Be Very, Very Careful With eBay's Offers
 

I am running a detailed column on it tomorrow but for those who do not read it, in a nutshell, eBay offered me a deal:

"50% off final value fees for trading card singles over $1000. List now and sell by 5/4/25. Valid on single cards, graded and ungraded, in the Sports Trading Cards, Non-Sport Trading Cards, and Collectible Card Games categories."

Great. I listed an expensive card and it sold. Here is the part I wanted to warn you about if you got the offer too and are considering listing an expensive card for sale or have done so: eBay did not honor the discount. The final value fees were $1,192.21. The discount applied was $154.38. Does $154.38 look like 50% of $1,191.21 to you? Me neither. 50% of $1,192.21 is $595.61. I contacted eBay and presented the numbers and they immediately credited me back another $200. Now, does $354.38 look like 50% of $1,192.21? Nope. I have to go back to eBay a second time and make them credit me back the remaining $241.23 of the discount that I am owed.

I am appalled.

ETA: apparently, I missed something buried somewhere in some policy or communication. See below.

Did you speak to a human? This is totally bizarre.

Looks like they had the discount only applied to the first $2500 of value. I had a similar situation with a $5K card. Credit was not applied to the second $2500 of value. For me it was only about $20 of credit missing and I just passed on trying to get it but for $600 I would have been on the phone.

I think they just screwed up the formula but my discount was exactly the same as your initial one which reflects 12.35% of $2500.

I'm sure it will all work out in the end but the aggravation to save almost $600 is worth it.

Typically eBay is pretty good about automatically applying discounts.

Did you add any promoted listing fees to your listing? The discount does not include those fees.

The discount only applies to:

For Non-Store and Starter Store Subscribers, sales $1,000 and over will receive a 50% discount on the 13.25% Final Value Fee of the portion of the sale up to $7,500, and will not apply to the standard 2.35% fee for portions of the sale above $7,500.

For Basic and Above Store Subscribers, sales $1,000 and over will receive a 50% discount on the 12.35% Final Value Fee of the portion of the sale up to $2,500, and will not apply to the standard 2.35% fee for portions of the sale above $2,500.

So, max discount of $496.87 for non-store subscribers and $154.37 for store subscribers.

That's interesting.

The math checks out; however, it seems like a bit of a gut punch to those who have an eBay store.

It seems (to me) like it might have been better to apply the discount across the board. In this particular case, one could argue eBay is punishing loyalty.

Damn, I missed that kink in the offer and the (alleged) human I spoke with never mentioned it either. What I quoted is the fee explanation that eBay posted on my fee breakdown page, which makes no mention of the penalty on store subscribers. What a weird way to reward loyalty...

Jeff, I had chats with three alleged humans and spoke with what I assume was a human on the phone.

There's a lot more to the story than just the discount confusion, though. They froze my payout for the card before it cleared authentication (which I get), opened it for a nanosecond, then refroze all of my payouts (Interestingly, not the account itself, so I can still sell more things that they won't pay me for until whenever they feel like it) as soon as the card cleared authentication. They have not been able to give me any explanation as to why, specifically, what I did wrong to get my funds are frozen, other than selling a card under their promotion, or even an accurate time frame as to when the payout hold will be lifted. They have told me inconsistent stories, and vomited vague policy statements at me repeatedly until I give up trying to get an answer. I am publishing the full transcript of my comms with their customer (dis)service reps on the subject. Kafkaesque is the best way to describe it.

With REA opening a selling platform at 5%, and presumably none of the rando stuff I've been dealing with, I don't think I will be listing more expensive cards on eBay any time soon.

I feel like eBay froze my payment the first time I sold something at the ~$10k level. This was in the olden days before the AG service, so I'm pretty sure they held my funds until the buyer got the piece. It was a little aggravating at the time, but I got my cash in the end.

While I can definitely see your point about corporate greed, I think there's also an element where they have to comply with know your customer rules and all that jazz, just to make sure they're not funding terrorists or money launderers.

Not that you should be under suspicion, but that's the price of living in an otherwise free society - sometimes there are extra checks when the stakes are high.

I guess you could always sell another high priced item and see if they jerk your chain again? ;)

Yeah, gonna rush right out and get that going...maybe see how much of my money I can get them to hold for no reason. eBay uses Utah law and it is easier to buy a gun in Utah than to get paid by eBay.

I was sent multiple messages from ebay regarding this promotion. I just read it and cackled knowing all of the people who would try to take advantage of the promotion and probably get screwed by ebay in some fashion.