Ebay, and Invisible or
Silent Sales Limiting, Throttling, Caps, or Other
Limits Related to UK VAT Thresholds
Hit F5 and scroll down for the latest news.
Introduction
A few years ago in the new year of 2012, I started
selling electronic components on ebay as a way of
actually making a living. This business operated
quite happily under the UK VAT threshold and while it
would never make me rich, it would do for now.
This avoided additional complications while building up
the business and increasing both the breadth and depth
of stock. Over the next few years the UK VAT
threshold crept upwards in line with inflation and it
was easy to stay under it. Around 2016 I made some
special effort and by the end of the year had at least
twice as many different items for sale and had branched
out into larger second-hand electronic objects on a
separate ebay shop. A further ebay outlet sold
some old tape spools that I had acquired. Ebay
sales numbers had often looked a bit strange as I
inspected the daily bargraphs, but surely such is the
nature of human buying habits, online marketplaces and
randomness in general. Or so I thought.
It became clear that ebay were operating a completely
invisible capping or throttling system across all these
outlets. Without any intervention by me, sales
across the three outlets over one year would add up to
almost exactly the UK VAT threshold for that year.
This was fine for a while. In a way it was almost
quite helpful, allowing me to increase my inventory
without having to be too careful not to exceed the
threshold. However from 2017 onwards, there was no
inflationary increase in the UK VAT threshold by the
chancellor. In March 2019 I decided to take the
plunge and become a voluntarily VAT registered sole
trader. The assumption was that when I entered my
new valid VAT number into the ebay shops, the mysterious
limiting algorithm would be de-activated and I could
increase sales. In fact, I didn't assume this
completely. I thought that there was a 50/50
chance that nothing would happen, and that I would have
to manually draw attention to the fact via the ebay
customer support line. I also assumed that there
was a fair chance that I might have quite a fight on my
hands getting the capping system removed.
On the 5th April 2019 at 23:00 I entered the VAT number
one hour before it became valid.
What Happened Next
Nothing. Well that's not so surprising. It
would take some time for the system to recognise the
fact. However, for a substantial payment in ebay
fees every month one might expect something to have
happened after three days, so onto the ebay customer
support telephone line I go, to draw attention to this
fact and to check what the telephone operatives have to
say. I've recorded the calls for training and
quality purposes. You can click on the links to
hear them or download the mp3s. I have only edited
out long periods of hold music to save the listener from
the pain. Long periods on hold are not necessarily
insignificant though. Also, in all the calls I have left in many quite
'sensitive' details. I don't
mind. I have nothing to hide and you
can find all the addresses and usernames by
going onto ebay and just typing them
in.
That's business. When you stick your
head above the parapet and say "Please buy
what I'm selling," you're public property to
some extent.
09-APR-2019 10:36 First call to the overseas
call centre
The overseas call centres are not always the most
reliable so the next day I request a call-back, which
will usually come from the Irish call centre.
10-APR-2019 Steve from Ebay Customer Support in
Ireland
Summary: We discuss the issue briefly. Steve
says, "Hmm, I can see what you're saying here."
Really? He gets back to the selling limits team
and then drops the call like a hot potato. Well
that's no good. Drop my call? Back to the
telephone.
ebay_vat_10042019_1_c.mp3
10-APR-2019 Derek from Ebay Customer Support in
Ireland
Summary: We discuss the same issue, noting that
the addition of the VAT number was a few days ago, and
the ebay denials start. I introduce the idea of
statistical analysis and noting vast swings between
seperate accounts and an £85K sales cap. Derek
uses the unusual word "Levelling" without me mentioning
it. I direct him to the 11th February week data
when the capping system went into a wild oscillation due
to a delay between the caps on the two accounts.
Steve may well have gone into it with another team,
Derek. Before Steve dropped my call. We
discuss VIES and my registered business name and address
across accounts. Denial. Don't worry Derek,
it /is/ an absolute pattern, and I will be back. ebay_vat_10042019_2_c.mp3
This telephone battle is clearly going nowhere, so I
follow the advice of the customer support operatives and
actually write a physical paper letter. The
details of that, the absence of a written response from
anyone who is willing to give their full name, and the
subsequent tedious telephone discussions are available
here: Interesting
Electronics The Trouble With eBay Page Various Interesting Sales Charts
Sales Data 31-AUG-2019 to 30-SEP-2019 (Only one ebay
outlet is operating at this stage and later dates.)
On 31st August I came back from a week on holiday,
during which time sales were zero for five days.
After that we see a series of successive days of sales
going up-down six times. Do people only buy on
ebay on alternate days? I don't think so.
Daily thresholds are in effect, which when exceeded
cause a limit on the subsequent days sales. If the
probability of experiencing a sales increase or decrease
at any given time by random chance is 0.5, then six
alternating days has a probability of 0.5 raised to the
power of six, that being 1.56%. That should be
quite an unusual event. You'd expect to see that
sequence repeated only rarely, perhaps once in one
year. Despite this, the sequence appears again
starting on 7th September. This time the flip of
the coin occurs in opposite directions eight times, an
even slimmer probability of 0.39%. Once again, and
most strikingly, on 21st September, another improbable
sequence of seven consecutive up-down sales
totals. That is a sequence probability
0.78%. It would appear that far from being
unlikely, these improbable sequences are occurring
almost all the time with small breaks of one or two days
in between.
Sales Data 12-OCT-2019 to 11-NOV-2019
This behaviour is continuing into November. It's
not showing quite the same crazy comb effect as above,
but there are another two highly improbable sequences of
higher and lower sales on alternate days. The
first starts on the first bar, 12 October and there is a
run of eight up-down cycles, p=0.39%. The second
starts on 28th October and is another run of eight
up-down cycles, more marked this time. Again, the
probability of this happening at any given time is 0.39%
so it should only happen about once or twice in a year.
(1/365 would be 0.27%) You can argue to toss on
the statistical detail, but the ebay throttling /
capping system makes an almost perfect daily oscillator,
inexplicable by any other reason. In electronic
engineering we call this a relaxation oscillator.
You can make one with a single transistor instead of a
strong ebay shop with threshold capped sales. That
also involves a threshold and recovery cycle. The
higher the gain of the transistor, the higher the
oscillation frequency. But we can only see samples
of daily sales figures. It might be even more
interesting to consider how infrequently subsequent days
don't show a relaxation oscillation. The
daily sampling of the bargraphs is likely to be showing
classic Nyquist aliasing of an oscillation that is too
fast to capture.
That's the trouble with electronics engineers.
We're not idiots, eBay.
Going back in time a bit.
You'll remember how this all came to a head early-on in
2019, when the obvious strange capping behaviour could
no longer be ignored. I've found one of the
print-outs, and here is the scan showing jenna_stannis
sales from 11-FEB-2019 to 11-MAR-2019. This is
discussed in some of the previous telephone calls.
Prompted by a big sale one day, here the sales limiting
algorithm goes into a completely wild oscillation.
Starting at the beginning of this chart there is an
extremely marked alternating day to day pattern, and a
run of no less than seventeen up-down swings, gradually
reducing in amplitude much like an accidentally resonant
system given a large impulse input might make.
