eBay Sellers Surprised by International Fee on US Orders

by: pace306

eBay steals from sellers yet again - made up fee - just because ........

No surprise here!

by: Silver Ice King

Just Ebay stealing more money from its sellers.  Sellers Hub and Mangled Payments were designed specifically to allow Ebay to do these  types of things and then blame a glitch in the system.  Also for every 1 seller that does catch the error, which is was not doing prior, Ebay knows there is an exponential number of Sellers who will not catch it, especially with the lack of reports that show the breakdown of what Ebay is holding back from you payment through Mangled Payments.

Just another Ebay scam to steal money from its Sellers (Partners??) because they cannot grow the company the normal way as other businesses do.  Hire some talented programmers and Executives who know how to run an Ecommerce site and are willing to make the necessary fixes to Ebays platform.  If its to expensive to fix, then hire some better programmers and a CTO who knows what he is doing and can actually oversee what is being done, which was obviously not being done when Seller Hub and Mangled Payments were forced down Sellers throats!!!

by: Paul W

Puerto Ricans are US citizens and pay in US Dollars, but eBay charges the international fee on sales to Puerto Rico.

by: Denny

No program problems just another Ebay rip off and tons more to come when they are allowed into your bank accounts. Don't believe it. Anybody ever have Ebay make a money mistake on your behalf? All a game to pocket millions on those to busy to do an audit on a daily basis to deal with their theft games.

by: Evenger

I am really surprised people are still selling on eBay.  It is so brazenly over taxing the non-corporate sellers.  Profit margins keep shrinking and are getting harder and harder to project profits.  So glad I left.

by: Rexford

I've seen this on my billing as well.  I do not ship internationally.

by: rhw1

Make no bones about it. Its ebays way of getting more of our money. I feel like PollyAnna, but there is a bright side.
If we sell something to someone who is out of the country, and they are using a freight forwarder, they have minimal buyer coverage. According to eBay...
"Claiming an item was not received when there is proof of delivery to the address provided on the Order details page."

by: zeek6228

These are the horrible buyers using freight forwarders that account for 90% of my customer service problems. I put domestic shipping only not because I want to exclude 97% of the worlds population. It is because international bidders are a pain in the ass.  

by: zeek6228

Domestic sales: "if you are not satisfied for any reason you can return your item for a full refund"

International sales: "if you are not satisfied for any reason you either can keep the item for free or extort a partial refund because I can't return it because blah blah blah my country"

by: Working It

The only times that I have had this happen was when the package was going to Canadian border towns within the US or to obvious shipping forwarders. I have always considered that it is the usual currency exchange fee, since I haven't seen a separate fee for exchanging one currency to another.

The example with Puerto Rico could be the same, with transactions going to Dominican Republic, British Virgin Islands, and so on.  

by: Silver Ice King

I am not surprised at all that Puerto Rico gets charged International rates because those doing the programming have no clue where it is located or that it is considered part of the United States.  Maybe if Ebay would stop using offshore programmers who are paid less in a day than most people here make in an hour, they could manage to get the programming done correctly.  But as usual with Ebay, all that counts is getting everything done as cheaply as possible, regardless of the quality of the work, so that the executives can continue to receive undeserved outrageous bonuses.  

If Ebay were to ever have a rating system on their product or Customer Service they would never be able to maintain even an above average rating since nobody who can be reached on the phone knows anything about how Ebay REALLY works, only how they are told it should work...lol

by: Vox29

On other sites I keep reading complaints from sellers about losing their listings altogether because of a glitch. Maybe that same glitch is just a part of eBay's break down into an extortion racket. All I know is that I lucked out by ending all my listings before the glitch happened. I too was set for domestic shipping only, and if I would have been charged a fee for international shipping I would have resorted to hiring a lawyer to teach eBay a lesson in overreaching. It's time everyone selling on eBay should think about leaving eBay altogether, because it's obvious that the site does not know what it is doing anymore.

by: smallstuff

Like @Working It, I am wondering if this isn't the result of the buyer using a foreign credit card.  I used to see an extra PayPal fee of about 1.5% for foreign credit cards - this is different from the exchange rate fee charged to the buyer for paying in foreign currency.  eBays fees explanation makes it clear that an extra 1.65% will be charged for foreign sales.  So, what's the big deal?  Sometimes I would have a Japanese buyer with a US ship to address - almost always a forwarding agent.  Those are great sales because they often pay top dollar using Buy It Now.  Lately I've had a Japanese buyer with a California forwarding agent who even pays using a US credit card.  No international fee for those transactions.  How do I know where the goods end up?  Well, I can google their physical store in Tokyo and can see the items on display - along with a huge markup.

by: plcombs

around 12 countries and US Territories use US currency as their primary Currency...Ecuador, Republic of Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Micronesia, Marshall Islands, Republic of Palau, and on and on...eBay needs to check their programs..

by: toolguy

"According to eBay customer service there is no setting to not allow international buyers."

I sell Department of Defense surplus and I sign an agreement to NOT sell to foreign entities!

Maybe eBay should consult the Department of Defense on how to proceed with military surplus items listed on their site. . . .

by: MissDidi

I also spoke to a customer service rep about this, and while they confirmed that I had no way to prevent this type of sale, they did not claim it was due to any glitch or problem, but instead all was working exactly as it should.

They then suggested that if I didn't want to pay that additional fee I should review all my orders each day before shipping and cancel those with the additional fee appended.  Ah, yes.  Let me click through dozens of orders marked "pending" payment each morning, one at a time, to find their fee breakdown.  And then cancel a few, allowing eBay to keep their payment processing fee.

Admittedly, I could do this.  In my case, it isn't worth spending the time to maybe save an extra 20 cents some days.

But here's the thing: the eBay rep also told me that this fee isn't always assessed due to payment in foreign currency.  It could also be because the buyer's account is registered in another country.  In the examples we reviewed, one was registered in Canada, and another in the UK.  The one registered in the UK was shipping to a US military address.

When I asked whether eBay changes the account's registration if a person moves to another country, she couldn't tell me.  (You can't because you don't know, or you can't because it isn't allowed? was met with silence.)

Whatever the real answer is, it's ridiculous that sellers can't opt out of allowing this type of transaction.

by: leavingNY

EVERY item I ship to Puerto Rico says it is international. I am charged US shipping rates though. Whats up with this ? ?  

by: NedRyerson

Since 2018, my absolute hatred builds for this S%$T selling "platform". These slimy parasites have become yet another liberal, California, Big Tech nightmare. I hope these scum burn, hang, and get The Chair. Ebay is not just horrible now, their criminal public stock MUST be investigated by the SEC. If the SEC wasn't like ALL the other criminal deep state agencies in this doomed republic.