Seller wants 15% Ebay and Paypal fee

[retrowise]

I'm bidding on item which ends in 3 hours (maybe in 24 hours since EBay extends now).

Seller have just send me a mesaage he'll have to charge 15% Ebay and Paypal fees on top. Is that crazy or what? I believe this is not allowed.

I have two options, cancel the bids which might leave my acccount with a bad mark OR go till the end and if I win the auction, refuse to pay the 15%. What do you guys think?

By the way, initially I asked him about the item and he replied. The 15% message just arrived now day later.

I've replied that charging fees is not allowed. Waiting to see what he say about that.

[joztamps]

Good trick if you can get away with it.

[kopenhagen5]

Buyer can only retract bids if more than 12 hours left.

Sellers are supposed to build the fees into their starting price if they want them included, otherwise not allowed to charge afterwards.

Interesting to see what seller responds with

[digital*ghost]

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@retrowise wrote:

I'm bidding on item which ends in 3 hours (maybe in 24 hours since EBay extends now).

Seller have just send me a mesaage he'll have to charge 15% Ebay and Paypal fees on top. Is that crazy or what? I believe this is not allowed.

I have two options, cancel the bids which might leave my acccount with a bad mark OR go till the end and if I win the auction, refuse to pay the 15%. What do you guys think?

By the way, initially I asked him about the item and he replied. The 15% message just arrived now day later.

I've replied that charging fees is not allowed. Waiting to see what he say about that.

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The applicable policy can be found here, if you need to pass it on to them: https://www.ebay.com.au/help/policies/payment-policies/payments-surcharge-policy?id=4380

It primarily talks about hidden fees for specific payment methods, but they also state that there are only 3 allowable instances in which surcharges can be added to the final price, and that they need to be mentioned in the listing up front - adding eBay and PayPal fees as a percentage of the final price is not on the list. 

If an auction has less than 12 hours to go, you won't be able to cancel your bid, but you can ask the seller to cancel it for youif you don't feel it's a good idea to proceed with the transaction.

[beautysecretfashion]

You should advise seller that what he is asking goes against ebay's policy. If seller wishes to cancel your bid let him do so as I feel this seller sounds a little shonky.

Ideally this seller should be reported to ebay for breaking rules.

[puppylove1958]

May be seller is a new seller unaware of rules

[joztamps]

Actually, 15% sounds like a dream compared to the 20-30% "buyer's premium" purchasers typically get slugged with at other (eg stamp) auctions.

I am surprised that ebay hasn't legalised it (and said, of course, we'll have 10.9% of that, too).

[digital*ghost]

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@joztamps wrote:

Actually, 15% sounds like a dream compared to the 20-30% "buyer's premium" purchasers typically get slugged with at other (eg stamp) auctions.

I am surprised that ebay hasn't legalised it (and said, of course, we'll have 10.9% of that, too).

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I can't see eBay ever allowing it, as it has too much potential to turn buyers off (with other initiatives that have netted them higher fees, like the FVF on postage, the increased costs to buyers are effectively hidden in item and postage prices), but PayPal has changed their policies to allow surcharges for using it so that's now a possibility for off-eBay purchases with PP as a payment method, I'm guessing to be more inline with many other merchant facilities.

They changed it only recently, when they adjusted the availability of merchant rates, and I suspect it may be due to not being the primary payment method on ebay in the next couple of years, as it could mean they can catch more business since large companies may have resisted offering PP as a payment method because they could not add surcharges like they do with CC payments. 

[joztamps]

Yes, I was only joking about the ebay bit.

But the paypal issues will be interesting as ebay transitions to the new mob.

I must admit that it has always seemed out of kilter to me that on the small sales of, say $2.25 (when you pay no ebay listing fees, or minimal fees when spread across the monthly store fee) ebay gets 10.9% and paypal gets 16%.

[padi*0409]

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@retrowise wrote:

I'm bidding on item which ends in 3 hours (maybe in 24 hours since EBay extends now).

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What the others have said about the fees.................

But eBay does not extend auctions, maybe you've been looking at the Kiwi trading site where they do do that.