What's the probability of that run happening naturally
by chance? 0.5 ^17 = 7.62 X 10^-6, or 7.6
chances in one million. This is what
I call "proof." Certainly, if eBay start printing
lottery tickets I won't be in the queue to buy one,
because I'm obviously the unluckiest seller in the
entire world, or one of only 7.6 people in a million to
see this. I'll be adding more interesting charts
as time progresses.
08-MAR-2020
Meanwhile, after new year 2020 I loaded
up the Useful Components shop with lots of
goodies that used to be on the old
Interesting Electronics shop. The
postage versus item price is less easily
understood, but there are ways to work
around this and still make a sensible
offering to the customers. More than
100 quite good listings go up within a
month, and yes, they sell quite well.
I'll be analysing just how much difference
this should have made to total sales
when things settle down. For the
moment, the answer is "very little."
No surprise there. What I can't ignore
are the two unsolicited messages sent by
customers regarding my shop pages. It
seems that customers are often unable to see
my shop pages, being regularly and
consistently presented with blank page
"Server Error" messages. Here are the
customer messages sent to me:
Site Message 26-FEB-2020 Helpful Customer
1 to Me: You might like to know
that quite a few of the pages on your shop
refuse to load. ("Server not found", all
that malarky.)
Site Message 26-FEB-2020 Me to Helpful Customer
1: Hi HC1, Thankyou for
that, it is *very* useful to know and
explains a lot of what can be seen at
extraordinary length here: (Link to the ebay complaints index page on
this site)
If you were to send a typical screenshot I'd
be delighted.
Note Attached To Sales Record 03-MAR-2020
From Helpful Customer 2: Buyer's
note, Hi, There's something wrong with your
shop, I tried to have a look round, but keep
getting a 'could not find server' error when
I tried to click on shop categories. Look
forward to receiving my order... thanks!
Site Message 03-MAR-2020 15:59 Me to
Helpful Customer 2: Thankyou for
your note about the shop pages not
showing. Such information is very
useful to me right now, beyond what you can
imagine.
And indeed it is very useful, because if two
helpful customers have made the effort to
actually send a message to me, you can be
absolutely certain that many more have
experienced the same thing and put it down
to a temporary problem, their internet
connection, or just given up and bought from
somewhere else. Could this be one of
the methods used by ebay to limit sales of a
certain shop that is doing too well and
can't be limited by the usual means without
it being too obvious? I may never know
about that, but what I can be sure about is
getting a dismissive response from ebay
seller "support" on the telephone. I
was not disappointed, and here are the
recordings of those calls:
03-MAR-2020 15:04 Call to Ebay Seller
Support Concerning Customers Not Being
Able To See My Ebay Shop Pages.
Are
these people being deliberately
obtuse? First fob-off, "There is no
such message." Yes there is. At 13
minutes in, apparently it's the buyers
fault. Then the nice lady obfuscates by
trying to say it's paid for, and again tries
to blame it on the buyers, or their web
browser. The buyers, it seems, have to
contact ebay.
BING! Ebay lie detected! Just
ridiculous. Such lies.
As the call was not resolved satisfactorily,
I was promised a call back from a supervisor
the same day before 18:00 my time. No
such call occurred.
As I did not receive the call from the
supervisor as promised, I thought that I'd
better call in again the next day to check
on any possible progress. I explain
the situation again. I don't mind
doing the whole thing a second time.
No, I did not change my shop name
recently. What happens at 12 minutes
25? "Ah, OK." Were you talking
to me or did you just get a message?
12:49, an unusual change of subject.
Where did that question come from?
Don't soil yourself because a red light has
flashed on your screen, dear. The
"policy" department? An argument
ensues.
BING! Ebay lie detected! 22:22 a
beep, and I am
accused of twisting
words and
interrupting
people! So, "a
message was logged
as sent," turns into
"Oh dearie me, maybe
someone said a
message was sent and
it wasn't." I
have cut three
minutes of silence
from the end of this
call for
brevity. You
can count the
interruption score
if you like. Whatever
the outcome,
when I pay a
£75 per month
subscription
for a much
vaunted middle
tier ebay
shop, I don't
expect so many
customers to
get blank
pages so
consistently
that they are
actually
driven to
write in about
it. Or
be incorrectly
accused of
interrupting
people or
"twisting
their words,"
on the
telephone,
when that is
not
true.
Well, Yes. You can go ahead and mess
up my shop if you think that will
help. We shall see what happens.
I had lost the will to live and was
otherwise busy actually sending goods to
customers at this stage, so I didn't ask
exactly what the problem was, or what the
proposed fix was. Rest assured, I will
do that at a date in the near future
though.
26-MAY-2020:What's
going on with people not being able to
buy more than ten or so items?
Back in April when COVID-19 was just
starting to kick-off, a customer in the USA
contacted me wanting a quantity of
thirty-six six-way potentiometers. The
ebay user profile had a
perfectly decent
feedback rating of
188. She
asked:
_________
Nice USA
Customer:
We are interested in
purchasing 36 of
these. (6-gang, 10K
linier
potentiometer).
Can you tell me how
much it would cost
to ship it to us in
2-4 days? We would
pay for the
expedited shipping.
This goes into a
very important
project that we need
right away.
Please let us know
as soon as possible.
We can make payment
quickly.
Thank you,
Nice USA Customer
---------------
---------------
Henry: Hello
NUSAC,
I assume this is to
a UK address? Easter
is in the way as
well.
Royal Mail first
class is available
as an option but
there's no guarantee
on that. I've made a
special delivery
option available
which should be
there by 13:00
tomorrow if it's
paid for in about...
30 minutes. I've no
way to work that
timescale to an
overseas address.
Thanks, Henry.
----------------
----------------
NUSAC: Hello
Henry,
I should have given
you the address....
my apologies. We
would need it
shipped to the USA.
----------------
---------------- NUSAC: We
want to purchase
B10K, 36 pcs. for
quick delivery.
When I went to
checkout, it
multiplied the
delivery price by
quantity of pieces.
Can you please
advise if you have
36 pcs. of the B10K
and provide the
dollar amount
shipping would be as
a total (not
multiplied by piece)
Thank you, NUSAC
---------------
---------------
Hi NUSAC, This
is just the stupid
way that ebay does
it - the single post
charge is applied as
a discount when you
pay for multiple
items. If it goes
wrong I can refund,
or send a 'request
for total.'
Henry.
--------------
-------------- NUSAC:
Henry,
Do you have 36 of
the B10K?
When I go to
checkout, it only
allows me to
purchase 10
---------------
--------------- Henry:
I have 36 going into
bubble-wrap now and
they are available
on the listing -
this will be ebay
limiting the
purchase quantity.
Unbelievable. can
you message me at
the information
available at this
link? (Link to
my email address)
---------------
---------------
NUSAC: Henry,
Where do I go on
EBay to buy it? Can
you send me an
invoice and we will
pay that?
_________
Further
communications with
my Nice USA Customer
were via normal
email, and yes, the
pots were paid for
outside of ebay,
they did get sent
via DHL the next day
and yes, they did
arrive on time and
yes, my nice USA
customer was
happy. But
this proves that
eBay is limiting my
potential big
customers with a
decent feedback
rating to purchases
of less than ten
items, at least in
this particular
case.
