Dumbest negative feedback ever?

Pacific493

Although I generally think that my selling experiences are fairly unnoteworthy, I received a negative feedback this week that has caused me to vacillate between laughter and frustration, and I thought some here might get a kick out of it. So, I bought a bunch of the Clone Trooper Battlepacks #7913 last year during a 50% off clearance event and have been reselling a lot of them recently. A few weeks ago, I sold one that apparently had a price sticker with the marked-down price on it. Upon receiving that set and seeing that sticker, the buyer promptly fired off a negative feedback because I had "ripped him off" by charging him more for the set than I had paid for it. Has anyone seen or received a negative feedback that was left for a reason dumber than that?

doriansdad

How about using clear and green bubble wrap instead of all one color?

TheLoneTensor

I've thought about that also, which is why I try to carefully remove stickers whenever possible, if only for the psyche of the recipient. That is, of course, unless I got it at a severe discount, sold it under RRP and the sticker lists RRP :)

You could try reasoning with him and asking him to revise the feedback, giving him the laundry list of what you had to do to provide him with a retired thing - i.e. invest, store, protect, list, ship, etc. It's worth a shot.

Crowkillers

I had received a negative feedback on Ebay last year for an instruction download purchase because the buyer thought they were supposed to get an entire 1,900 piece set for only $12... I sent my normal disclaimer to the buyer and once they respond back and confirm, I then send the download access... This woman threatened to slander me across the internet if I didn't send her a full kit for her son's birthday... I also refunded her money right back to her prior to her mental breakdown...

The comment said "Do not buy from this man, he tricks you out of your money" The woman got suspended from Ebay and the comment was removed...

I do not know how much clearer that I could make the listing that these were instructions only... This is the exact listing...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271287761478

The woman was from right here in the United States

CCC

It used to be fairly common that people would dropship direct from amazon. List something on ebay at a price higher than amazon, someone buys it from you, you buy from amazon and have it sent direct to them. And so the buyer often got the original receipt included, showing how much they overpaid compared to current prices elsewhere. That sometimes generated interesting feedback.

gmpirate

I think we all could relate some pretty bad experiences with feedback. Mostly it comes from people not reading the auctions.

Brickarmor

I got a neutral from a German buyer because his polybag was in customs forever. He just said "Alles ok." I asked him if he did finally receive and he said yes. I didn't want to waste a feedback modification request on that, and ebay never did anything. Ho hum.

MathBuilder

tensor said:

That is, of course, unless I got it at a severe discount, sold it under RRP and the sticker lists RRP :)

Tensor, even then leaving the sticker might result in negative thinking. i.e. The buyer might think you stole the item if you are giving them something way under RRP.

graphite

CCC said:

It used to be fairly common that people would dropship direct from amazon. List something on ebay at a price higher than amazon, someone buys it from you, you buy from amazon and have it sent direct to them. And so the buyer often got the original receipt included, showing how much they overpaid compared to current prices elsewhere. That sometimes generated interesting feedback.

The only feed back that should be allowed here is "Buyer you are an idiot for not researching price"

Dread_Pirate

I just posted a thread about a reciend Ebay experience but in this case here, how did you rip him or her off? This is an auction where the bidder pays the seller based on what the bidder is willing to pay. Now I usually at least break even with Ebay but some transactions I lose and some I gain. I sold 5 Black Pearls for all $100 or more, which is RRP. I paid only $45 for them as they were on clearance at Wally World. Did I rip them off? No I listed them all with a starting bid of $50 with a BIN of $100 and people were willing to pay my asking price. I made a good ammount per sale but that is simply capitolism, not ripping someone off. Ripping a person off would be listing a set as 100% Lego and substituting many of the pieces for the cheaper Megablocks. This person was simply upset that you made a profit with his wallet.

LegoFanTexas

This happened to me recently... Amazingly enough, the customer was happy to buy the item at the price I was asking, yet when they figured out what I paid for it (yea, I missed the price sticker, I get most of them, but at my volume I miss a few), they fired off a very rude e-mail and left negative feedback.

What can I say?

LegoFanTexas

Crowkillers said:

I had received a negative feedback on Ebay last year for an instruction download purchase because the buyer thought they were supposed to get an entire 1,900 piece set for only $12

There is simply no pleasing some people.

That is why I never make it personal or get into it. If someone has a complaint, I offer to take it back, or do a partial refund with offer of return for full refund, or whatever...

Just not worth my brain cells to fight.

I recently received back a Dino HQ, was sold new/sealed, when it came back, clearly most of it had been built, it was back in zip lock bags, the buyer did put a note in one of them noting which part was missing.

A single small part that LEGO would have replaced was missing, fair enough (or the kid lost it under the table, whatever.

