eBay Charges Store Fees A Month & Half Late

Liz Morton
Liz Morton


Comments

Some sellers have reported eBay is not collecting monthly store subscription fees on time- and more importantly, not clearly communicating once the problem has been discovered and corrected

A seller in the community reported receiving this email from eBay, with nothing at all indicating what the system issue was or which charges and/or credits on their account were related to this error.

We have corrected a system error

Dear Seller,
We recently identified a system issue that caused some charges and/or credits to not apply to your eBay account. We have corrected the issue. You will see these charges/credits applied to your account when you next loging to your eBay account and view your updated invoices. We apologize for any inconvenience.

The eBay team

eBay billing error message
It took eBay 1.5 months to realize they didn’t bill my store fee.
I currently have 2 selling accounts- my main account plus a small account. eBay forgot to bill the October store fees the first week of October on the small account. September and November were charged per usual- but October wasn’t billed until 2 days ago. eBay just sent me this really informative…

The seller was eventually able to figure out the missing fees were for the store subscription on one of their account, though eBay didn't make the process easy.

I love how they send a generic e-mail referencing "charges and/or credits" without telling you what it's about. Then in your transaction history- none of the line items affected are flagged in any way- there is no note to let you know what's going on.

If this wasn't about the store fee it would have been a lot of work going through each line item to figure out what was going on.


It seems to be a possibly intermittent issue, with several reports over the last few months.

Account level fees and adjustments
Why did my last invoice have “account level fees and adjustments” equal to my store subscription rate???
No store fees charged
Hallo, My transactions show that Ebay has not charged me a store subscription fee for past 2 months. Normally, the charge has come up on the 16th, but for September and October I don’t see the store fee. Not sure how to go about it, because I don’t want to end up paying a big chunk at once once t…

My transactions show that Ebay has not charged me a store subscription fee for past 2 months. Normally, the charge has come up on the 16th, but for September and October I don't see the store fee. Not sure how to go about it, because I don't want to end up paying a big chunk at once once they wake up and see they have not charged me, or worse yet pay late fees on it. How can I contact Ebay and clarify the situation?

On this thread from October, an eBay community staff member acknowledged there was a "known issue" with a tech ticket open.

9/16 STORE FEE NEVER CHARGED - MANAGED PAYMENTS
My monthly store fee in the amount of $59.95 due on 9/16 has never been charged. There was an error made in August (see screenshot) but it was corrected.

Velvet@eBay said:

I checked once more and it looks like this is a known issue a few other sellers have experienced as well. I found that a ticket was recently started so I've added you to it and we thank you for your efforts to ensure your subscription is paid for the month of September.


It may not seem like a big deal, but if eBay misses charging the store fee and adds it at a later time, there may not be enough funds in the seller's Managed Payments pending amount to cover the fee at that time. In that case, eBay would then try to hit the seller's bank account or payment method on file for the owed amount, which could end up costing sellers overdraft fees if they were not expecting the charge.

eBay should be much more proactive and seller friendly in handling billing mistakes like this.  First and foremost, give the seller enough detail in the notice so they can see exactly what the charges and/or credits are for without having to search through every transaction.

Beyond that, it would certainly help strengthen seller trust in these situations if our "partner" gave advanced notice and an exact date of when the fees will be applied (say 3 business days, for example) so sellers can proactively manage their cashflow and not incur possible overdraft or penalty fees from unexpected charges.


Did you receive a notice from eBay about this billing error? Let me know in the comments below!

Fees & PaymentseBay

Liz Morton Twitter Facebook
LinkedIn

Liz Morton is a 17 year ecommerce pro turned indie investigative journalist providing ad-free deep dives on eBay, Amazon, Etsy & more, championing sellers & advocating for corporate accountability.


Recent Comments
Avatar PlaceholderJaeLynn22 hours ago
I've had this happen a few times, and it confused me. One seller alleged that they had to use Amazon's services to make sure I got my item in time. I recently bought something simple, and the seller made a mistake. They'd sent me 3 different messages, one of them too early, telling me they hoped my item arrived in perfect condition. The next day, the item was marked as shipped, and I got an official Ebay shipping email. The seller was using direct messages to give me item updates. If I wanted Amazon, I'd have used them myself! lol
Avatar PlaceholderlessthanthreerecordsYesterday
Happening to me too. On my active listings page (with the full list) it looks fine, but when I click on them, many have the random characters. I reported it, and that's when one glitch led to another! As I was typing the message after clicking the "?", letters were repeatedly not coming up (usually one or two at the end of a word). I was finally able to get the message entered, but how tedious!
Avatar Placeholderbritishsoeedw-0Yesterday
I'm having the same problem, Vat has ben added to my listings and sales have literally stopped.