is it normal for ebay to bill and collect fees 2 days after close and i havent shiped or been paid

[rightmortgageman]

I have been with ebay since 2004, but this is the final straw. I sold an item at auction 2 days ago. I have not shipped it yet and have no email from the buyer yet, I only sent out the request for payment last night, I have not been paid, and yet ebay has billed me  and taken the final fee payment from my account!!  What is it with this America company, they have there hand in my wallet, its robbery. Is this now normal practice for  ebay USA? Anywhere else it would be illegal.

[mr.elmwood]

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@rightmortgageman wrote:

I have been with ebay since 2004, but this is the final straw. I sold an item at auction 2 days ago. I have not shipped it yet and have no email from the buyer yet, I only sent out the request for payment last night, I have not been paid, and yet ebay has billed me  and taken the final fee payment from my account!!  What is it with this America company, they have there hand in my wallet, its robbery. Is this now normal practice for  ebay USA? Anywhere else it would be illegal.

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You get billed for the sale. It has always been this way. They do not know if or how you get paid. Many buyers still pay with cheques and MO outside of PP. How does eBay know?

A sale is billable until the buyer does not pay and you file a UID and close it. Then the fees are reversed. Always been this way.

[recped]

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@rightmortgageman wrote:

I have been with ebay since 2004, but this is the final straw. I sold an item at auction 2 days ago. I have not shipped it yet and have no email from the buyer yet, I only sent out the request for payment last night, I have not been paid, and yet ebay has billed me  and taken the final fee payment from my account!!  What is it with this America company, they have there hand in my wallet, its robbery. Is this now normal practice for  ebay USA? Anywhere else it would be illegal.

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2 days ago was in May, if you are billed on the last day of the month you don't pay the May invoice until the middle of June. If the sale was in April you don't pay until mid-May.

If you are billed on the 15th of the month the dates change but the timing remains the same, you have at least two weeks and at most 45 days until they take the actual payment.

Bottom line, you have on average 30 days to pay any charges to your account.

[cumos55]

eBay calculates the FVF on the sold item at the time of the sale.

The FVF on shipping is calculated when the buyer pays....  with no FVF calculated on shipping for a local pickup...  and a variation in FVF based on the actual cost of shipping

[maggiebvintage2010]

How would it be illegal?  If you receive a pay cheque for employment, the employer deducts  CPP, EI and income tax from your pay before you even receive it.  The amount they deduct is based on your projected income for the year.  If you overpay, you don't get the overpayment back until you file your income taxes the following year.  Lots of libertarians consider that robbery too, but it is legal.

It makes no difference whether eBay is an American company, a Swiss company, or a company based in any other country, it is normal practice for any company to bill for services rendered.  Doctors bill as soon as you see them, before you've taken the medicine they prescribe and determined its efficacy in your case.  Perhaps they should not get paid unless you get cured.

[cumos55]

Perhaps they should not get paid unless you get cured.

We will never be cured.....  and then all doctors will be poor....

[pjcdn2005]

The fees will show up on your ebay account as soon as the item sells but you don't have to pay until your billing date. The money taken from your account would not be for your May sale, it would be for the sale you made on April 18th.

[pierrelebel]

"is it normal for ebay to bill"

Yes, it is normal

" this is the final straw"

????

It has always been like that. And the same is true with other similar competing venues. 

Your eBay seller account gets billed for listing fees the second you list,

gets billed for final value fees (FVFs) the second your item sells

and FVFs on the shipping charge (if applicable) a few days later.

[maggiebvintage2010]

The cure doesn't work, we go back to the doctor - and they get paid again - lol

[rose-dee]

I'm surprised that if you've been on eBay since 2004 you've never noticed this.  It's always been this way: eBay adds the FVF to your account as soon as an item sells, but bills you (i.e. actually takes the money from you) on your usual billing date for services billed during the previous month.  

How is that illegal?  You aren't actually paying the FVFs or other fees immediately on the date they accrue.  In fact, you're getting the benefit of at least 30 days of non-payment (actually more than that -- my previous month's bill doesn't go through my account until around the 16th of the following month).  This is standard practice for service billing in many fields.  

Remember that if a buyer doesn't pay for an item and you file an UID, you'll get the recorded FVFs reversed anyway.  

Fees is one area where I have very little criticism of eBay.  Now, getting services to work properly and reliably -- well, that's another matter. 

Based on your comments, I think you've been misunderstanding how eBay conducts its billing system.  You're not alone though -- I see many sellers on these boards who make the same assumptions.  I'd suggest reviewing the new User Agreement (just released) if you haven't already done so:

http://pages.ebay.ca/help/policies/user-agreement.html?rt=nc

and especially taking a careful read through eBay's fee billing policies and schedule here:  http://pages.ebay.ca/help/sell/fees.html

[rightmortgageman]

OK call off the dogs, I stand corrected. The reason being that in all my time trading in two different countries it wasn't until a failed  camouflaged US sale that I have ended up with a credit in my ebay sellers account. In the past I have always just paid the bills at the end of the month, so I have never had a problem before. When I saw that they billed and collected at the same time my hackles went right up. Ebay has got so very complicated  and restricted  now, maybe I should spend a day or two just reading all the regs, then do the same for Paypal. Oh have to mention the Auction that started this thread looks like it going to go bad, cant get the US buyer to pay.

Lastly.

Doctor analogy is a joke. Right?

[rose-dee]

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@rightmortgageman wrote:

OK call off the dogs, I stand corrected. The reason being that in all my time trading in two different countries it wasn't until a failed  camouflaged US sale that I have ended up with a credit in my ebay sellers account. In the past I have always just paid the bills at the end of the month, so I have never had a problem before. When I saw that they billed and collected at the same time my hackles went right up. Ebay has got so very complicated  and restricted  now, maybe I should spend a day or two just reading all the regs, then do the same for Paypal. Oh have to mention the Auction that started this thread looks like it going to go bad, cant get the US buyer to pay.

Lastly.

Doctor analogy is a joke. Right?

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I hope my comments were of some help, they certainly weren't meant to be critical or antagonistic.  EBay's billing system is complex, especially if you're dealing with two or more currencies, so it's always a good idea to read through the User Agreement and the fee schedule from time to time (eBay keeps changing both). 

I think no matter how many years we've been around, we all learn something from these boards.  

As for the doctor analogy, I think that's a bit of a red herring.  Nobody in Canada pays to see a doctor or get medical care (at least not in the normal course of things), and doctors bill the provinces, so it's actually the doctors who wait to get paid after they've already rendered their services.  A better analogy might be an accountant or lawyer, who won't bill you for each service, but either monthly, or after services are all complete. You then usually have 30 days to pay.  It's basically the same concept with eBay.  

By the way, if your problematic buyer doesn't pay within a reasonable time (which each seller has to define for themselves), file a UIC.  That may prevent him from becoming another seller's problem too (eBay will eventually restrict him if he's making a habit of buying and not paying).  And then put him on your BBL of course.  Best of luck!