I'll replace the part and sell it as used, but that is an expensive hit, and I really can't charge a fee, after all, I guess a part *was* missing (I have to take the customer at their word).

Just the cost of doing business. :)

BTW, anyone want a Dino HQ set just missing a simple part on the cheap? :)

dougts

I feel like any negative feedback predicated on price should be immediately removed automatically. It's not like it's some sort of "buy now, find out the price later". If the buyer agrees to a price and then decides it was too much, they should negative feedback themselves for agreeing to it.

gmpirate

@Legofantexas But at the margins Dino is bringing in right now its absorbable :) And its still early in the season. I imagine you can still double your money on HQ. So 2x vs 4x . . .

Dread_Pirate

I may be interested in the Dino set. I'm starting to buy X-mas for my kids.

PM me.

Jaffleman

Pacific493 said:

Although I generally think that my selling experiences are fairly unnoteworthy, I received a negative feedback this week that has caused me to vacillate between laughter and frustration, and I thought some here might get a kick out of it. So, I bought a bunch of the Clone Trooper Battlepacks #7913 last year during a 50% off clearance event and have been reselling a lot of them recently. A few weeks ago, I sold one that apparently had a price sticker with the marked-down price on it. Upon receiving that set and seeing that sticker, the buyer promptly fired off a negative feedback because I had "ripped him off" by charging him more for the set than I had paid for it. Has anyone seen or received a negative feedback that was left for a reason dumber than that?

Haha, They've never heard of a wise investment? Some people are just idiots. I hope the negative response they left mentions the reason they are upset as it will reflect more on them being a total tool than you "ripping" people off. The majority of people on ebay are making a profit, business or otherwise.

If people weren't making profits, there would be a lot less on ebay and fewer people would go there. It would be a disaster.

If anyone is going to take such feedback seriously they are just as dumb and not worth your bother, so i wouldn't be worried, it's annoying that it brings your percentage down but if people have negatives I generally read them first and 90% of the time it's from fools such as in your case.

jockosjungle

I sold a broken ipod on the basis it was broken and could not be fixed, maybe usable for spare parts. The guy left negative feedback, raised a refund demand, on the basis that the ipod was broken and he couldn't fix it.

Ebay sided with me, but there was a lot of arguing.

If you've got a fair amount of feedback and rating all ready, chalk it down to selling on ebay, some people are stupid.. And nobody is going to worry about a 99.8% feedback rating.

At uni a mate and me used to sell CD's on ebay, we'd charge a couple of quid more than you could buy them online, then order them one online. We had to close the operation down to the negative feedback based on that we'd ordered the CDs from an online retailer, people were not happy

Xefan

The fact is some people don't like reselling for profit, I'm not against people doing it if they want to do it (providing they fulfil their tax obligations), but it seems a bit pointless to whine about it when someone realises you're making a profit off them.

Resell all you want, but it seems a bit silly to then cry if someone was angry when they realised the markup you were making through the fact you left the price on the box yourself.

Either keep the naive naive by making sure you remove stickers, or accept that they're going to get angry when they find out the markup you're charging. After all, are you saying you've never felt angry towards a store when you bought something only to find another store a short way away sold it for less? Or bought a Lego set at discount only to find it even more discounted elsewhere? It's the same feeling that this person will have had in finding out they just paid way over the odds for something.

So I wouldn't call the feedback dumb, I think you just have to accept it comes with the territory with regards to reselling. Some of the other posts in this thread highlight examples where feedback genuinely is dumb.

It may well be frustrating but it's something you'll have to get used to if you want to resell for profit. You're going to have customers from varying backgrounds - those who know what they're buying and how the price compares, those who are so rich they just couldn't care either way, through to those who are buying it as a present for their grandkid or whatever and are naive as to the price and get annoyed if they find out the amount it was in store relative to how much they paid.

vitreolum

If anyone thinks a store/sellers sells something at a loss, or to break even, and need a price sticker to find out, then they are completely deluded. If they accepted to buy something at a certain price and find out it was a bad move afterwards, it's their fault, not the seller's. Someone's ignorance is no reason to tarnish a seller's reputation.

Xefan

Actually it's perfectly reasonable to assume some things are sold at a loss or break even on eBay given that unless you pay tax on profits then you're not legally allowed to sell for profit on eBay in countries like the UK. As such it's not unreasonable to expect at least some items to be sold for zero profit.

But regardless, that's a different topic, you're generalising and it's arrogant. If someone close to you told you they wanted some antique lamp or something you're not well versed in the prices of for their birthday and you bought it for them not knowing the true value of said item because you didn't know what search terms to use to find a reasonable valuation are you honestly telling me you wouldn't be ticked off if you paid £100 and found a £10 price tag stuck on the bottom of it when it arrived?

