When several sellers had asked eBay customer service reps why the company wasn't charging them commission fees over the past few weeks, the reps told them they were part of a special promotion and would not be charged.
But in recent days, those sellers now report eBay is withdrawing money from their accounts for the supposedly waived fees. But many more sellers were affected but didn't notice the fact eBay hadn't been taking the fees and were also caught by surprise by large withdrawals from their accounts in recent days.
An
eBay moderator acknowledged the glitch that caused it to delay billing sellers for fees they owed, though they didn't address the fact that it never informed sellers of the problem and the fact it would begin withdrawing large sums from their accounts, nor did they address the fact eBay's own employees had given some sellers incorrect information.
One seller who hadn't noticed until last week said eBay hadn't charged them FVF fees from October 1st thru November 20th and then started collecting the back fees. "Thankfully, I think it's all caught up now but it's really messed up my cash flow. Had I would have known this, I would've just set the money aside like I used to when we paid monthly." As a result, the seller said it is impacting their product sourcing for next week.
On Tuesday, an eBay moderator addressed the reports, writing: "This is a known sitewide issue that has a ticket open for it to be resolved. If there are any sellers that are running into final value fees not be charged on items they have sold they can reach out to customer support here and let them know that you are running into ALERT14305."
One seller said it appeared eBay hasn't resolved the initial problem, writing: "I can already see today's orders not having FVFs taken out, so it looks like this debacle of getting hit with bulk fees all at once will continue until the issue is fixed."
Another seller said it was one more problem that led to their decreasing faith in eBay's ability to handle the financial activities under managed payments. "Had my bank or CC company made this type of error I would probably be protected under federal laws that regulate those industries," they wrote. "Had I not been I would have made a decision on whether to switch banks or CC companies depending on how they handled the situation. This is eBay's mistake and they should fix the problem and absorb the cost out of their own pockets."
One seller said it raised issues of compliance, writing, "For any audits, even this sudden charge is not with any proper way to document it to explain."
eBay added the glitch to its
Technical Issues forum on the discussion boards ("Final value fees not charged on the sold item (November 24, 2022) Reference ID: ALERT14305), but it has not posted an announcement on the seller board, nor is there any indication it emailed sellers about the issue.
Interestingly a seller who
reported the problem on Reddit said an eBay customer service rep seemed unaware of the issue and agreed to send a refund to the seller.
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Sellers Alarmed over eBay Charges after Sitewide Billing Glitch
by: The End 
by: Lightning