tarmac terror

iTrader: (2)

My wife has an ebay account which she has used to sell on used clothes which our children have out grown.

over the course of the last 2 years she has turned over about £700 by the time she has covered postage costs and ebay fees, she is left with around half that amount. She is meticulous about photographing items, accurately describing them, and getting them posted the day after payment arrives, which has resulted in a good set of feedback.

Today she attempted to list some items, she has been advised by ebay that her account is now a business account, and they view her as running an online business. We have explained that this is not a business, it would be an exceptionally poor business to turn over such a low value of sales on a large volume of transactions, and make such a small amount of profit for the effort involved.

They have advised that it is not possible to downgrade an account from a business account to a personal account, and the only way round this is to create a new account, which will have the detrimental effect of having a zero feedback score.

Has anyone else encountered this, and had it resolved to their satisfaction. At no point was it requested to upgrade this account, ebay have taken it upon themselves to do this.

If she continues to use the business account, aside from not being able to avail of free listings, I am sure there will be an angle from HMRC whereby these sales are treated as income, rather than trying to recoup a small amount of outlay on clothes bought for an worn by our children.

albob

£700 seems very low to be classed as 'business' !

I think the 'revenue' start look at the account if it turns over about £4000 PA

What she could do is -- start a new account and in any listings refer to the old account, so peeps can see her good feedback

scotty44

iTrader: (12)

Sounds like ebay bull ****e to me mate, I do more than that in a month but saying that I do have a shop (which anyone can set up if your willing to pay them £15 a month) not sure if that make a big difference?
As for free listing I get 100 a month so maybe worth opening a shop up? < depending on how much you use it>

Turbohot

That's the reason why some people still prefer doing car boot sales, and then brag about bringing back 150 quid for ridding their junk. You may not get much per item, but at least you can flog them for something than investing half of the returns. And the time that gets spent in listing things etc.

I've got a few brand new designers clothes of my kid that I can flog on ebay. They'll never force me to turn it into a business account because I don't sell much at all on it, or anywhere else. Just the thought of going through the hassle of photographing and then the time going in listing things on ebay does my head in. For last few years I thought- "Oooh! I'll do car boot sale like some people do, to get rid of all my rejects". But I'll never do that either. I'm not waking up early in the morning, pack my car, go to some field and pitch in sun, wind or rain. That would kill me. I just take my unwanted stuff to the charity shops. That seems much easier.

TT, if ebay is giving Mrs. TT a hassle, I wonder if she can sell kids' clothes on Gumtree or alike?

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

Tricky. I don't think eBay look at the value or return on goods. But moreso the quantity and if the same items are repeatedly sold.

A new account won't work..they can tie together new and old accounts. Unless you makes sure all the cookies on every device you have used with eBay have been cleared and you change the IP addresses on each Internet service you use (including mobile internet accounts) and change your PayPal and email account (in that order). And never use or log into the old accounts from that point onwards.

In other words changing ID isn't as easy as you'd think.

If its below a certain amount HMRC won't bother, unless your culminated total income is above the tax threashold.

PaulC72

tell them to F off and that the account is closing.