Whilst you may be able to find the price for every Lego set going and have a reasonable understanding of the value of sets and what they are and aren't discounted to and when you can't assume everyone is an expert in the price of everything. Are there stupid people in the world? Sure, all too many of them, but you can't assume people are at fault simply because they're not as well versed in a topic as you, the buyer might have a doctorate in particle physics for all you know, but be completely naive to the fair price of Lego until he gets an unfortunate education in it through a realisation of how much he overpaid by.

I'm sure I could find a topic in which I know a lot more than you in and then belittle you for being "deluded", "ignorant" and "at fault" for not knowing the answer to questions I pose on said topic, but it's stupid to expect everyone to be an expert in everything, and it's stupid to not expect people to get angry about profiteering, different people will have different opinions on what constitutes profiteering, and if you're making a profit then you have to expect that you will face that depending on how much profit you're making and how good a job you do of managing expectations. If you're sending the item with the original price tag you paid on it then you've utterly failed at managing expectations and should expect some kind of comeback.

Ask yourself this, how well do you think a shop would do and how happy do you think the customers would be if they also stuck the wholesale price that they paid against the price they want you to pay? I can't imagine any of the customers being too happy about shopping there when they realise the margins. You need to at least maintain the illusion that you're not marking things up too much if nothing else. I expect most people would frequent the store that wasn't transparent about it's wholesale prices instead.

I'd advise the original poster to simply chalk this one up as a lesson in exactly that, not worry too much about it, move on, and consider the lesson in managing customer expectations learnt and accept that there was more he could've done to manage the customer's expectations - i.e. remove the price tag. If instead he just writes it off as a stupid customer and ignores the lessons then he isn't going to be in business long.

LFT gets it, sometimes the customer really is genuinely stupid, but either way they're still the customer and you still have to make things painless for them and ensure you manage their expectations well if you want to build a reputation as a good person to buy from. It's not as if in this situation there was nothing Pacific493 could've done before shipping the product to achieve that.

vitreolum

Xefan said:

If someone close to you told you they wanted some antique lamp or something you're not well versed in the prices of for their birthday and you bought it for them not knowing the true value of said item because you didn't know what search terms to use to find a reasonable valuation are you honestly telling me you wouldn't be ticked off if you paid £100 and found a £10 price tag stuck on the bottom of it when it arrived?

But being ticked off or not is not my point. I would probably be ticked off, but would I find it fair to complain to the seller or tarnish his reputation as revenge? No, because it was my mistake and mine alone, the moment I decided to get it and agreed to pay that price. And if I fall for it again, you can call me stupid, if instead of learning something from my mistake I blame the seller and continue blindly on the same path I was before.

Xefan said:

I'm sure I could find a topic in which I know a lot more than you in and then belittle you for being "deluded", "ignorant" and "at fault" for not knowing the answer to questions I pose on said topic, but it's stupid to expect everyone to be an expert in everything, and it's stupid to not expect people to get angry about profiteering, different people will have different opinions on what constitutes profiteering, and if you're making a profit then you have to expect that you will face that depending on how much profit you're making and how good a job you do of managing expectations. If you're sending the item with the original price tag you paid on it then you've utterly failed at managing expectations and should expect some kind of comeback.

Definitely, you could find more than one topic I'm ignorant about, but that's not the point. Again, it's taking it one someone else for your mistake/ignorance that is the problem here.

As for the price sticker, I admit it should be removed, but if that can be done safely. I'd rather get a set with a price sticker than damaged because of it being removed. Which is yet another reason for customers to complain.

Don't misinterpret my post there as "if you don't know something, you're dumb". It's how you come to terms with that what I'm debating.

Basta

Remember not everyone is stupid or an idiot, some are just scammers using any technique to get what they don't deserve.

Xefan said:

are you honestly telling me you wouldn't be ticked off if you paid £100 and found a £10 price tag stuck on the bottom of it when it arrived?

Most likely no, as I'd know the market value of what ever I was buying and if it was £100 then I don't care what the seller paid for it. But in the rare case that I didn't and I found out I over paid I would feel ticked off, not at the seller but at my self for being an idiot. So yes this feedback is "dumb". Ignorance may be bliss, but it's is not an excuse.

Though I agree with you about the price sticker, not a great idea leaving to on.

Aleydita

Xefan said:

Actually it's perfectly reasonable to assume some things are sold at a loss or break even on eBay given that unless you pay tax on profits then you're not legally allowed to sell for profit on eBay in countries like the UK. As such it's not unreasonable to expect at least some items to be sold for zero profit.

What complete and utter claptrap! It is perfectly legal to sell on eBay at a profit providing you're only selling your own goods, and assuming you're not selling something that's valued above £6,000 (excluding car and your own home).

