Why?? Please upgrade your account to business i to continue listing on the German site

[uk197]

Hi all! 

Today I got following popup

We recently reached out to you about a change in German VAT law and your need to identify as a business seller. Please upgrade your account to business in order to continue listing on the German site or items located in Germany.

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I'm not from Germany, don't have Germany VAT Nr., registered in ebay.com, and many years don't use German site ebay.de,  not selling anything in German site, and not interested to sell in future too. Do you have any ideas, why I received this message, and how to resolve it without Germany VAT?

P.S. Answer "contact support" I know 🙂

[1786davycrockett]

@uk197 

You are located in Latvia, and this is the United States eBay site.

You should probably contact the appropriate eBay site which handles Latvian issues.

However, the message which you have received may be regarding the changes for the European Union, which will be taking place in December 2024.

[krazzykats]

Business Seller Board - UK eBay Community

[uk197]

As I'm registered in eBay. com, all support only in com site. Anyway , absolutely not understable to me why German VAT is needed if I have zero ties to Germany. 

[wastingtime101]

Are you using eBaymag @uk197 ?

[stuff4divas]

@uk197   since u r not interested in anything German, ignore the message

[slippinjimmy]

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@stuff4divas wrote:

@uk197   since u r not interested in anything German, ignore the message

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That is how I read it as well, if you have no plan to list on .de or to list goods on another eBay site that are located in Germany you can ignore the banner (it will go away eventually).

many years don't use German site ebay.de

Sounds like you did at one time create at least one listing on eBay.de, that would be enough for eBay to flag your account for the notification.

[ali-aamedia]

I sell on EBAY UK, nothing to do with Germany, I receive the same message. Ignoring isn't a solution it isn't allowing to list the item. I even added Germany to excluded from Shipping list, but it still show this same message.

[uk197]

Maybe, but anyway it's isn't normal. 

[lacemaker3]

@uk197 

You're registered in Latvia (part of the EU), and  your item locations are shown in Latvia as well.

Some of your items are listed on eBay.com (in US$) and some of them are listed on an eBay Europe website, in euros. Which eBay website in Europe did you use for those listings?

When I googled this item number of yours (sold recently) it was priced in euros and had been crawled by google on eBay Germany as well as eBay.com.

Industar 50-2, 3,5/50mm, Soviet Russian Lens, M42 Mount, Great condition, 1973 | eBay

If you have been identified as a business seller, then I believe that the law in the EU requires that you register a business account. Business sellers in the EU have to comply with the Distance Selling Regulation, and it is against the law to sell as a private seller if you are really a business (to avoid having to comply with this regulation).

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/selling-policies/business-seller-policy?id=4710

[uk197]

Yup 😞 Same "shaize". When did you receive this message? Have you already contacted support?

[sergo7sergo]

The same thing happened with me, I am a seller from Cyprus. Cant list new products also can't revise existing ones the following notification appearing: 

We recently reached out to you about a change in German VAT law and your need to identify as a business seller. Please upgrade your account to business in order to continue listing on the German site or items located in Germany.

Already contacted Ebay customer support, but still have no help from them.  Anyone knows about solution?

Thank You

[xenon-europe]

Same here. Contacted Ebay customer support, they don't know what I'm talking about and don't see any issue in their system. I'm not listing on the German site, my items are not located in Germany, I'm not located in Germany and I don't sell or send to Germany. It seems this issue affect all European Union users registered on ebay.com.

[sergo7sergo]

Hello, 

We are reaching out to inform you of a recent issue that may have affected your listings on site.  Due to a technical bug, the item location for some listings was incorrectly changed. 

Our engineering team has worked diligently to identify and fix many of these listings. However, due to the nature of cross border selling, we need your support to review and correct all listings to accurately reflect your items and their locations. 

Action Required: To ensure your listings comply with eBay policies and to prevent any potential disruptions to your sales, we kindly ask you to review and manually update the item location on your listings by the end of October. Here’s how you can do this:

Go to My eBay > Selling.
Find the listings affected under the Active tab.
Select Revise from the drop-down menu next to each listing.
Update the Item Location field with the correct location.
Save the changes to ensure your listing is updated.
We understand the inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your prompt action to help correct these listings. Correcting the item location will help prevent any potential issues with shipping service mismatches and ensure compliance with VAT policies where applicable.

Thank you for your attention to this matter and for your continued partnership with eBay.

Best regards,

The eBay Selling Team

Also i received this email from Ebay few days ago. trying to do what Ebay asks, but unfortunately no result yet.  

[xenon-europe]

Yes, that doesn't help either since not single of my item is located in Germany. I think there is a bug in system where all European Union sellers ebay.com considers as Germany sellers.