Why? Why ever
could that be, Rob
Hattrell VP of eBay
UK? Only you
can answer that
mysterious
question. Or can
you even? I
can. Because
occasional
multi-hundred pound
sales throw your
sales limiting
algorithms into a
very obvious spasm,
which I have seen
before. If you
want proof that eBay
limits big sales by
making it appear to
your customer that
you don't have the
stock on hand, or
that as a seller you
don't want to sell
them, then the above
transcript is
exactly what you are
looking for.
30-MAY-2020
Customer is
unable to buy
more than one
item:
After some decent
weeks, sales are
dropping again and
showing some very
fishy
behaviour.
Whatever could be
the matter? I
have obviously just
sold too much stuff
during viral
lockdown and ebay
doesn't like it for
some reason.
Whether that is
still an incorrectly
applied VAT suspect
limit or a seller
velocity limit now
kicking in, only
time and the
analysis
spreadsheets may
tell. However,
from this transcript
with a customer
today, here's
another way limiting
seems to be applied
while making it
appear to be my
fault for not having
enough stock, or
some other problem
of my making:
_________
30-MAY-2020 15:56
Customer
**vinyl**: Hi
I am trying to order
four of these DPDT
Center Off switches
but the box will not
allow me to change
from 1 to 4. Please
advise. Thank you
for your service.
Regards **vinyl**
(Item no.
120819784743)
---------------
---------------
30-MAY-2020
16:52
Henry: Hi **vinyl**,
There's no obvious
problem with the
listing and I can't
reproduce the error,
successfully adding
four of those to
shopping cart as a
guest user in a
different browser.
You may find it just
suddenly
mysteriously works
now. Please let me
know if the problem
persists though, as
it may be a part of
a hidden ebay system
limiting my sales.
Thanks, Henry.
--------------
-------------- 30-MAY-2020
17:26 Customer
**vinyl**:
Hi I tried
entering 4 in
another sellers
sale and it
worked, but I
prefer the look
of the ones you
have for sale.
Tried reloading
rebooting ebay
etc. However I
still cannot
make the 1 turn
to a 4. I will
try rebooting
the computer.
--------------
-------------- 30-MAY-2020
18:37 Customer
**vinyl**:
Please cancel
that order. I
ended getting
the wrong ones
because suddenly
one of your
quantity boxes
was working. I
want the ones
with the silver
plated contacts
and the blue
hermetic seal
around the
terminals. It
still will not
allow me to
change the 1 to
a 4. I will
order them one
at a time now
instead. **vinyl**.
--------------
--------------
30-MAY-2020
19:12
Henry: Hi
**vinyl**,
I have the black
body types with
the sealed
contacts in
DPDT, and there
are some DPDT-CO
on the way for
Tuesday. I hope
they still have
the same sealing
on them. The
contacts are
described as
copper alloy
with silver
inlay silver
plated. I think
you wanted four
items DPDT-CO,
am I correct?
I'm trying not
to cancel the
wrong
thing. The
only explanation
I can offer for
the weird
quantity entry
problem is ebay
shenanigans over
which I have no
control, but
rest assured
that they will
be told about
it.
Thanks,
Henry.
-------------
------------- 30-MAY-2020
21:11 Customer
**vinyl**:
Thank
you Henry. best
wishes, stay
safe. Thank you
for your
response and
help. Regards **vinyl**.
________
And indeed they
will be told
about it here,
but as it is one
of those
'mysteriously
goes away'
problems that
customers only
tell you about
occasionally, a
call to the
seller "support"
telephone line
or a text chat
is obviously
pointless.
Normally of
course, the
customer will
just buy
elsewhere,
resulting in a
limiting effect
on my sales
which can't
easily be
traced.
What it could do
is result in a
sudden dip in
what is called
'Sales
Conversion
Rate.'
This is a
percentage that
represents how
many people who
have looked at
your listing
actually buy
from it.
Ebay provides
you with a chart
of these numbers
over time.
Here is a recent
example from
2020:
What you see
here are periods
of relative calm
punctuated by
periods of
extreme daily
swings.
Obviously,
people like my
listings very
much on one day,
and then really
hate them the
next day, and
this continues
for up to seven
days in a
row. This
is, of course,
impossible.
There is a run
of seven wildly
alternating
swings starting
on 25th
April.
What's the
probability of
that?
Something like
0.5 raised to
the seventh
power, about
eight times in
one-thousand, or
0.8%. You
might expect to
see that at
random three
times a year,
but as you can
see, similar
unlikely
alternating runs
are much more
frequent.
Quite what
happened on 28th
March while
ebay's servers
were clearly
broken is
anyone's guess,
but I don't pay
for that kind of
service.
Did I say, "Ebay
provides you
with a chart
of these
numbers over
time?"
Yes I did, and
for now they
still do.
You have to
click on the
'switch to the
previous version
of this page'
link to see it,
though. No
doubt access to
these charts of
sales conversion
rates will be
withdrawn soon,
as they are just
far too
revealing about
what is really
happening.
Given the
conversations
with customers
shown above, I
state that in
many cases ebay
is capping my
sales by
deliberately
breaking the
system that
allows customers
to buy more than
one item, or by
limiting them to
buying fewer
items than some
arbitrary number
invented by
them. At
the same time
this appears to
be the fault of
the seller, and
as shown above,
wastes a lot of
time and
irritates the
customers.
Do you want some
more, Robert
Hattrell, Vice
President of
Ebay UK?
Or are you going
to answer my
letter
properly?
More is
coming.
All I have to do
is sit here,
absorb the
numbers into the
analysis
spreadsheet and
wait for my
customers to
tell me
more:)
There's always
the BBC of
course.
You might
consider
listening to the
omnibus editions
of, "The Great
British Post
Office Trial,"
on BBC
Sounds.
Similar problems
in their systems
eventually cost
them tens of
millions of
pounds.
02-JUN-2020:
Another
customer sees
"Out Of Stock"
when stock is
present on the
listing.
________
31-MAY-2020
20:12 Customer
##r45Customer ##r45:Customer ##r45::
Hi please can
you tell me if
you are going
to get more of
the 6.2 v by
0.3 amp as you
are currently
out of stock
of these bulbs
best regards,
##r45.
(Item no.
110951791253)
-------------
-------------
31-MAY-2020
20:24
Henry:
Hi ##r45, At
my end I've
got the stock
and the
listing also
shows stock.
However, you
are not the
first person
to spot this
kind of ebay
'error.' It
seems that
Ebay are
articificially
limiting my
sales by this
method and
there's not a
single thing I
can do about
it. I've
updated the
listing so you
could try
again to see
if it works,
otherwise you
can contact me
using the
following link
to arrange the
sale: (Web
address
showing my
email in text
form) Thanks,
Henry.
If you're
interested in
the story, you
can see it
here: (Web
address of
this page)
-------------
-------------
01-JUN-2020
06:03 Customer
##r45:
Morning Henry
I’ve looked at
you site again
but no luck
still shows no
e10 / 6.2 v /
0. 3 out of
stock could I
not order
6.2v/ 0.4 and
you give me
the ones I
want looking
forward to
hearing back
from you very
best regards.
##r45 I
tried clicking
on to your
link but again
no luck
-------------
-------------
01-JUN-2020
08:37
Henry:
Hello, Yes,
order anything
in the right
quantity and
I'll send the
6.2V / 0.3A.
They are all
the same
price. Henry.
-------------
-------------
01-JUN-2020
09:34 Customer
##r45:
Thank you very
much Henry
your a star
best regards
##r45
________
Once again,
most customers
will just buy
elsewhere when
they see "Out
Of
Stock."
