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Hello, I keep meaning to do an introduction post, but I always seem to be working, I’m sure y’all know how it is. I have a question that perplexes this long time ebay guy here. Has anyone else experienced buying something from “Canada”, it being shipped through Seattle and them charging you tax? Not only was I charged $6.92 in tax, but although the regular payment method of pulling the purchase cost from my ebay balance happened, the $6.92 “tax” was charged to my Paypal Credit account. So I was about to pay interest on Tax and I cannot think of a better representation of hell than that. Ok, just kidding with the last bit, but it’s pretty bad.
I spent hours on the phone with ebay, they said it was paypal, who said it wasn’t them and that they are just the platform so it must be the credit handlers Synchrony/paypal credit, who said it was ebay and then synchrony put me on hold, transfered me, and eventually hung up just in time for close of day. I called ebay again and that was frustrating and long, but when I finally got to the pHillipino “manager”, which I guess is above “supervisor”, they did shed some light. Not much, like a paper match amount of light, and a little warmth. The warmth came in the refund of said charge. a small coupon, and a very ambiguous answer that went something like “We’re figuring it out, but for now, just keep checking.”And it wasn’t the first/only time. I show two tax charges this month allocated to my PP C.C. account. And what’s worse is that the sight has been buggy for at least a month and I can’t see the full list of my PPCC account transactions, just the first few that come up on the front page. So I have no idea if I was being charged more of these. I don’t use that CC almost ever, so I don’t expect charges to it.
There’s prolly more to the story that I could relate, there’s a whole bunch of weird going on here, but I’ve been on the phone for about 5 hours and I’m tired. I just wanted to let people know in case it’s happened to them, and to finally post something. I also have tons of questions for people and I’ve been doing this since the beginning so I probably have at least a little info to share.
About me, I’m in the South West, I sell stuff, I “specialize” in comic books and I’m poor, but I work hard.
Thanks,P.S. I know that this is not directly about “sales” but, as we all know, anything that affects purchases, affects us sellers.
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Welcome. Let’s break it down into simpler pieces.
–You live in the US and you bought an item on eBay in Canada.
–Then you received a tax charge only through Paypal that does not show up on your eBay transaction page.
–You called Paypal and they couldnt help you.
–You called ebay and they gave you a refund.Is that the jist of the story?
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I send 100’s of items to the U.S. every year from Canada, and none of my customers have been charged “tax” on the items. U.S. citizens can buy items from Canada with a value of US$800 duty free – if it was over $800, then duty would apply on the amount over that limit.
Some exceptions apply, like tobacco, alcohol, etc – but most of these items would not be sold on eBay.
For the reverse, when I buy from the U.S. and owe taxes (Canadians have a much lower threshold starting at C$50), I am charged on delivery by the carrier at the door, never by PayPal.
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–You live in the US and you bought an item on eBay in Canada.
Yes
–Then you received a tax charge only through Paypal that does not show up on your eBay transaction page.
No, it was visible on the invoice on the ebay site in various different places (they have many pages detailing a transaction)
–You called Paypal and they couldnt help you.
Yes
–You called ebay and they gave you a refund.
Yes, because they say that the creation of the tax charge was a glitch and took responsibility for it. Ebay also gave me a coupon.What is still a mystery, and of the most concern to me, not the $6+ charge, was why it went directly to my PP CC without my choosing that. One cannot split payment methods within ebay’s pay system as far as I know, although I have seen that option in paypal.
Also, FYI, ebay’s tax policy description page shows the detailed information regarding each individual’s state tax policy. As of right now, that information is not being processed by a background system on ebay in a uniform and consistent way. This is basically what I was told by ebay. Therefor, we each need to just check on what we are charged when we see tax charges. Also, some tax charges are not legitimate. And that is where my knowledge gets fuzzy. I couldn’t quite get the rep to expound on that one. I asked her at that point to explain to me as if I was trying to do it (charge an illigitimate tax charge to my customer to make extra ch’ching) and I think that made her scam alert go off and she got, justifiably, a bit guarded. I realized right after I asked that it might make her worried, but it was too late. The fact is that is possible however, as my case is could be proof of that. I say possible and could because I’m not 100% sure she said it was an illegitimate charge and gave me the refund for legitimate reasons, or just because.
So, if anyone has any ideas as to how a Canadian purchase, shipped through Seattle was allowed by the system to charge me U.S. tax that was illegitimate (or even if it really is because one rep saying so, even giving me a refund, does not make it true) and that charge was ran AUTOMATICALLY, with no choice given to me, through my PP CC, please do comment.
Maybe it’s a fluke, and that’s all. No big deal. I don’t know yet.
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I am tempted to call paypal again, but that company is so horrible to deal with, I refer mostly to the Credit side, that I just don’t want to today. I have lots of stuff to list and I’m going to put that call off until I feel like another 2 hour, possibly pointless run around where I might be given false information, have to ask over and over for written/site proof, and possibly be hung up on.
So I apologize, I could prolly get some answer from them today, the validity of which would more than likely be ambiguous and/or questionable, but at least it would be an answer.
P.S. I have seen changes in ebay, some that I agree with and some that I don’t, however, I have always felt that ebay and I have a pretty good and trusting relationship. To say this nicely, I don’t feel the same about paypal. And even less so about Synchrony bank. -
ebay did split payment types for me when I was purchasing my quarterly free shipping supplies. Although I had more than enough value on my coupon to pay for both the supplies as well as the tax, it wouldn’t use my coupon to pay for the tax – I had to pay via Paypal (ie real money) for the tax.
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