If you buy items purely with the intention of selling them, regardless whether you make a profit or not, and regardless whether you make use of the item in the interim, you are engaged in a trade and must register as self-employed and, depending on your turnover (or potential turnover), possibly with the VAT office also. This applies whether you ultimately make a profit or not. I'd wager a good number of UK sellers on Bricklink, and resellers here on Brickset, haven't registered as self-employed or otherwise set up a Ltd Company.

The OP is perfectly entitled to feel aggrieved in my opinion. If I bought something 5 years ago and is in now out of production and in high demand, I'd feel a little annoyed that someone was complaining about me making a small profit. It's a seller's market with Lego at the moment.

Pitfall69

An antique lamp with a price sticker on it? What a ridiculous example. If I was selling a Ford Model T, someone would expect to pay $825 for it?

What if I got a Lego set for free? Would someone get mad if they found out I got it free and was mad they had to pay money for the set?

There have been many times where I bought an item and I found it cheaper at another store. If the discount was worth my time, I would just return the item I bought.
I know there are people that don't have a clue, but I think most people realize that there's a markup on most everthing they buy.

CCC

Pitfall69 said:

I know there are people that don't have a clue, but I think most people realize that there's a markup on most everthing they buy.

And if there isn't, then it is probably not a seller I'd want to buy from. As they are the sort of person that is running an unsustainable business (and likely to disappear without warning) or they are selling stolen goods.

cheshirecat

I think there are still a lot of people, particularly older people, that believe ebay is still somewhere people mostly sell stuff they don't want any more rather than reselling for profit - with that mindset I can see someone getting upset over a massive markup (That said, the OP said that they got the item 50% of RRP so presumably the markup wasn't massively massive). That mentality is certainly naive but perhaps not dumb. Is this feedback any stupider than someone complaining that LEGO should give them a discount on RRP to offset their states sales tax?

In many ways I think its possibly equally dumb to assume, if you are applying massive mark ups, that some people won't be unhappy - surely thats just a risk of the business you're in. In the old days of profiteering people would risk being beat up or gaining a bad reputation within your community - now you risk getting a negative feedback so it doesn't sound to bad to me. Whilst its true that they paid the price they paid and 'should' have known what to expect when it arrived it doesn't mean its not reasonable to be disappointed when it arrived, its entirely reasonable to feel that the sticker was a smack in the face. Any disapointment will result in a possible bad feedback, the same applies to every product and every retailer out there.

Would I or anyone else here leave negative feedback? No because we know what ebay is, we know what LEGO can be bought for, its RRP and mostly what its worth now. But its not a good idea to assume that everyone sees things like we do. The OP has received feedback, possibly unfair but there you go. I suspect the best attitude is to, as Xefan said, learn from it and never leave a 'sale' sticker on a box again. Equally the buyer should have learnt from this to.



As an aside, would a price sticker (and im thinking of those big ones you sometimes get especially with reductions) be enough to mean an item wasn't as described on ebay? If you used a stock image of a pristine box or if you were selling 10, used a photo of one without but some of your stock had them on? If you claimed MISB would that make a difference?

Wil348

I never re-sell LEGO, so I can't say anything about the eBay thing.

Has anybody ever heard any customer in a Brand Store give an employee some really silly feedback, I mean like really trivial things that wouldn't effect anything? It's probably a very common thing to hear though, so I'm sure employees get used to it.

Xefan

Basta said:

Most likely no, as I'd know the market value of what ever I was buying and if it was £100 then I don't care what the seller paid for it.

You know the market value of everything you have and would ever buy? really? I suspect you're getting ripped off more than you realise if you genuinely believe that.

Aleydita said:

If you buy items purely with the intention of selling them, regardless whether you make a profit or not, and regardless whether you make use of the item in the interim, you are engaged in a trade and must register as self-employed and, depending on your turnover (or potential turnover), possibly with the VAT office also.

But that's exactly what we're talking about here- reselling, I didn't think I'd have to make that explicit given that it's a given in the discussion from the very first post. Profit is the major determining factor in how HMRC determine whether you're selling as a business or not, and if you sell a bunch of items you bought at retail for a markup of say, 50%, then they'll class you as a business seller that has to pay tax on those earnings. So again, it's not unrealistic that people will sell for a loss or break even on eBay if they don't want to attract that sort of hassle.

Aleydita said:

The OP is perfectly entitled to feel aggrieved in my opinion. If I bought something 5 years ago and is in now out of production and in high demand, I'd feel a little annoyed that someone was complaining about me making a small profit. It's a seller's market with Lego at the moment.

This is a loaded argument. You say small profit, but Pacific493 hasn't told us how much profit he actually made. You're saying you'd feel aggrieved but you're saying that based on such an assumption. Thus far I've been talking in generalisations because without all the facts it's silly to jump on the buyer and assume fault. If the buyer knew the original price but paid it anyway and then still complained I'd absolutely agree with everyone saying he was an idiot, if however he was a naive old grandad that didn't know any better then as I say, I can understand why he gave the feedback he did.