I would
conservatively
estimate this
happens ten
times for each
time I get to
hear from a
helpful
customer.
Using these
recovered
sales as a
guide, that
would equate
to lost sales
of £220 over
two
days.
Oddly enough,
that's about
what the
recent
suspicious
sales drop has
been. Of
course, it's
impossible as
yet to prove a
causal link.
What do ebay
have to say
about these
two
events?
Telephone
contact is
still not
available so
here is the
text chat
transcript:
Summary:
_________
Ebay seller
text chat
'support':
"This problem
does not
exist.
There is no
problem with
your
account.
It is the
buyers
problem.
You should
tell them to
contact
us. You
official
complaint will
be
ignored.
My only
interest is in
evading your
question."
----------------
----------------
Henry:
"If your
manager ever
does ever
email me, I
predict that
your manager
will try to
obfuscate the
issue by
answering a
completely
different
question, or
says exactly
the same thing
that you
did. You
can try to
evade the
question, but
I'll be back."
_________
05-JUL-2020:
An Ebay
Message
Appears:
-----------------------------
Followup regarding buyers unable to purchase items
SR# 1-264131449947
Hello Henry,
This is a follow-up on the chat conversation you had
regarding buyers unable to purchase items and were
seeing out of stock.
I apologise for the delay caused in getting back to
you on this matter addressing your complaint.
Upon reviewing the matter, I confirmed with our
team, but no such issue was highlighted by other
sellers, so not sure what exact issue the buyers in
question faced. We are hoping that buyers are not
reporting this issue now. If at all buyers are still
reporting the same even now, please do ask buyers
what exact error message they see and probably help
you with screen shot of it so that you can forward
that to us and we can investigate this mater to
resolve it once for all. Alternatively buyers can
also contact us immediately so that our dedicated
team can help them further with this.
Thank you for giving me an opportunity to look into
this. Feel free to get in touch with us in-case you
need any assistance.
Kind regards,
Nilesh S.
Manager eBay Seller Support
[THREAD ID: 1-3DC91N4T]
-------------------------
I respond with the following at 18:54 09-JUL-2020
-------------------------
You wrote: "Upon reviewing the matter, I confirmed
with our team, but no such issue was highlighted by
other sellers, so not sure what exact issue the
buyers in question faced... please do ask
buyers what exact error message they see and
probably help you with screen shot of it..."
I have explained this in clear and full detail
already. It is recorded in full on my public
website.
I consider this response to be wholly
inadequate. It is pure obfuscation and denial
of a clearly explained and proven problem.
Please ensure that Robert Hattrell, VP of Ebay UK is
informed of our conversation.
In case you need a full summary, you can view it
here:
(Web address of this page)
Thankyou,
Henry Walmsley.
------------------------
"Computer says no," is just not good enough.
Is it, Rob? 07-SEP-2020
It's been a while since I have last posted on this
issue. Meanwhile I've been downloading paypal
data and generating some very big
spreadsheets. It was a fairly bumper ebay
spring in 2020, and that has nicely compensated for
all my messing about closing shops last year.
It's remarkable, and it has been the exception that
proves the rule beautifully. The new big
spreadsheets running from 2017 to 9th August
2020 show an average daily sales total, taken
over that entire time, of £231.94. If I had
hit the VAT threshold *exactly* that number would
have been £232.88. Ebay systems are still
limiting my sales to the UK VAT threshold to within
-0.4%. The system has run since approximately
6th April 2017. I have been VAT registered
since 6th April 2019.
Onto the telephone again eh? The level of lies
and deliberate attempts at diversion on this call,
which lasted more than one-and-a-half hours beggar
belief. Click to listen, if you can bear
it. There is some preamble which could be
considered to be irrelevant. But then maybe
not, eh?
P.S. I got the rounding wrong on the daily
number. My apologies. In future
communications the correct daily constant value is
85000/365 = £232.88, not taking into account one
leap year. 06-OCT-2020: The -0.4% Has
Disappeared. We Have Reached The Threshold
and the Customers are Now Messaging In Again
With More Complaints
Just for you: A genuinely nice customer tries
to buy more than one item and gets rightfully
pissed off when the ebay limits stop him from
buying, and my trying to get the impossible
information demanded by the Ebay Central liars from
him is not going to happen. My customers want
the goods, not to send screenshots of the failing
ebay website to ebay liars. If you'd like to
hear the entire resulting telephone call to ebay
liar central on this issue, then you may click on
the link below.
Fun, isn't it? No. It is not. It
is my name on the listings, Robert Hattrell,
VP of ebay UK, responsible for all ebay UK
activities, which you are always so eager to point
out.
28-SEP-2021: A Long Awaited Update.
I have continued to update my big sales
spreadsheet. As of 26-SEP-2021, the capping
algorithm is currently limiting sales to an average
of 1.2% over the VAT threshold, and the silly sales
behaviour continues in an extremely obvious
fashion. In fact, the cap result is much
closer than +1.2%, as I have yet to filter out the
transactions to the EU since July 1st 2021, where
VAT is collected and paid by ebay. So, if you
thought that the reading that I reported last
October was just a lucky sample in some way, you'd
be wrong. The average sales level has been
bumping a little negative and positive around the
cap limit the same way ever since then, despite
three separate 6 day holidays of complete
shutdown. This is impossible by
chance.
During two telephone calls last week I brought this
issue up again for the first time in a while.
(link
to general failures - scroll down to
20-SEP-2021) The results were
negative. During a teleconference with an ebay
"hybrid event" representative today, I was once
again issued with denials, albeit in a polite
fashion. On 30-SEP-2021, the live and
in-person part of the hybrid event will be taking
place at the Victoria Warehouse near Old Trafford in
Manchester starting at 08:15. At that event, I
hope to politely deliver the letter shown below by
hand, to as many ebay representatives as
possible. I dearly hope that this will include
the present V.P. and General Manager of ebay UK,
Murray Lambell, who is responsible for all ebay UK
activities
Since 6th April 2017 I have been aware of ebay
systems limiting the turnover on my ebay account
to exactly £85,000 per year, the UK VAT threshold.
Since 6th April 2019 I have been VAT
registered. I have entered all details into
your systems, and I have made many different
attempts to communicate this.
The cap in your systems remains in place. It
is currently accurate to within 1% taken over the
period 6th April 2017 to the present day. If
you choose not to accept this, you are
mistaken. Proof is included at the link
below.
I request that this capping process be identified
in your systems and removed from my account.
Yours Sincerely,
Henry J. Walmsley. BEng. (electronics)
Final Numerical Proof and Supporting Evidence:
(Web address of this page)
Let us see what transpires.
26-OCT-2021:
What Does Murray Lambell Have To
Say?
At 10:30 on 30-SEP-2021 I politely hand delivered
the above letter to each of Murray Lambell, VP of
Ebay UK, Eve Williams, Chief Marketing Officer of
Ebay UK, and Bradford Shellhammer, VP of Buyer
Experience and GM eBay NYC. I also had a nice
polite chat with them about the issue that I have
been experiencing, suggesting that a once-over by a
statistician or mathematics graduate might prove
interesting. After that I had a one-to-one
meeting with Kate Dudley, eBay Commercial Team Lead
where I explained the problem once more and
delivered the same letter. What was the
result? The result was right down at the
bottom of the spectrum of possible expected
responses, a set of dismissive site messages
attempting to confuse the issue with irrelevant
information.
