Still price suggestions without VAT
Summary: The discussion revolves around price suggestions without value-added tax. Several participants exchange views on this, with posts by m-hm and ttd4it at the center, while petersmodellbahnstuebchen, kenn-i-di-1, mega_sphere, miriam@ebay, yannicvollme0, and deka2022 also contribute remarks. Specific details of the posts are not visible.
I fell for an eBay bug (feature?) today ...
This is what the offer looked like:
I’m being promised a 20% discount, reduced from €77.35 to €61.75, plus shipping each time.
It looked good, so I accepted it by pressing the button.
The confirmation then looked like this:
In other words, the €77.35 included VAT (or import sales tax, since the seller is in China), but the offer was without it! No wonder a seemingly much bigger discount of more than 20% comes out. But you can’t display it like that, as you can see in the first screen! This is clearly a bug in the software.
The actual discount the seller granted was much smaller.
I can now ask the seller as the buyer to cancel the order.
Please fix this urgently! That the error was reported and closed a few days ago, but is still present, is actually almost the bigger problem here - this is a bug that certainly brings eBay and its sellers a lot of money by showing incorrect info and at the same time pushing the interested buyer toward a quick decision (see text in the first screenshot), which then is not so easy to undo thanks to further dark patterns.
miriam@ebay
Hello @m-hm and everyone! We’ve noticed that this topic is currently being discussed more intensively in the community. Even though the correct final prices including import sales tax are shown in the "Review price suggestion" view, it is understandable that a transparent and clear presentation of all price components is desired on the first page.
This feedback is important, and the request for an improvement, especially for price suggestions for offers from non-EU countries, has been passed on again.
Thank you for the discussion and best regards
Miriam
yannicvollme0
·7 months agoThey "perceive it," but don’t take it seriously. That’s just a rip-off to provoke a higher price offer.
deka2022
·7 months agoI do think that topics are taken seriously here. By contrast, I would say that with so much new merchandise you don't take consumer rights seriously, but maybe a little, right?!
mega_sphere
·1 year agoPost deleted
m-hm
OP1 year ago@petersmodellbahnstuebchen Well, of course the seller benefits from selling more. He makes a price offer that is two or three euros below the original price, and to the buyer this price offer looks like a 20% discount.
Probably a certain percentage of buyers only notice this on an ongoing basis after they’ve already accepted the offer, and then the eBay UI does everything to make it clear to the buyer that he has now made a binding purchase of the item and must pay for it. Even the "Ask for cancellation" button is hidden in the normal checkout process and is very hard to find by aborting the aftersales process and switching to "My Ebay". So again a certain percentage of buyers will simply swallow the higher price.
In my case, it is so that I definitely would not have bought the camera lens from this dealer in China without this big price reduction, but in Germany.
kenn-i-di-1
·1 year agoJust because I viewed the article, I also received a price suggestion.
Well, the fact that 20.2% is displayed on the first page is actually misleading.
But on the next page "Check price suggestion", everything is displayed correctly, exactly as shown in your 2nd scan.
The discount with 5%, the final price with shown VAT (in bold).
Only below that is the button "Accept price suggestion".
You were indeed a bit hasty there.
Checking means checking after all........
m-hm
OP1 year agoI’d like to add, for clarification: between the two screenshots there was another page, "Check price proposal," of which I unfortunately didn’t take a screenshot, but clicked through quickly because, from my point of view, everything was already clear from the first offer. eBay may also be able to rely on that here legally.
Probably the final amount was already shown correctly in small gray text on the "Check price proposal" page, and I overlooked it. After comparing the two amounts and the explicit indication "20.2%" on the first page, the offer was clear to me, so I didn’t look at the details again more closely, which of course was my mistake.
I’m reporting the clear bug on the first page here, which I fell for and which clearly benefits eBay and sellers abroad and still hasn’t been fixed despite an earlier report. I think that is a sufficiently big problem.
I’m not claiming that I couldn’t have paid better attention too.
petersmodellbahnstuebchen
·1 year agoHi @m-hm ,
regardless of whether you think you should have paid better attention, I’m of the opinion that in situations like this, a consumer must always be shown the final price as soon as the system recognizes a default shipping address.
petersmodellbahnstuebchen
·1 year agoHi @m-hm
just to add, in such a case the seller abroad does not benefit, because they definitely do not receive the withheld amounts; instead, these are remitted by EBay to the responsible tax authorities.
ttd4it
·1 year ago@petersmodellbahnstuebchen
Morning Peter,
thanks for the addition. 🙂
Maybe also a topic for the Accessibility Strengthening Act (BFSG)?
But regarding your post ... the law basically assumes that all costs incurred by the consumer when the contract is concluded are shown.
In my view, at the very least there should be a notice and the sum for import sales tax there. The buyer can then confirm this amount. Afterwards, I would insist on the initially displayed price.
A clear note on the usual customs rules would certainly also be possible.
There would certainly be another nice bronze sentence for that.
The buyer just has to be able to read it. (and not have it hidden behind a link)
Best regards
Thomas
petersmodellbahnstuebchen
·1 year ago@ttd4it
that's exactly how it is.
The consumer must already be informed of all costs before the purchase, not only when paying. After all, purchase agreements are also concluded at auctions and accepted price offers before payment.
But unfortunately Ebay sees this issue differently by using the country of registration as an excuse.
Whether this is on recally legally sound footing in all cases, I cannot and do not want to judge, but I do at least have my doubts.
ttd4it
·1 year ago@m-hm
Without being able or allowed to assess this legally ... a case of consumer deception ("layperson assessment").
Only a lawyer may provide legally binding information.
petersmodellbahnstuebchen
·1 year ago@ttd4it
Hi Thomas,
also a violation of the PAngV, since this is ultimately not a pure wholesale platform with a focus on C2C and B2C. We have already had several such cases in the recent past.
But according to the previous statements from the eBay staff, everything is normal if the seller is registered in a non-EU country.