voonz01,
Why are you being charged $213 as an insertion fee for selling your vehicle?
The "Fees for selling a vehicle on eBay Motors" page shows an insertion fee of $8.80 if you listed this as auction or fixed price. If you listed it as a classified ad with best offer, insertion fee would have been $$21.99. In either case, if you'd sold the vehicle, you'd have been charged $66.00 as a final value fee.
Ah... I see that you listed it in Vehicle Parts & Accessories > Car & Truck Parts > Brakes & Brake Parts > Other.
You really, really should not have done that. You'd have been charged "10.9% of the total amount of the sale, to a maximum charge of $440 per item".
But you say that your vehicle didn't sell. Is eBay charging you the final value fees? (That would be $251.)
If eBay is charging you final value fees, my guess is that perhaps a potential buyer contacted you, asking for your address so that s/he could inspect the vehicle before buying... or perhaps you included your address (or phone number, or email address) for the purpose of the potential buyer inspecting the vehicle.
eBay absolutely FROWN upon giving that sort of information (or trying to give that sort of information - since they actually will prevent contact information from being exchanged), and will regard it as an attempt to conduct a sale off-eBay.
Or perhaps there was something in a message about your having listed the vehicle on another site? This too will be detected by eBay message bots and will cause eBay to automatically assume you have sold the vehicle off-eBay to a customer who contacted you through eBay, and eBay will.then charge you the full final value fee.
If you have not sold the vehicle, get on the phone to eBay and - in your politest, most patient, and most careful communication style, address this issue. Explain that you have not sold the vehicle and no off-eBay sale was intended. Go and take a photo of the vehicle with today's newspaper showing on the bonnet or something, and offer to send it to them.
Be really patient, and don't lose your temper. If you're innocent of doing off-eBay deals with eBay customers, you'll be severely tempted to scream at the CS rep that you contact, but you must simply and patiently explain everything as many times as needed. Don't add extraneous detail. I also recommend recording the phone call (and of course get the CS rep's permission at the start; if the rep doesn't agree to being recorded, you will have to stop).
Take notes as well, even if you are recording the call.
At the end of the call, summarise the main details of the call and get the CS rep to agree that that's what has been discussed and that's what has been agreed upon. For instance, "So I am being charged a final value fee even though my vehicle has demonstrably not sold on eBay, is that correct?" CS rep: "Yes, that's right." You: "And you agree that I have demonstrated that the vehicle is still in my possession, is that correct?" CS rep: "Yes, but [blah blah blah]" or "Yes, that's correct." (Whatever the answer is. You're just looking for confirmation of summary points.) You: "And, just to clarify, you agree that I have offered to make a Statutory Declaration that I have not sold the vehicle, is that correct?" CS rep: "Yes." etc.
Of course, the best thing would be if the CS rep agreed that you haven't sold the item, and that they are crediting the final value fee back to you (thus effectively cancelling the FVF). But as long as you can get a recording and / or notes where the rep agrees to the points that I've mentioned above, you have some powerful negotiating tools at hand - sufficient to take things further.
If eBay try to charge you through PayPal, then you have the option of contacting the Financial Services Ombudsman and making a complaint (PayPal to be the financial services provider against whom the claim is made, and presumably PayPal will then go after eBay to recoup their losses (including the fine charged to FSPs against whom a successful claim is made).
If your eBay fees have instead been taken from your credit card directly, or your bank account directly, you could perhaps instruct your bank to revoke eBay's access to your account. Be aware though that unless ebay acknowledge that they don't have the right to charge you, they'll probably set on you with a debt collector.
Best way to resolve it is by the sweetest and politest communication possible - with eBay. eBay's "Have us call you" option is by far the best way to get in touch with eBay. (Emails are useless, for a number of reasons, but primarily because the responses, when they are finally sent, are bot-generated.)
eBay say: We'll call you at the phone number registered to your account, or you can enter a different number.
Weโre available from 8am to 10pm AET, 7 days a week.