_____________________________
05-OCT-2021 Your letter to our Executive SR#
1-390043076518
Dear Mr. Walmsley,
Thank you for reaching out to our SVP Murray
Lambell. This is to confirm that your letter has
been received and is currently under review. If you
have any urgent queries, please contact our
dedicated Customer Support who will be able to
provide real-time guidance and support.
We thank you for your patience and look forward to
chatting to you as soon as possible.
Kind regards
eBay Executive Office
*****Please do not respond to this email as
responses are not monitored*******
[THREAD ID:1-4ZD3Q2VQ]
_______________________________
06-OCT-2021 Your letter to our Executive SR#
1-390043076518
Dear Mr. Walmsley,
My name is Emma, and I am contacting you from the
eBay Executive Office. Your letter was received and
reviewed in full, and I thank you for taking the
time to attend the eBay Open event in Manchester
last week. Our VP Murray Lambell asked that I reach
out to you on his behalf.
I understand you have raised concerns regarding your
account with our Customer Support representatives
and I am disappointed to see that you have not been
satisfied with the service provided. I have
undertaken a full review of your account and can see
that there are no restrictions or issues on your
account and your current site wide selling limits
are 80K items to a value of £4M or whichever is
reached first. These are significant selling limits
and therefore demonstrate that there has been no
selling cap of £85K on your account. I understand
there was a recent issue when the selling limits
were being reviewed but this was rectified and
restored to the limits mentioned. Prior to this,
there were no issues that would have affected
selling above £85K at any time. This is also evident
by reviewing your sales for 2020 which totalled
£102,380.44 from January 1st to December 31st, 2020.
I would recommend revising your listings and
inventory if you are concerned with the level of
sales you are experiencing and wish to develop your
business further. I can see there are many listings
that have been on site for quite some time and so
would advise it best to review and see if a refresh
of these listings overall would help generate
additional traffic for you. I have attached a list
of stagnant listings which details the duration of
time on site, stock quantities and sales for your
convenience.
As these are quite niche products, typically daily
average sales will vary. For example, a more
expensive item may sell two or three times in a week
compared to your average daily sales amount and
therefore, these higher amount days sales will
appear significantly higher when viewing the sales
graph on your dashboard across a week/ month. I have
reviewed your pricing and can see there are
variations of items from the lower price range to a
few hundred pounds, so this needs to be taken into
consideration when reviewing your sales reports as a
potential influencing factor.
Within your Seller Hub, the ‘Performance’ tab
provides access to this data where you can review
your sales. We do suggest utilising the ‘Research’
tab also where listing improvement recommendations
are provided and underperforming listings can be
analysed in more detail. Our Selling Teams are also
available should you wish to discuss these features
further.
I trust that I have clarified your query but if you
do have any further questions, please respond
directly to this email. Of course, our Customer
Support team is available should you have any other
queries and are best placed to assist with real-time
guidance. I wish you all the best moving forward
with eBay and every continued success. Take care and
stay safe.
Kind Regards,
Emma
Executive Escalations UK
[THREAD ID:1-4ZIQHWFB]
______________________________________
06-OCT-2021:
Hello Emma,
1) I consider responses from people without surnames
to be unprofessional, given the potential
seriousness of this issue.
2) You have ignored the single issue raised, that
being of my amalgamated sales since 6th April 2017
to the current day equating to exactly £85,000 p.a.
+/- 1%, choosing instead to obfuscate this single
issue with temporary variations within that
period. I can only assume that while claiming
to have reviewed the letter in full, you have failed
to follow the link in the letter, and have not read
the details at the following page:
(Web address of this page)
You need to do that, and you need to confirm that
you have done so. It may influence any further
response that you decide to make.
3) Please reply to me with the name and address of
the data protection officer for ebay UK, who is
responsible for answering requests made under the UK
Data Protection Act 2018.
Henry J. Walmsley.
________________________________________
08-OCT-2021: Your letter to our Executive SR#
1-390043076518
Dear Mr. Walmsley,
Thank you for your reply. As before your letter has
been reviewed in full and there have been no issues
or selling caps on your account that would have
affected selling above 85K at any time.
Therefore, our position on this query remains the
same as set out in my previous correspondence.
I have included a link to our User Privacy Notice
here and the requested contact information for our
UK Data Protection Officer below if you wish to
contact them with any data queries. Our selling team
are also available should you wish to discuss
listings or any other selling queries you may have.
Data Protection Officer
eBay (UK) Limited
1 More London Place,
London,
SE1 2AF,
United Kingdom
Email - ebaydpo@ebay.com
We thank you for your longstanding membership and
wish you all the best moving forward with eBay. I
hope you have a lovely weekend, take care and stay
safe.
Kind Regards,
Emma
Executive Escalations UK
[THREAD ID:1-4ZMO87B2]
_______________________________
Points of Note for This Exchange:
1) We can see that ebay can check back and
produce a total value for turnover on an account for
any given period, particularly when it is convenient
for them to produce a specious argument.
2) It was nice of Emma to give me this address
as required under UK law. According to the
ebay seller "support" telephone line, such
information is not available and could never be
given out to a paying customer using their
service. Stating that to a customer is
somewhat illegal.
Ebay seller "support" refuse to give me the name and
address of the Ebay UK Data Protection Officer, and
end the call.
12-OCT-2021 Letter to the Ebay Data Protection
Officer at 1, More London Place.
If the only effect of contacting the VP personally
and in writing is to be peddled-off to a surname-less "Emma," one
is forced to go a stage further. So, noting that ebay do
hold sales turnover data for previous intervals, I thought that I
would put in a request for disclosure of relevant data under the
2018 UK Data Protection Act. Here it is:
________________________
Henry J. Walmsley,
14 Anderby Road,
Southampton,
Hampshire,
SO16 9PN
Data Protection Officer
eBay (UK) Limited
1 More London Place,
London,
SE1 2AF
Dear Sir,
This letter constitutes a request for a full
disclosure of data used by ebay systems under the
2018 UK Data Protection Act relevant to the
accounts shown below.
I have a particular interest in the storage of
previous sales totals being used to automatically
influence current sales rates when compared to a
specific numerical value. This process has
been active in your systems since April 6th
2017. I have not been informed of this by
ebay UK, and many enquiries to ebay UK by the more
usual routes have proved to be fruitless and
dismissive.
I believe that this constitutes non-transparent
use of my data.
The ebay accounts in question used the following
usernames:
vila_restor:
Active
jenna_stannis: Closed
tel_varon:
Closed
james_from_space: Closed
curavon01:
Closed
olag_gan:
Closed - never properly opened
Any other accounts which may have inadvertently
been linked to "Henry J. Walmsley / vila_restor"
should be included. Numerical values used
for automated calculations should be
included. All account "Flags" should be
included. Please inform me of any necessary
charges involved.
Yours Sincerely,
Henry J. Walmsley.
________________________
26-OCT-2021 An Email and Site Message Response
from "NikHil" of eBay Privacy
______________________________
26-OCT-2021
Dear Henry Walmsley,
I am contacting you in relation to an email sent to
us requesting your eBay data for your account
“vila_restor”. My name is Nikhil and I would be
happy to advise on this.