Pitfall69 said:

An antique lamp with a price sticker on it? What a ridiculous example. If I was selling a Ford Model T, someone would expect to pay $825 for it?

Are you implying antiques are never sold at antique shops with price stickers on, or that if they are no one would ever sell them on for profit?

FWIW I have no idea what the going price for a Ford Model T is, I have no idea whether $825 would be insanely cheap, or insanely expensive. I don't keep track of what supply and demand has done to the price of that particular product which proves the point precisely that you can't expect everyone to know the value of everything.

Pitfall69 said:

I know there are people that don't have a clue, but I think most people realize that there's a markup on most everthing they buy.

Right, but most people don't want to see that markup, because it would annoy them all the same. You may think that's stupid, you may think that's irrational, but it's also unavoidable human nature, so as a seller you have to deal with it. Not doing so and then complaining it resulted in negative feedback is easily as naive as someone not realising that a lot of eBayers are out to milk you for every last drop of profit that they can.

Pacific493

Xefan said:

Resell all you want, but it seems a bit silly to then cry if someone was angry when they realised the markup you were making through the fact you left the price on the box yourself.

I'm not crying about the negative feedback. I've gotten negs before and I will get negs in the future. Some I have deserved, most I have not. This one just struck me as particularly dumb, although not quite as stupid as the one about the color of bubble wrap.

Xefan said:

Either keep the naive naive by making sure you remove stickers, or accept that they're going to get angry when they find out the markup you're charging. After all, are you saying you've never felt angry towards a store when you bought something only to find another store a short way away sold it for less? Or bought a Lego set at discount only to find it even more discounted elsewhere? It's the same feeling that this person will have had in finding out they just paid way over the odds for something.

I have never felt anger towards a store for selling something at a higher price than another store. I may think that they are stupid for doing so (e.g. TRU) or be angry at myself for not being more careful about price shopping before pulling the trigger on a purchase or be frustrated in general when I get bit by poor timing, but I have never had any reason to be pissed off at a store...why would I?

Xefan said:

So I wouldn't call the feedback dumb, I think you just have to accept it comes with the territory with regards to reselling. Some of the other posts in this thread highlight examples where feedback genuinely is dumb.

That's fine, you don't have to call it dumb, but I will.

Xefan said:

It may well be frustrating but it's something you'll have to get used to if you want to resell for profit. You're going to have customers from varying backgrounds.

You can spare me the condescension. I may not be as vocal or active on these boards as others, but I've been at this a while and know the score.

doriansdad

Basta said:

Remember not everyone is stupid or an idiot

When it comes to buyers on ebay I have to disagree with you on that one :)

Xefan

Pacific493 said:

That's fine, you don't have to call it dumb, but I will.

Right, but don't be surprised if others think the same of someone who leaves the price sticker on something they're reselling for profit.

Pacific493 said:

You can spare me the condescension. I may not be as vocal or active on these boards as others, but I've been at this a while and know the score.

So why are you surprised? If you knew the score when it comes to dealing with customers this shouldn't have surprised you in the slightest.

Pacific493

Xefan said:

I'd advise the original poster to simply chalk this one up as a lesson in exactly that, not worry too much about it, move on, and consider the lesson in managing customer expectations learnt and accept that there was more he could've done to manage the customer's expectations - i.e. remove the price tag. If instead he just writes it off as a stupid customer and ignores the lessons then he isn't going to be in business long.

Thanks for the advice, I think I'll go ahead and close up shop now since I think that this customer was stupid and don't plan on changing how I do business as a result of this one neg.

Xefan said:

LFT gets it, sometimes the customer really is genuinely stupid, but either way they're still the customer and you still have to make things painless for them and ensure you manage their expectations well if you want to build a reputation as a good person to buy from. It's not as if in this situation there was nothing Pacific493 could've done before shipping the product to achieve that.

I realize that I could have avoided the neg if I had removed the sticker before shipping the item, but I don't have the time or inclination to remove every sticker off of every set that passes through my inventory. I made a calculated risk that leaving the price stickers on wouldn't be a huge problem and, until this one customer, was correct. As you admit, sometimes customers are stupid and, in my experience, when you run into stupid customers, there is often very little that you can do to please them.

mressin

I'm not even sure it's really the sticker. People have a bad day, or maybe a fight with their spouse, or a headache, or whatnot, and then the smallest thing can set them off and you get bad feedback because of some insignificance. Instead of the sticker, it could just as well be the way you wrote your name.

Pacific493

Xefan said:

Pacific493 said:

That's fine, you don't have to call it dumb, but I will.

Right, but don't be surprised if others think the same of someone who leaves the price sticker on something they're reselling for profit.

