Important info for sellers: Overcharging of FVF on shipping component for combined invoices

[thegaminggamer]

I just spent an hour or more trying to get a FVF credit of $1. If you are a seller that doesn't do "free shipping" (charges postage as a separate cost) and do combined shipping, then read on. This glitch, miscalculation or error in coding that causes you to get a higher FVF than usual probably started happening when the FVF on shipping policy was implemented. I still don't know exactly how it works so I'll just use a real example.

Buyer buys 4 items (two of them were the same GTC listing) and then waits for me to combine shipping and send invoice. I do not do "free shipping".

The Final Value Fee (price component) for all 4 items are correct.

I combine shipping and charge $17 for shipping for all items, and send the invoice. The buyer pays for all the items and shipping. The FVF (shipping component) is reflected on my invoice under the two GTC listings (as a single entry). It is a media final value fee for stores so the FVF is 9.5%. According to the eBay system, it thinks I charged $17 shipping (I did). Therefore the FVF is $1.62 (rounded up). So far so good.

However, I am charged another two FVF (shipping component) fees, under the other two non-GTC items, as two entries. Both of these are $0.67 each. According to eBay I charged another $7.07 and $7.07, in other words, it thinks i charged another $14.14 shipping on top of the actual $17. This is completely incorrect. The buyer only paid $17 shipping. Therefore, eBay overcharged me $1.34. I have no idea where the eBay system dug up the aforementioned shipping/FVF values.

As mentioned, it tooks me 1 hour or more to get the live help person to admit the eBay system is glitched in this regard. An hour of my time is worth a lot more than a measly dollar. Therefore, the matter was pursued based on principle.

tl;dr: If your shipping charge is separate from your item prices, and you make use of combined shipping when doing invoices, then double-check the FVF values.

[saarzi]

FVF GTC ABC tl:dr XYZ....

Right. Give me 15 minutes for me and all the newbies to try and look all this up just to understand whats going on...   lol

[cq_tech]

You're right, the thieving ba$tards at eBay have done the same thing to me. Sold 2 items listed as item plus postage to the same buyer last month and combined invoices and posted both items in the same satchel so that postage was only $15.40 instead of $17.50 in total, and my revised invoice reflects this quite clearly.

So after reading the above, I just checked last month's invoice and I discover that eBay have not only charged me FVF on the satchel's postage, but they have also charged me FVF on the second item which had been combined onto the one invoice. Nice if you can get away with it, except this time they won't, because I'll be ringing CS and demanding a credit of the additional amount they stole from me.

It's bad enough that eBay charge FVF on postage in the first place, but it seems that's still not enough, so they have to resort to blatant theft to increase their profits even further. Seems to me that eBay and ethics are two words which should never be used in the same sentence, and I've a good mind to bring this to the attention of the ACCC.

[fmurphy2005]

I can understand your situation.  When I became a father, I went looking for info in forums discussing children and parenting.  The forums werefull of abbreviations like LO, DS, DD, DH and so on.  Every single post had these things and I had no idea what was going on.  Eventually I worked it out though!

[davewil1964]

I am 100% sure gtx knows full well what FVF means, as well as any other common acronyms used here.

Edit: LOL

[digital*ghost]

That's quite strange (but not surprising, sadly 😞 ) - I have noticed eBay split the postage amount between the number of items purchased in order to calculate the FVF. I have quite a few people buy multiple items, so as an example (and for the sake of ease) say they buy 5 items and pay $5 postage, in my list of fees, the postage amount for each one will usually be listed as $1, and the FVF will be charged on that. My FVF is typically 8.5%, so they round it up and charge 9c FVF on postage per item, for a total of 45c (whereas, if a buyer buys 1 item and pays $5 postage, I would be charged 43c straight out). And yet, if I send a combined invoice, it's reflected on the selling page in one of two ways (a "global" postage amount, or first item $X postage and additional item 'free post'). 

[imastawka]

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@davewil1964 wrote:

I am 100% sure gtx knows full well what FVF means, as well as any other common acronyms used here.

Edit: LOL

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 Stop using TLA's that I'm unfamiliar with

Spoiler

Three Letter Acronyms           

[davewil1964]

Sorry, I used to work for the DOD, the most acronym laden organisaton known to man.

[imastawka]

Dave,  you do know that was a joke, right?

Also ex-government drone here