Your general eBay data can be requested at any time
through your eBay account, please follow the steps
below:
Sign into your eBay account and in the top left
under “Hello Henry” select “Account settings”
Under “Personal information and privacy” select
“Request your eBay data”.
Follow the steps and your data will be automatically
provided within 10 days.
However, to help you resolve your request quickly I
have requested for your Subject Access Request (SAR)
on your behalf you will be able to download all your
personal data within 10 days.
Please confirm if this response from you is a result
of my original paper letter sent to...
Data Protection Officer eBay (UK) Limited 1 More
London Place, London, SE1 2AF
dated 12-OCT-2021.
Please note the following:
a) None of the requested data is available using the
procedure that you have outlined.
b) Your response does not constitute a reasonable
response made under the 2018 UK Data Protection Act.
As such, the original timeline from the date of that
letter continues to count-down.
c) This request was made under the 2018 UK Data
Protection Act to the ebay UK Data Protection
Officer. I expect a written response from that
officer, not an individual who fails to declare a
full name.
The original letter is shown below.
I still await a timely and proper response to my
original request.
Yours Sincerely,
Henry J Walmsley.
(Original letter to DPO enclosed as readable text)
_____________________________
05-NOV-2021: I receive the
following ebay message, again from Nikhil C.
______________________
Dear Henry Walmsley,
Thank you for reaching out to eBay's Privacy Office
requesting for personal data. I’m responding to you
as we received a letter to our Data Protection
office.
I can understand that you wish to get your previous
sales data with the Subject Access Request (SAR). I
have already requested the SAR on your behalf.
Please be advised that we will only be able to
provide the information that we have in SAR under
GDPR.
For a more in-depth explanation, Section 5 and 8 of
our User Privacy Notice. As previously advised,
should you disagree with our decision in this case
you have the right to report to a supervisory
authority or seek a judicial review.
Kind regards
Nikhil C.
eBay Privacy
[THREAD ID:1-54O0CVAH]
________________________
It is still not clear whether this is in response to
my actual paper letter to the data protection
officer or is just some minion acting on previous
queries. I leave this be, because as far as I'm
concerned, the countdown is still running on my
paper letter.
12-NOV-2021 An email response is made to my
request made under the UK 2018 Data Protection
Act:
We write further to your letter of 12 October
regarding a request for personal data held by eBay
in respect of your accounts.
Please note that as the some of the accounts have
been closed, the personal data associated with these
accounts has been deleted. Accordingly, we will be
unable to provide you with a copy of your personal
data that eBay had processed in respect of these
accounts. For clarity, the closed accounts affected
are as follows:
Jenna_stannis;
Tel_varon;
James_from_space;
Curavon01; and
Olag_gan.
In respect of the active vila_restor account we note
that you initiated and completed a self-service
subject access request (SAR) on 9 November. We
should be grateful if you would confirm whether you
still require this SAR to be repeated manually by
eBay?
Please note that your requests for information
regarding the treatment of sales totals and account
flags used go beyond what eBay is required by
applicable data protection laws to disclose, and as
such eBay is unable to provide you with said
information.
If you disagree with eBay’s procedures or its
decision in this case, you have the right to lodge a
complaint with the Information Commissioner’s
Office, or to seek a judicial remedy.
Kind regards,
eBay Privacy Office
___________________________
There is no name from ebay at all this time, but
finally I have a response to my actual paper
letter. This is ebay's final response. I
disagree completely with ebaydpo. The
invisible use of sales totals and account flags are
exactly what the Data Protection Act and the
EU version GDPR are intended to reveal, if someone
thinks that data thus held is incorrect and is
working against them. "ebaydpo"
correctly notes that I have the
right to complain to the UK
Information Commissioner's Office.
So
on Tuesday 16th November 2021 I did indeed send a
complaint to the UK Information Commissioner's
Office via their online form. That complaint
is comprised of an initial summary and four of the
most relevant documents, one of which should be the
final response from the organisation in
question. The online form and documents sent
are shown below in pdf form.
Initial Complaint Summary Entered into Online
Form Text Box:
Since 6th April 2017 I have been aware of ebay
systems limiting the turnover on my ebay account
to exactly £85,000 per year, the UK VAT
threshold. This covers the whole four and a
half period, not any particular sample year or
period.
Since 6th April 2019 I have been VAT
registered. I have entered all details into
ebay systems, and I have made many different
attempts to communicate this.
The turnover cap in the systems remains in
place. It is currently accurate to within 1%
taken over the period 6th April 2017 to the
present day. This system is invisible to me
in its operation and is not disclosed, yet the
supporting numerical and other evidence is
compelling. Application of this turnover cap
is incorrect and non-transparent use of my
previous sales data to influence current and
future sales levels. This has a direct and
negative effect on my livelihood.
The supporting evidence and all communications can
be seen and heard at the following link:
As of 03-JAN-2021 there has been no response from
the ICO, and I will be awaiting that response with a
sensible degree of patience. It is my opinion,
that exposing and correcting this kind of secret use
of incorrect data possibly held against my name is exactly
what the Data Protection Act and the Information
Commissioner's Office are for.
03-JAN-2021 A Customer Messages to say that He
Can't Pay For His Items Bought From Me, But Can
from Everyone Else
Post new-year sales are jogging along and are
hitting a certain level. Lo! A customer
pops up to say that he mysteriously can't pay for
his items.
Nice Customer with 1018 Feedback: Hi
for some reason this item will not let me pay with
my American Express. And I buy a lot of stuff on
eBay I don’t understand thank you god bless Henry: Hello, I don't understand
either, other than to say that ebay frequently
blocks buyers from making purchases from me because
their computer systems think that I am a VAT fraud.
This isn't true, and of course they deny that it
ever happens. All I can suggest is trying
again later. Thanks for the information.
Henry Walmsley. Nice Customer with 1018 Feedback:
Hi I just made a purchase 2mins ago no problem I
will try later god bless (He means a purchase with
someone else, so it's a problem with my account, not
his.)
So the mysterious payment blockages continue,
meanwhile most of my customers don't bother to send
a message, (after all, why would you?) and simply
shop elsewhere. 31-MAR-2022 A Disappointing Result
From The ICO; "ICO Says No"
On 17th February 2022 I received an email from the
UK Information Commissioner's Office essentially
stating that, "This is business information and is
nothing to do with us."
17-FEB-2022 Email and Attached Letter From The UK
ICO Declining To Accept That eBay Invisible Limits
Attached to My Name Across More Than One eBay
Account Breach the UK Data Protection Act:
_____________________________
ICO Casework
Thu 17/02/2022 14:41
17 February 2022
Case Reference: IC-140843-W4N4
Dear Henry Walmsley,
Thank you for your correspondence to the
Information Commissioner's Office, in which you
raised a complaint about Ebay. Please find
attached our response to your concerns.
Yours sincerely,
Alice Kitson
Case Officer
Information Commissioner's Office
Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House,
Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF
T. 0330 313 1737
___________________
By email only to:
vila_nestor@hotmail.com
17 February 2022
Our Reference: IC-140843-W4N4
Dear Henry Walmsley,
Thank you for your letter/email/complaint form to the
Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in which you
have complained that your business turnover cap is
incorrect and Ebay will not amend this and they will
not disclose your requested data.