In my book, anyone who thinks that someone selling on Amazon is selling the product for less than they paid them is stupid and I will continue to be surprised at people who are offended when they learn otherwise. The reason that I think people like this customer are stupid is because they seem not to realize that if sellers weren't able to make a profit on the products they sell, they wouldn't be sellers and the products that they sell wouldn't be available.

Xefan said:

Pacific493 said:

You can spare me the condescension. I may not be as vocal or active on these boards as others, but I've been at this a while and know the score.

So why are you surprised? If you knew the score when it comes to dealing with customers this shouldn't have surprised you in the slightest.

Perhaps because I have never run across a customer who was so offended by the basic economic principle (i.e., buy low, sell high) that fuels the secondary marketplace that they sought to buy a product that was no longer manufactured or distributed through primary channels. I expect a certain amount of pickiness on the part of customers. I have had customers complain that a shipping box was not big enough or that I didn't include an item that I never said would be included...those kind of complaints don't surprise me. But, I have never before run across a customer who thought it unfair for me to operate a capitalistic venture. Perhaps you've run across dozens of such customers and fielded dozens of similar complaints, but, in all the years that I've been selling online, I haven't seen a single one until now.

cheshirecat

Pacific493 said:

Thanks for the advice, I think I'll go ahead and close up shop now since I think that this customer was stupid and don't plan on changing how I do business as a result of this one neg.

Really? You're not going to think twice about checking for sale stickers before posting and risk getting more neg feedback, even though you thought this neg feedback warraneted a forum thread? And the feedback was dumb?

Aleydita

Xefan said:

Profit is the major determining factor in how HMRC determine whether you're selling as a business or not

I'm sorry but it's not. Profit is what you pay tax on, it is not a determining factor in whether HMRC think you're a business or not. The facts are what matter, not whether you make a profit or not.

Xefan said:

if you sell a bunch of items you bought at retail for a markup of say, 50%, then they'll class you as a business seller that has to pay tax on those earnings. So again, it's not unrealistic that people will sell for a loss or break even on eBay if they don't want to attract that sort of hassle.

No. Stop it. You clearly don't know about UK tax laws.

If you buy something for personal use but stick it in a cupboard and forget about it, you're perfectly entitled to sell it at a profit at some point in the future. Only if the item is valued at over £6,000 does tax come into it, and even then you'll be able to offset your Capital Gains allowance against the profit you make before you pay tax.

Making a few quid by selling part of your personal Lego collection does not put you into the "running a business" bracket. If, however, the OP is buying Lego purely to sell at a profit at a later date, then yes they are a business and should register as such.

If you buy to sell then you're a business. If you buy to collect, and later sell some or all of your collection, you're not.

Xefan

Aleydita said:

I'm sorry but it's not. Profit is what you pay tax on, it is not a determining factor in whether HMRC think you're a business or not. The facts are what matter, not whether you make a profit or not.

You can be sorry all you want. HMRC themselves say you are wrong:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/guidance/selling/badges.htm

It's the first indicator they list. They even provide a number of really easy to understand examples that highlight how important the profit motive is to their determination:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/guidance/selling/examples.htm

Aleydita said:

No. Stop it. You clearly don't know about UK tax laws.

Let me guess, HMRC don't know about UK tax laws either? only you do?

Aleydita said:

If you buy something for personal use but stick it in a cupboard and forget about it, you're perfectly entitled to sell it at a profit at some point in the future. Only if the item is valued at over £6,000 does tax come into it, and even then you'll be able to offset your Capital Gains allowance against the profit you make before you pay tax.

Making a few quid by selling part of your personal Lego collection does not put you into the "running a business" bracket. If, however, the OP is buying Lego purely to sell at a profit at a later date, then yes they are a business and should register as such.

Are you still missing the rather fundamental part of this thread which I already pointed to once that we're talking about reselling? Stop muddying the waters with irrelevance.

Pacific493

cheshirecat said:

Pacific493 said:

Thanks for the advice, I think I'll go ahead and close up shop now since I think that this customer was stupid and don't plan on changing how I do business as a result of this one neg.

Really? You're not going to think twice about checking for sale stickers before posting and risk getting more neg feedback, even though you thought this neg feedback warraneted a forum thread? And the feedback was dumb?

Either you missed my sarcasm or I am missing yours.

CCC

Xefan said:

Aleydita said:

I'm sorry but it's not. Profit is what you pay tax on, it is not a determining factor in whether HMRC think you're a business or not. The facts are what matter, not whether you make a profit or not.

You can be sorry all you want. HMRC themselves say you are wrong:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/guidance/selling/badges.htm

It's the first indicator they list. They even provide a number of really easy to understand examples that highlight how important the profit motive is to their determination:

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/guidance/selling/examples.htm

Aleydita said:

No. Stop it. You clearly don't know about UK tax laws.

