EBAY FEE SCAM sales outside Europe, GST and various. CONFIRMED BY EBAY STAFF THEMSELVES! | Selling on eBay

granbazarlaforme · 2022-06-07T13:01:50.382000Z

(At the suggestion of a user I’m moving the question to this section, please avoid sterile replies or off-topic advice, thanks a lot 🙏🏻) Good morning everyone, my name is Lorenzo, aka Gran Bazar "La Forme", I’ve been selling collectibles on eBay for a very long time, and I have a VAT number. On May 26, 2022 I sell a mirror to Australia, order of €500 + €155 shipping, and at the time of purchase I already know everything I’ll have to pay: shipping, packing, and the fee for sales outside Europe called on the platform "International fee", that is, "SELL OUTSIDE EUROPE? YOU’LL BE CHARGED 3.3% of the total, like this". This is how the platform works, I’m still here, so I’ve made my peace with it. For some years now, at least 7/8 as far as I remember, they started taxing shipping costs, which I consider unfair. If I put €40 in shipping costs to send a chair, it will obviously not just be the transport cost; it also includes the cost of packing materials. The shipping cost for the item in the listing is the cost of the "package", not just the transport. So the resulting adjustment has naturally been that I will no longer ship the chair for €40 but for €50, all to the benefit of us sellers, obviously. I said chair, but when it comes to a glass chandelier one meter wide, you can easily see that the amount for the packaging materials goes up quite a bit. I come to the situation: - I catch a glimpse that the email with the total in the app notification says €720.50, I’m happy and rub my hands together, but a few seconds later I notice that the total is not €720.50 but €655, that is, €500 mirror + €155 shipping. I go check on the computer and indeed I notice in the order info that GST has been added to MY total, the Australian "VAT" that eBay is required to collect because it’s an amount under €1000. To sum up quickly: - the platform asks the customer to prepay the VAT, adding it to my order, so that they supposedly won’t have to pay anything "PROBABLY" (and this is also written in the various notes you can find online about it) at the time of delivery, showing that code next to their address, ABN#64652016681, a sort of key to show the courier delivering the package as proof that the GST has already been paid at the time of purchase. Here’s the problem: - I have an order of €655, actually received, real, with a €65.50 surplus for a service I don’t care about since it’s the platform that is obliged to collect this money in advance, not me. So a situation of fraud is created, there’s no other way to define it, namely that the total of my sale is inflated with a tax, from which I will not receive a single euro, and the double taxation, that is, the "final value fee" and the "international fee" are calculated on €720, not on €655. As soon as I’ve been milked for the €720, the €65.50 of GST is taken from me, which as I keep saying I don’t see at all, and €551.61 is transferred. Here you are presented with the new frontier of fraud, simple and effective: taxes on money not received. I guarantee you this will be the new general rule: taxes on non-existent money, remember that. Now here the world champions, the platform smoothers (for free? hmm), defending eBay tooth and nail, will say that if I don’t like it I should go somewhere else. But here it’s a slightly more delicate and subtle matter, namely that in my opinion this thing borders on legality, by a little or not at all. I call the next day two staff guys; on the second call, after repeating 10 times that I do not pay taxes on a credit I have not received, I firmly ask to speak with a superior, who calls me the following day. After explaining everything again, a new path of suffering opens up, ahhh yes yes: and the invoice? For the platform I received €720, so do I pay Italian VAT on €720? Double insult, so my total refusal. The boss, a really kind and decent guy, tells me that "in his opinion" the invoice should show €655 and be sent to Australia like that, so CN23, triple "modified" invoice, just to be at ease, and in Australia they count even your hairs(...) when you enter. Here I’m not exaggerating if I said it 15 times: I DO NOT PAY TAXES ON A PAYMENT I DID NOT RECEIVE, and after a while the guy gives in and tells me that in fact many other users had also called about this anomaly and that in the end he would help me get refunded for the fees paid on these blessed €720 and resize them to €655. As a matter of fact, I receive an email from him confirming, with eBay letterhead, that he will make sure to fix this thing. Small note: the first girl I spoke to, at my first explanation, in her words told me, "Absurd, that can’t be possible, there must have been a system accounting error." The second repeated to death, "eBay is made like this"; the third confessed that it’s something that isn’t right, "Keep this between us!" — well, too bad that I recorded the three calls in full. Has anyone had the same experience as me? P.S. VAT or GST, whatever it is, is value added tax, paid by those who provide services and by the consumer. I’m happy to pay taxes as long as they give me the money to pay them with.

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EBAY FEE SCAM sales outside Europe, GST and various. CONFIRMED BY EBAY STAFF THEMSELVES! | Selling on eBay | eBay Italy