The ICO’s role
Part of our role is to consider complaints from
individuals who believe there has been an infringement
of the data protection law.
We deal with complaints like this under section 165 of
the Data Protection Act 2018 which requires us to take
steps to respond to complaints including investigating
to the extent that we feel is appropriate. It also
requires us to inform the complainant of the outcome
of their complaint.
We use complaints to build up a picture of an
organisation’s information rights practices so that we
can identify and target poor performing organisations.
Details of the action we have taken is available on
our website.
Outcome of your complaint
Having considered the information you have provided to
the ICO, unfortunately, we do not deem that we are
able to assist you with your complaint at this time.
Please refer to the section below for further
information regarding our view.
To explain, Section 165 of the Data Protection Act
2018(‘DPA’) states that our obligation is to
investigate a complaint about the application of the
relevant data protection legislation in relation to an
individual’s personal data concern. We are obliged to
investigate concerns to an appropriate extent, and
inform the individual of the outcome. Part of this
process includes considering whether further action is
necessary or appropriate, in line with our Regulatory
Action Policy.
Following this, we should clarify that whilst the data
protection legislation considers the processing of
‘personal data’, it does not extend to information
about your business sales and whether the turnover cap
is calculated correctly for your sales or not. This is
because business and sales information is distinctly
different to requesting access to personal
information. As such we believe that the matter you
have raised predominately relates to a customer
service issue which should be pursued directly with
Ebay.
Whilst we understand this will not be the outcome you
will have wanted, we hope that you appreciate the
reasons as to why we cannot consider this matter
further.
Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.
Yours sincerely,
Alice Kitson
Case Officer
Information Commissioner’s Office
_____________________________
I'm not
sure who it is to do with then, or
just quite how personal the
information has to get, but I'll
accept this for now without
attempting to drag it on further
down this route. I'm inclined
to think that when it comes to doing
some actual work investigating data
abuse in a large corporation which
has lots of money and lawyers
available, the UK ICO just, "Can't
be arsed."
Update 06-JUL-2022
It's been a while. I've been
seeing the usual ridiculous sales
behaviour. I deliberately put
postage and many other prices up and
let sales drop down somewhat by
failing to replace some individual
items. Then I put some
promotions and the individual
specials back on. Four days of
bumper sales ensue while the running
total increases back up to the
silent ebay limit then,
Whallop! Oh dear; Henry is
selling too much again! You've
heard all that before, probably from
many sellers who you might have
thought were just having a good
whinge about what is actually the
result of their own
ineptitude. Fine. You
might think that. I couldn't
possibly comment.
So instead of just looking at
suspicious numbers, bar charts
provided by eBay, and whingeing,
I've been recording the sales data
as ever and updating the big
spreadsheet. The running
amalgamated sales total since 6th
April 2017 is currently such that
over those years I have sold
precisely 1.2% over the VAT
threshold for that time
period. I've also spent some
time doing some charts to
demonstrate the relevance of this
extraordinary, if at first rather
boring-looking constant. This
is not as easy as you may first
imagine due to the enormous data set
of 20+ sales per day over five
years. One has to use MS Excel
pivot tables to boil it down
somewhat, before attempting a
chart. The charts are intended
to show how this constant varies a
little over time, but the eBay
silent sales limiting algorithm
operating on my account always
brings it back to exactly the same
value. Here are the two charts
that I've made so far. They
are effectively the same line with
different Y axes.
It's been a long time since 6th
April 2017. We started on that
day, when HMRC put a clause in their
rules that stated that online
marketplaces could be made
responsible for unpaid VAT by their
sellers, we go through my VAT
registration on 6th April 2019,
Brexit, COVID, me doubling my
inventory of different items,
closing one ebay shop, and all kinds
of other random business
weather. Still, the line
refuses to waver beyond 5% of the UK
VAT threshold. Here's the same
line again showing the percentage
difference of my amalgamated sales
vs. the UK V.A.T. threshold:
Notice the very limited Y-axis
scale. I've seen ±5% tolerance
carbon composition resistors change
value more than that over five
years, though I've never seen one
tend back towards the exact
specified nominal value, or
oscillate around the exact nominal
value before. That would not
be a naturally possible phenomenon,
and neither is this.
There's a lovely eBay Roadshow in
Reading UK on 28th July 2022.
I shall be asking eBay
representatives about this
graph. I expect to be met with
the usual level of deflection and
lies. However, as noted above,
Murray Lambell the V.P. of eBay U.K.
was made aware of this issue
face-to-face and was handed a letter
referencing this page in Manchester
back in September 2021. He
should take notice. Now that
I've figured-out pivot tables, it's
not impossible that with the
application of even more analysis, I
could start to predict my daily
sales totals a day in advance with
reasonable accuracy. At that
point, things will be getting silly.
Fix your systems, Lambell. I'm
an electronics engineer.
Historically, I've been quite good
at debugging not-designed, terribly
coded, rogue software where the
original semi-competent people have
long since been sacked and replaced
with ten times as many programming
monkeys randomly bashing away at
keyboards in the hope of a
successful compile. I can help
you if you like! 15-JUL-2022: I
have entered the eBay Business
Awards Competition
On 14th July 2022 I received a site
message stating that the entry
period for the eBay Business Awards
would be closing soon. I
thought that I had better get my
entry in. So I did. It
comprised some business details, a
link to my eBay shop, this web-page,
and the following information:
___________________________________
I was, and
still consider myself to be a
degree qualified electronics
engineer. We learn
mathematics on electronics
degrees. Starting my eBay
so-called business has made me
extremely aware of your corrupt
and broken systems through a
detailed mathematical
analysis. I would love to
talk about the exact and silent
£85,000 p.a. turnover limitation
that was placed on my account in
2017 and its continued action
since becoming VAT
registered. You refuse to do
so. It is my eBay business
ambition to make Murray Lambell
responsible for this illegal
limiting activity as he is,
"Responsible for all eBay UK
activities," and was made aware of
it face-to-face with an
accompanying letter by hand in
Manchester in September
2021.
<link to this page>
________________________________
So if, in the future, anyone in the
eBay Business Awards department
should claim that they are were not
aware of this situation, we know
that this is not true. Do I
win £10,000?
15-JUL-2022:
Another Mechanism By Which eBay
Silent Limits Can Be Implemented
Is Detected
While I have already identified many
possible mechanisms by which the
mathematically proven eBay silent
limiting system may implement its
sales reductions, here is another
that was the subject of an eBay
seller so-called support call from
me this week. It looks like
some other sellers are subjected to
this exact phenomenon as
well.
During this call it is made clear
that Murray Lambell was made aware
of this issue face-to-face with an
accompanying letter in Manchester in
September 2021.
26-JUL-2022: A
Telephone Call To My Mobile Used
For Contacts From eBay Customers
Was Received From eBay On 0345
3553229
At 12:11 on 26th July 2022, I
received a telephone call from eBay
informing me that I had been
uninvited from their eBay Roadshow
in Reading on Thursday 28th July
2022. The
reason given
was that my
posts online
and on social
media used
unprofessional
and threatening(!)
language
against eBay
employees.
The use
of the word
"bullshit"
with reference
to eBay seller
support was
one reason
quoted.
I asked what
was inaccurate
about this use
of this word,
and there was
no answer.
The caller was very eager to end the
call and to run away from the truth,
without discussing any of the issues
raised in these pages.
