ebay policy for refund of final-value-fees

[Dfuoss92624]

Jurisdiction

California

My question concerns fees and credits on ebay.com. ebay charges a commission (what they call a "Final Value Fee", FVF) for the sale of items on their web site. The seller pays this fee. If an item is returned, this fee is customarily refunded to the seller. However, as I recently learned, the FVF is not always refunded by ebay. ebay also has a policy they call the "ebay Money Back Guarantee". If a buyer checks a particular box on their return request (to indicate that the item did not match the description), then the seller has very little recourse than to agree to accept the return on the buyer's terms (ie. pay return shipping, etc.) or face the prospect that ebay will force the refund, AND ebay will retain the FVF (ie. no refund to the seller, in spite of the fact that the item has been returned, and therefore not sold). My question is whether this practice and policy (ebay does state this policy in their on-line documentation) is legal? If the item is returned for any reason, should the seller not be entitled to a return of the FVF?

 

[army judge]

My question is whether this practice and policy (ebay does state this policy in their on-line documentation) is legal? If the item is returned for any reason, should the seller not be entitled to a return of the FVF?

You need to address your concerns to the officials that own and run eBay.

In most cases, eBay can do almost anything and get away with it, because eBay is concerned with making money, lots of money.

To make such money, eBay doesn't care if a few people are unhappy or dissatisfied.

 

[Michael Wechsler]

eBay has a number of policies that are unfavorable. Let's start out from the beginning. eBay usually requires an explanation as to how the goods were not in compliance with the advertisement / auction text. Was the buyer justified? If so, you wouldn't really have a case even if you could afford to take them to a court of law or send in a complaint to a state regulator.