I've been thinking about why Ebay might be holding on to Power Sellers even when they really aren't power sellers any more. There are quite a few example in here of people who haven't sold in months and still have access to the Powerseller chat.
I could easily be wrong, but I believe it has to do with Canada Revenue Agency and large volume power sellers.
Ebay does not want to release power seller information to the government, because they know that if they do, it will mean audits of the larger volume sellers, which in turn could lead in time to a loss of sale for Ebay if people haven't been filing properly.
In order to cover those people a bit, Ebay is making anybody and everybody into a powerseller, any way that they can. When they have to hand over the information, they can drop several hundred thousand more files into CRA's lap, and let them sort it out.
How will CRA know between a powerseller who hasn't sold anything since last fall and the guy who is a gold powerseller. Well, sales figures, yes, but it means they will have to sift through everybody to decide who to audit.
Ebay's inclusion of anybody and everybody, and their failure to remove those sellers who have left from the list, will make extra work for CRA and in many cases lead to nothing. They may end up auditing people who have long since stopped selling on Ebay.
They will get data from businesses long ago closed, people who have gone bankrupt, and maybe even a few dead power sellers. As well as people who have only sold a few big ticket items on Ebay, but aren't full time Ebayers.
Ebay should have asked for the information by sales totals, not powerseller status.
In short, we are all still on this page, because Ebay wants to confuse the government into believing that Power seller status is irrelevant, which it actually is in many cases.
Be careful what you ask for Tax guys, you just might get it.
Just my own hairbrained, cornball theory.
