Emails from Delcampe buyers and sellers in the US began arriving Friday morning informing EcommerceBytes they’d been locked out of their accounts. Delcampe.net is a Belgian collectibles marketplace launched over two decades ago with a specialty in philatelic items and postcards, also branching out to other areas including coins and banknotes, comics, toys, and models.
Founder and CEO Sébastien Delcampe confirmed that Delcampe closed the accounts of members of several states. “We really disliked to take this decision which strongly goes against our values,” he told EcommerceBytes.
Readers forwarded the following email they received Friday morning explaining it was related to compliance issues over US state requirements that marketplaces collect and remit sales and use tax:
Hello (redacted),
Your Delcampe account (redacted) was closed due to the following reason:
Closing of your Delcampe account
Following the 2018 U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in South Dakota v. Wayfair, Delcampe has taken the decision to no longer offer its services in the following States as per today, for an indefinite period of time, in order to avoid any risks of non-compliance with the legislation of these States:
AK Alaska, AR Arkansas, DC District of Columbia, GA Georgia, HI Hawaii, IL Illinois, IN Indiana, KY Kentucky, LA Louisiana, MD Maryland, MI Michigan, MN Minnesota, NC North Carolina, NE Nebraska, NJ New Jersey, NV Nevada, OH Ohio, PR Puerto Rico, RI Rhode Island, SD South Dakota, UT Utah, VA Virginia, VT Vermont, WV West Virginia, WY Wyoming.
We are sorry that we can no longer offer our services for the moment, and we hope to be able to see you on our website in the future, once it will be adapted. Your account will remain closed until further notice. Any outstanding debt to Delcampe will be waived. Should you have any credit left on your Delcampe account, please contact our Customer Service at en@delcampe-support.com with your banking details.
Best regards,
The Delcampe Team
Moreover, if you had ongoing automatic bids, they have been cancelled.
You are not authorized to create a new account. If you think that this account closure is unjustified, please contact our Customer Service and clarify the circumstances which led to the issue stated above.
For more information regarding our policies and practices, please consult our charter.
Our Customer Service is at your disposal through help centre or our contact form.
Yours sincerely,
Your Delcampe Team
The Delcampe website states it has over 180 nationalities represented on the site and thousands of new collectibles being listed every day, with over 1 million active users each month.
Excerpts of some reader reactions to the abrupt closure of their accounts follow:
“A majority of US accounts have been closed on Delcampe as a result of the sales tax issues here in the USA. Now I have to get refunds for all outstanding sales in progress that Delcampe already took their commission plus my store fees for remaining months already prepaid. Not to mention I can no longer buy anything to further my collection. Really a shame this has happened.”
“Delcampe.net immediately closes accounts of users in several states as a result of the 2018 S.D. v wayfair state tax case. Totally locked out of my account. I have to contact them to get my balance credited back to me. No mention about reimbursment for the yearly store fee.”
“I can no longer sell on delcampe. They’ve locked me out of my account, so I can’t even buy on the site. They could at least have just suspended my ability to sell, but they decided to terminate my whole account, which was in good standing.”
A seller who said most of their sales were to foreign customers wrote in part, “… It would have been nice to at least be able to continue to sell to non-US based customers. I had a small amount sitting in a Delcampe Pay account. Big mistake to use their proprietary payment system – now I will need to get that money somehow.”
That seller followed up to tell EcommerceBytes that Delcampe customer service told them to submit their preferred payment method to receive refunds due to them either by bank transfer or PayPal.
Chilling.
I expect there will be smaller ecommerce sites that will close as well.
This is because some of these laws, including the inform act, put the resp. On the marketplace vs the payment provider.. What else is out there. Make a list. Ask the venue to confirm they are gonna support it. No response = you might get cut also.
This is sad and the reason why we opted for an assisted Classified Model for hobbyDB.com. 620,000 members, around 4,000 sellers and low fees between 2-5%. This is an open-invitation for Delcampe sellers to join us. Email us as SUPPORT AT HOBBYDB DOT COM,
As I read this, Delcampe is closing down. It is suspending users in about 20 states. In other words, those sellers cannot sell on its site.