Sellers Question Where eBay For Charity Donations Go As Charities Wait For Payouts
eBay For Charity sellers question where donated funds are going after changes to invoicing create less transparency and trackability.
A seller shared their experience in the eBay community, saying their charity of choice has not received donations that should have been paid since January.
This new charity system is not working! Our sellers have paid over $1250 in donations to our charity this year and to date the charity has only received $283. How is this new system getting money to the charities faster?
I am going to give it until April 1 to get corrected. After that I will no longer be selling for charity on eBay. I have not been able to find a number to call or any method of getting answers.
I have to assume something fraudulent is going on. Once again, eBay has tried to fix something that isn't broken. I've seen this incompetence so many times during my almost 23 years as an eBay seller, and over 16 years as a charity seller.
The charity in question is an animal rescue and the seller said they know the director of the charity personally, so they had been able to confirm that no money had been received since January.
Value Added Resource reader Jo4AA also commented on the issue, expressing concerns about where the money has gone since their chosen charity has also not received payments that were automatically deducted on March 8.
Now, 21 days after the first "automatic deduction" of an 8 March charity sale, my charity still has not gotten the funds and I have no record of the charity sale other than what's buried in ebay reports. Where does the money go? Drilling down in ebay on that item sale, I see a "donation transmission receipt" that says the funds were sent to PayPal Giving Fund the same day of the sale. Weeks ago. So where is the money today? My charity did not get it. Who did?
Before, there was a 21 day payout lag to ensure the buyer was satisfied. Now the charity seller is responsible for any restitution if the buyer has issues and wants a refund because the payment is automatically and quickly deducted. So there is a quicker "payout" headed to the charity, but the 64,000 question is what is the route this payout takes and how long does my charity have to wait to get the funds? WE HAVE NO IDEA WHERE OUR PAYOUT MONEY IS!!
eBay made some big changes to the eBay For Charity program that started in November 2023 in a phased rollout that was expected to be completed in early 2024, which may explain why some sellers are just seeing these changes now.
Liz Morton
The biggest change sellers noted at the time of that announcement was that they could be on the hook for refunds if buyers canceled or returned an item, since donations are now taken immediately from payments and are not refundable.
However, looking over the current terms and conditions reveals a possible explanation for why these charities may not have received payments yet too - the time frame for the money to reach the charities has moved from 45 days to 30 days after the end of the month in which the sale occurred.
Old terms:
New terms:
That would mean for anything sold in the month of February, they would have until March 30th to grant the funds to the charity and for any sales in March, they have until April 30th.
Have you experienced delays in eBay For Charity funds being sent to your designated charity? Let us know in the comments below!
much too complicated now for a few pounds a year in sales
They just "killed the golden goose". I imported my 1500+ eBay items to there since it was free. Turned out just to be a lot of work for (maybe) 3 sales a month.
The total fees were higher there before this new $20 a month cost structure, even though they claimed otherwise. When one factors in the 3.49% + 49 cent PayPal processing fees so one can get paid, there went a good chunk of profit.
Now they have boosted their commission to 11%, and still claim that the cost to sell there is less than eBay's. And remember that this does not include payment processing. WHY?? Makes no sense at all.
On eBay, for $27.95 a month, I sell over 100 items there every 30-31 days. Makes ZERO SENSE to pay a site $20 to make just a couple of sales. Since they now allow 50 "free listings", I have trimmed my offerings back to just below that amount. Also had to raise all my prices accordingly to absorb the extra selling costs.
The people who run the show here obviously didn't realize that eBay sellers who imported their listings gave the site a great depth of product, which would attract more buyers. Now that will be gone, because NO ONE will pay them $20 monthly for little to no sales.
The site also has technical issues that they refuse to fix. It was a decent resource to enable the occasional sale, but they will soon be stacked onto the eCommerce trash heap of companies that THOUGHT they could compete with Amazon and eBay. Etsy may also suffer the same fate soon, as many sellers are also leaving their site due to high fees, website issues, and poor management.
Basic eComm rule here: When you do not carry any inventory, and sellers are solely responsible for supplying your site with the goods offered, DON'T BITE THE HAND WHICH FEEDS YOU!!!