Let me guess, HMRC don't know about UK tax laws either? only you do?

Aleydita said:

If you buy something for personal use but stick it in a cupboard and forget about it, you're perfectly entitled to sell it at a profit at some point in the future. Only if the item is valued at over £6,000 does tax come into it, and even then you'll be able to offset your Capital Gains allowance against the profit you make before you pay tax.

Making a few quid by selling part of your personal Lego collection does not put you into the "running a business" bracket. If, however, the OP is buying Lego purely to sell at a profit at a later date, then yes they are a business and should register as such.

Are you still missing the rather fundamental part of this thread which I already pointed to once that we're talking about reselling? Stop muddying the waters with irrelevance.

Aleydita is correct. That first point that you point out means that you buy something to resell. If you bought a set with the intention of having it as part of your MISB collection, had it in your collection for five years, then another model comes out which you prefer, so you buy it and sell the old one for profit, then you are not a trader. Profit was not the intention at the time you obtained it.

Now if you bought 50 of them, and decided to sell after three months, then HMRC would view that in a different light even if you claimed they were in your collection.

Pacific493

CCC said:

Aleydita is correct. That first point that you point out means that you buy something to resell. If you bought a set with the intention of having it as part of your MISB collection, had it in your collection for five years, then another model comes out which you prefer, so you buy it and sell the old one for profit, then you are not a trader. Profit was not the intention at the time you obtained it.

So, in that example, would the transaction not be subject to taxation because the seller did not have the intent to sell the set for profit when he/she originally purchased it?

CCC

Xefan said:

But that's exactly what we're talking about here- reselling, I didn't think I'd have to make that explicit given that it's a given in the discussion from the very first post. Profit is the major determining factor in how HMRC determine whether you're selling as a business or not, and if you sell a bunch of items you bought at retail for a markup of say, 50%, then they'll class you as a business seller that has to pay tax on those earnings. So again, it's not unrealistic that people will sell for a loss or break even on eBay if they don't want to attract that sort of hassle.

Again, this is wrong. If you buy to resell and sell them at just 1% markup, you are still a business seller. If you sell them at a loss of 10%, you are still classed as a business seller and should still declare your business activity, attracting the same hassle as selling for a profit. The only difference is that there is no tax to pay. Why anyone would purposely sell at a loss when they still have to keep accounts proving the loss, and still file their tax return, I don't know.

cheshirecat

^ It would depend on how much it was sold for, your other financial situation and (not sure about this one) what it was as I think some items are exempt. But not LEGO. And of course this is UK specific.

@CCC is right, that list of nine isn't actually what HMRC go on, its in addition to their main criteria, which are:

You are trading if you:

sell goods you have bought for resale
make items yourself and sell them, intending to make a profit
sell (or buy) goods on behalf of others for financial gain (for example on commission)
provide a service and receive payment (whether in cash or in kind).

thenos

I just thought it was kind of funny. You know, "Hah, people." It's amazing how everything becomes a debate here.

CCC

Pacific493 said:

CCC said:

Aleydita is correct. That first point that you point out means that you buy something to resell. If you bought a set with the intention of having it as part of your MISB collection, had it in your collection for five years, then another model comes out which you prefer, so you buy it and sell the old one for profit, then you are not a trader. Profit was not the intention at the time you obtained it.

So, in that example, would the transaction not be subject to taxation because the seller did not have the intent to sell the set for profit when he/she originally purchased it?

In the UK, yes. Well, not quite yes, but almost. You are selling something you own, rather than business stock. Capital gains tax might apply (depends on profit and sale value) if you sell a large collection. I reckon a number of people's collection top £6K, and so if the entire collection was sold, then it would need to be assessed for CGT.

One thing I have never understood for lego is the part about expected length of life. Does a lego set have an expected useful life of less than 50 years? The individual bricks don't, but as a set, they probably do as parts are expected to get lost.

There is also a complication if you sell off items that you have shown at an exhibition and taken payment for doing the exhibition (rather than expenses) - as it can be classed as a business asset then.

Xefan

*facepalm* some people still seem entirely unable to grasp the concept of just talking about resellers. I thought it was quite simple to understand that that was the discussion at hand there but I'll leave it at that.

Is there really any doubt that resellers:

a) Sell with the intention of making a profit?

b) Buy the goods that they're reselling, for resale?

The HMRC site is rather explicit about the rest of it. There's nothing on the HMRC site about that list being in addition, in fact, it explicitly states that those are the indicators used by the courts and some or all of them may determine if someone is trading as a business. The criteria you quoted is just a list of examples that is comprised of those criteria, obviously reselling would fall under the first one because the profit motive box is ticked amongst others.

doriansdad

Pacific493 said:

I realize that I could have avoided the neg if I had removed the sticker before shipping the item, but I don't have the time or inclination to remove every sticker off of every set that passes through my inventory. I made a calculated risk that leaving the price stickers on wouldn't be a huge problem and, until this one customer, was correct.

