is nothing to win.

3rd- if I'm wrong on both counts above; they could just 'bypass' that fee and charge 20% FVF instead.