International Fee charged to sellers - eBay's unfair policy

[neweljk]

eBay is charging international fee to sellers when the buyer is registered outside US and the shipping address is in US. In this case eBay should charge the international fee to buyer to the seller. 

Hi - eBay executives - think the sellers are your bread and butter, do not squeeze them too much like this. 

[neweljk]

This is not a fair eBay policy - should be changed ASAP.

[buyselljack2016]

@neweljk 

Prior to eBay MP making that charge,  it was done for many years by PP. Nothing new except that we can not block those buyers.

[monroe67]

"eBay is charging international fee to sellers when the buyer is registered outside US and the shipping address is in US."

Yes, this is true.  

"In this case eBay should charge the international fee to buyer to the seller."

Ignoring my favorite word in complaints posted here in the Selling community ("should") . . . .
. . .  what does this sentence mean?  What do you think eBay should do? 
Charge the international fee to the buyer?  Charge the international fee to the seller? 
Charge the international fee to everybody except yourself?  

[dbfolks166mt · Accepted solution]

     This is a legacy practice that most merchants have dropped as have a lot of major credit cards. The fee just needs to be dropped period. They have done so with the new EIS program so maybe this is a starting point. 

[ebooksdiva]

International fee

If your registered address is in the US, we charge an International fee if either:

• The delivery address for the item (entered by the buyer during checkout) is outside the US, or
• The buyer's registered address is outside the US (regardless of the delivery address for the item)

This fee is calculated as 1.65% of the total amount of the sale and is automatically deducted from your sales.

[marnotom!]

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@dbfolks166mt wrote:

     This is a legacy practice that most merchants have dropped as have a lot of major credit cards. The fee just needs to be dropped period. They have done so with the new EIS program so maybe this is a starting point. 

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Are you referring to “card not present” sales or sales where the card is hand? There could be a difference.

I’m in Canada and this page suggests that cross-border fees are a thing up here, at least:

https://www.merchant-accounts.ca/international-processing-fees.php

[dbfolks166mt]

@dbfolks166mt wrote:

     This is a legacy practice that most merchants have dropped as have a lot of major credit cards. The fee just needs to be dropped period. They have done so with the new EIS program so maybe this is a starting point. 

Are you referring to “card not present” sales or sales where the card is hand? There could be a difference.

I’m in Canada and this page suggests that cross-border fees are a thing up here, at least:

https://www.merchant-accounts.ca/international-processing-fees.php

     Either. I just returned from a three week jaunt through Estonia, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Iceland. Everything was paid via CC including plane tickets, hotels, meals........... not one international charge on my CC except for the one time I accidently used a CC that still has the legacy international fee, which for that card is 3%. 

[neweljk]

I am not saying anything that PP did. People with common sense can understand it is an unfair policy to sellers.  It should be the buyers responsibility. If an international buyer want to buy from YS they need to pay this fee. I do not want to sell international. Still eBay let international buyers to buy and put that burden to sellers. 

[slippinjimmy]

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@dbfolks166mt wrote:

@dbfolks166mt wrote:

     This is a legacy practice that most merchants have dropped as have a lot of major credit cards. The fee just needs to be dropped period. They have done so with the new EIS program so maybe this is a starting point. 

Are you referring to “card not present” sales or sales where the card is hand? There could be a difference.

I’m in Canada and this page suggests that cross-border fees are a thing up here, at least:

https://www.merchant-accounts.ca/international-processing-fees.php

     Either. I just returned from a three week jaunt through Estonia, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Iceland. Everything was paid via CC including plane tickets, hotels, meals........... not one international charge on my CC except for the one time I accidently used a CC that still has the legacy international fee, which for that card is 3%. 

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Of course there was no fee because YOU are the cardholder NOT the merchant,. I can assure you that every merchant you purchased from on your "jaunt" paid a cross border fee to their credit card processor.

You are confusing currency exchange fees with cross-border fees, they are NOT the same thing, cross-border fees apply to virtually every type of merchant credit card account. Currency exchange rates are something that some card issuers have done away with but don't worry, they have merely switched to charging merchants even more fees. It's also a more common thing on cards that have an annual fee and/or very high interest rates on your balance.

[chapeau-noir]

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@neweljk wrote:

eBay is charging international fee to sellers when the buyer is registered outside US and the shipping address is in US. In this case eBay should charge the international fee to buyer to the seller. 

Hi - eBay executives - think the sellers are your bread and butter, do not squeeze them too much like this. 

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eBay has plenty of sellers - it's buyers they're struggling to attract.  No sellers without buyers.

But yeah, it's a dumb fee.

[marnotom!]

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@dbfolks166mt wrote:

  I just returned from a three week jaunt through Estonia, Finland, Norway, Sweden and Iceland. Everything was paid via CC including plane tickets, hotels, meals........... not one international charge on my CC except for the one time I accidently used a CC that still has the legacy international fee, which for that card is 3%. 

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As @slippinjimmy pointed out, this discussion is about fees that merchants/sellers have to pay their credit card processors, not fees that buyers pay their credit card issuers.  I don't pay "international fees" on out-of-Canada purchases I make with my credit cards, either, but I sure pay through the nose in exchange rates because a lot of stuff is folded into the exchange rates now.

[buyselljack2016]

I'm just pointing out that it is not "an eBay thing" in stating that the current "payment processor" is doing nothing different than the previous "payment processor" did.

The pennies involved are not an issue for me.   YMMV For me, any sale, is a good sale.

[dbfolks166mt]

Of course there was no fee because YOU are the cardholder NOT the merchant,. I can assure you that every merchant you purchased from on your "jaunt" paid a cross border fee to their credit card processor. Actually probably not one of them did. International fees are charged by the CC company directly to the card holder along with a currency conversion fee. 

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/credit-cards/foreign-transaction-fees/ 

You are confusing currency exchange fees with cross-border fees, they are NOT the same thing, cross-border fees apply to virtually every type of merchant credit card account. Currency exchange rates are something that some card issuers have done away with but don't worry, they have merely switched to charging merchants even more fees. It's also a more common thing on cards that have an annual fee and/or very high interest rates on your balance.

No confusion at all. When traveling everything I paid for was in the local currency when I charged it on my CC. As the cardholder I am the one that got hit with the currency exchange fees not the merchant. None of my cards have annual fee but like most CC's they have high interest rates which do not impact me because I am what CC companies call dead weight. I pay my balance every month so they earn nothing from interest. Their fees are the 3-5% transaction fees they charge the merchant.