The
person pointed
out at the
start that she
did not give
permission for
me to record
the
call. Oh
Dear.
I'm afraid
that as a
company
calling me who
is most
definitely
recording the
call at the
other end, you
have
absolutely no
right to do
so.
1) I am "un-invited" from the eBay
Roadshow in Reading on 28th July
2022.
2) I am accused of using threatening
language towards eBay staff
online. This is the biggest
eBay lie yet, and I make this
clear. Check the telephone
calls and posts.
3) I ask eBay to stop lieing to me.
4) I am cut off.
28-JUL-2022: I Deliver
An Open Letter And Report To
Murray Lambell Outside Reading
Football Club
At 08:40 on Thursday 28th July 2022
I delivered a paper report
comprising this web-page up to the
date 26-JUL-2022, a copy of all the
relevant ebay related pages and
telephone calls on a DVD, and the
covering letter shown below.
This was politely delivered by hand
at the entrance to Reading Football
Club where the aforementioned event
was taking place at 10:00. I
read three-quarters of the letter
aloud, ending with, "You, are
responsible," before handing over
the report. Sorry, there is no
recording of this, but there was a
witness to the final moments at the
entry point. Mr. Lambell's
response was,
"Super!"
Later at 09:50 I was politely
refused entry after being met by two
security personnel who were actually
waiting. I then left, politely
and promptly, safe in the knowledge
of a mission already accomplished.
An Open Letter to Murray Lambell,
By Hand at Reading eBay Roadshow
Dear Murray Lambell,
At an event in Manchester On 30th
September 2021 I informed you, Eve
Williams, Bradford Shellhammer,
and Kate Dudley personally and by
hand delivered letter that since
6th April 2017 I have been aware
of eBay systems limiting the
turnover on my eBay account to
exactly £85,000 per year, the UK
VAT threshold. The delegated
response from your staff was
deliberately evasive, obfuscating,
and contained plain lies. I
made this clear in a written
response.
Since 6th April 2019 I have been
VAT registered. I have
entered all details into your
systems, and I have made many
different attempts to communicate
this.
The silent limit in your systems
still remains in place. It
is currently accurate to within 1%
taken over the period from 6th
April 2017 to the present
day. It has never wavered
from this constant by more than
+/-5% over five years. I
enclose a report with a full and
clear proof.
I again request that this silent
and illegal limiting process be
identified in your systems and
removed from my account. As
the person responsible for all
eBay UK activities, you have five
working days to attend to this
personally. You should now
consider this to be a legally
relevant notification.
Prompt action is required.
Also enclosed is a disc which
contains details of the many other
failures of your marketplace and
the outrageously poor responses
that I have received from your
staff. This includes fifteen
separate instances of price
misrepresentation retail fraud
committed against my customers by
your systems during
2021. eBay staff were
notified about this on every
occasion over a period of months
and given ample opportunity to
correct the error that was causing
retail fraud on a potentially
global scale. On each
occasion I insisted that you
should be informed. No
adequate response was ever
received.
As eBay UK Vice President and
General Manager, You are
responsible.
Yours Sincerely,
Henry J. Walmsley. BEng.
(electronics)
____________________
I awaited a response from my letter
and report. None was
forthcoming.
25-AUG-2022: My Account
Is Permanently Suspended On The
Ebay Site
The only real surprise here is that
it took nearly a month. In a
terribly unprofessional manner, I
like to refer to this as being
"binned-off," from an account with
100.0% positive feedback at a level
of 30340 that has provided ebay with
approximately £120,000 in fees over
twelve years:) Yes.
One-hundred And Twenty Thousand
Pounds GBP. It's a shame that
it took youtube videos and this
entire site to reach this point, but
if you've read this far, you can see
that I tried very hard to progress
sensibly at every stage. Here
is the final correspondence:
_______________________________
[From ukrswebhelp@ebay.com]
Important information regarding
your eBay account
Dear Henry James Walmsley,
We regret to inform you that your
eBay account has been suspended.
Why have we suspended your
account?
An account suspension in these
circumstances is covered under the
eBay User Agreement, which you can
read by copying this link into a
new browser window:
(links)
You are prohibited from using eBay
in any way, including registering
new accounts. We have ended any
open listings.
Please be advised that this
suspension does not relieve you of
your obligation to pay any fees
that you may owe to eBay.
Please note that this suspension
is not appealable. For more
information about why your account
may have been suspended and what
steps to take now, please go to:
(links)
Thank you for your cooperation in
this important matter.
Regards,
We are contacting you from the
Executive Office in eBay in
relation to the recent eBay
Roadshow event in Reading. As had
been communicated to you prior to
the event, your invite had been
rescinded due to comments that had
been made and/or directed to eBay
employees of an unprofessional
nature.
Following careful consideration of
your attendance at the event and
the continuance of violations of
the eBay User Agreement, it has
been determined that it is in
eBay’s best interest to part ways.
We do not make decisions like this
lightly and have spent some time
reviewing this decision, however,
the pattern of activities we have
witnessed presentsan unacceptable
risk to eBay. Therefore, your
account is nowsuspended
indefinitely, and this decision is
not appealable.
I have provided an excerpt from
our User Agreement for reference:
“Without limiting other remedies,
we may limit, suspend, or
terminate your user account(s) and
access to our Services, restrict
or prohibit access to, and your
activities on, our Services,
cancel bids, remove or demote or
otherwise restrict the visibility
of listings, delay or remove
hosted content, remove any special
status associated with the
account, reduce or eliminate any
discounts, and take technical and
legal steps to keep you from using
our Services if:
we think that
you are acting inconsistently with
the letter or spirit of this User
Agreement or our policies or abuse
our employees or users;”
I understand this outcomemay not
be what had beenanticipated, but
we believe eBay is not the right
venue for you to buy and sell. As
previously mentioned, this
suspension is permanent, and you
will no longer be able to use eBay
in any capacity. Any other
accounts you own or are associated
with this account including any
newly registered accounts will
also be suspended as per ourUser
Agreement.
Please note that, at this time, we
have provided you with all the
information available in line with
our site policies, as agreed upon
by you when registering your
account on (link to ebay.co.uk)
Therefore, please note this email
as our final position regarding
this matter. I must advise you
that future appeals/ emails may be
read, but not necessarily
responded to.
So that's that. From previous
experience I know that actually
closing and removing this account
properly will take at least three
months, and then only with repeated
intervention on my side to deal with
mysteriously appearing penny
balances, non-existent
subscriptions, and other
obstacles. Here's how
difficult it is to properly close
an eBay account in good standing.
We'll see how that goes.
There may be further closing updates
as time progresses, including a list
of people who will only now
be receiving copies of the open
letter and report.
UK Trading Standards
The charitable organisation Small
Business Britain (an eBay partner at
their events)
British Chambers of Commerce (an
eBay partner at their events)
My M.P. for
Southampton Test, Dr. Alan Whitehead
Radio 4's "Moneybox" Programme
Radio 4's "You and Yours"
Watchdog on BBC1
Any other M.P.s or government
representatives who decide to appear
in conjunction with ebay at their
online or other events.
Meanwhile, please feel free to visit
my website Useful
Components and the UsefulComponents
Etsy Shop, where you will find
many of the items for sale that
occasionally used to be visible on
ebay when their systems allowed it.