Make sure you check the DSR the seller left you. If they gave you a 1 or 2 I heavily advise setting up a new seller account. If you get dinged again you will get permabanned. Ebay is currently permabanning the next 15k sellers and the third round is due before the end of the year. If you get one more neg or bad DSR during this time you will be history. Also do not leave a false positive for the buyer as that will get you permanently banned as well. You can read about the latest purge here:

http://community.ebay.com/t5/Seller-Central/Has-Another-Purge-Begun-at-Ebay/td-p/17761811

There was also a very good Q&A session on the GSP program yesterday as well:

http://community.ebay.com/t5/Weekly-Chat-with-eBay-Staff/Weekly-Chat-with-the-eBay-Global-Shipping-Team-October-9-2013/m-p/17769331#M595

It is worth reading the entire thread just to get to the end when the ebay reps finally confess they have been auto-enrolling sellers into GSP without their permission after dodging the question for a very long time. Good times at ebay :)

CCC

Xefan said:

*facepalm* some people still seem entirely unable to grasp the concept of just talking about resellers. I thought it was quite simple to understand that that was the discussion at hand there but I'll leave it at that.

Xefan said:

Actually it's perfectly reasonable to assume some things are sold at a loss or break even on eBay given that unless you pay tax on profits then you're not legally allowed to sell for profit on eBay in countries like the UK. As such it's not unreasonable to expect at least some items to be sold for zero profit.

You seem to be claiming that resellers will purposely sell at a loss so they can avoid paying tax. By doing so, they are only avoiding paying tax because they make no profit. They still have to keep accounts and file a tax return (all the hard stuff) for nothing. They might as well make money and pay the tax.

You may just be talking about resellers, but the topic has clearly widened. Where did it start to widen ...

Xefan said:

If someone close to you told you they wanted some antique lamp or something you're not well versed in the prices of for their birthday and you bought it for them not knowing the true value of said item because you didn't know what search terms to use to find a reasonable valuation are you honestly telling me you wouldn't be ticked off if you paid £100 and found a £10 price tag stuck on the bottom of it when it arrived?

morezone

Xefan said:

.........So again, it's not unrealistic that people will sell for a loss or break even on eBay if they don't want to attract that sort of hassle.

Xefan said:

Are you still missing the rather fundamental part of this thread which I already pointed to once that we're talking about reselling? Stop muddying the waters with irrelevance.

I'm all confuddled

Xefan

CCC said:

You seem to be claiming that resellers will purposely sell at a loss so they can avoid paying tax. By doing so, they are only avoiding paying tax because they make no profit. They still have to keep accounts and file a tax return (all the hard stuff) for nothing. They might as well make money and pay the tax.

You seem to be embarking on your own discussion now as this bears no resemblance to any claim I have made.

morezone said:

I'm all confuddled

Try reading my posts in context rather than quoting them out of context, then you won't be.

ACWWGal2011

Crowkillers said:

I had received a negative feedback on Ebay last year for an instruction download purchase because the buyer thought they were supposed to get an entire 1,900 piece set for only $12... I sent my normal disclaimer to the buyer and once they respond back and confirm, I then send the download access... This woman threatened to slander me across the internet if I didn't send her a full kit for her son's birthday... I also refunded her money right back to her prior to her mental breakdown...

The comment said "Do not buy from this man, he tricks you out of your money" The woman got suspended from Ebay and the comment was removed...

I do not know how much clearer that I could make the listing that these were instructions only... This is the exact listing...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/271287761478

The woman was from right here in the United States

I remember seeing that lisiting multiple times in the past actually. Mulitple mentions of instruction download only , no parts and something like 20 different languages saying "instuctions only".

CCC

Xefan said:

CCC said:

You seem to be claiming that resellers will purposely sell at a loss so they can avoid paying tax. By doing so, they are only avoiding paying tax because they make no profit. They still have to keep accounts and file a tax return (all the hard stuff) for nothing. They might as well make money and pay the tax.

You seem to be embarking on your own discussion now as this bears no resemblance to any claim I have made.

Really?

Xefan said:

Profit is the major determining factor in how HMRC determine whether you're selling as a business or not, and if you sell a bunch of items you bought at retail for a markup of say, 50%, then they'll class you as a business seller that has to pay tax on those earnings. So again, it's not unrealistic that people will sell for a loss or break even on eBay if they don't want to attract that sort of hassle.

Explain what is meant by that bold statement with reference to resellers. Bear in mind that if they are selling stock they have bought with the intention to resell, they are a business, whether they make a profit or a loss. Why would a business purposely make a loss or just break even, and what is the hassle they don't want to attract?