eBay Charges Sellers Ad Fees Months After Sales In Apparent Attribution Snafu
UPDATE 6-12-25
Community staff now say there was a "system error" (conveniently in eBay's favor) which caused them to miss attribution for previous sales that should have had ad fees charged, and they apologize for the inconvenience but - nothing about crediting sellers for the fees.
We have received a response from the Team handling this and here is what they have said:
"We recently discovered a system error which led to missed ads attribution and charging for certain sales promoted with the general campaign strategy that occurred from clicks across our Recommendations section. This error has been corrected as of May 8.
If your account was one that was affected by this error we apologize for the delay in charging and any inconvenience this may have caused."
So eBay discovered they had a system error which supposedly missed ad attribution on some sales and corrected that error way back on May 8th, then just quietly applied those back charges to accounts on June 6th, but couldn't be bothered to have sent any kind of proactive notice in that 30 day timeframe so sellers could be prepared for the charges and mitigate the impact to cash flow?
That is absolutely ridiculous and eBay should be ashamed of themselves for expecting sellers to accept that answer.
How about this for a counter-proposal? If the multi-billion dollar corporation can't see their way to doing the right thing and simply eat the cost of their own errors, then before hitting sellers with random fees, they should first seek to recover those costs from the person who is responsible for the system that failed - which would ostensibly be Chief Technology Officer Mazen Rawashdeh.
Rawashdeh recently took on additional engineering responsibility (along with a pay raise) as part of executive shuffle that pushed Chief Product Officer Eddie Garcia out of the company.
In this expanded role, he will be earning a base salary of $715,000.00 annually plus bonuses, stocks and other incentives - despite the fact that eBay continues to suffer near daily business impacting technical issues under his leadership.
If they can't shake enough out of Rawashdeh to cover this "system error" billing oversight, they should fire him and start passing the collection plate around the c-suite, starting with CEO Jamie Iannone, who took home over $20M in total compensation in 2024.
But since eBay clearly lacks the ethics and integrity to do the right thing here, I'll simply encourage any seller who was impacted by this "system error" to contact the Federal Trade Commission, since they are actively seeking reports of misconduct by technology platforms.
UPDATE 6-9-25
eBay community staff have acknowledged this issue, advising sellers to reference ALERT15992 when contacting support.
There is an open ticket for sellers being charged for a promoted listing fee for any item sold months ago under ALERT15992. If there are any sellers that have had this happen, please let them know to reach out to customer support and have their account along with the order number added to the ticket as an example.
Sellers are reporting eBay is suddenly back charging them for Promoted Listings ad fees months after sales completed, asking once again is it a glitch or unannounced policy change.
A post in the eBay community forums revealed the problem as one seller said they were being charged fees for sales completed in April.
Charged promoted fees months later?!?
Maybe this has already been answered and I know not that long ago there was a post about something similar, but try as I may, I couldn’t find it.
This morning (June 6th) I noticed I was JUST charged today, promoted fees for an item sold April 12th and another for a sale on May 14th. Now I’m not disputing whether they actually sold by promoted or not but HOW can eBay just gradually slide in fees well after these sales?
Fees have always come out on the day of a sale/payment, not months later … or maybe this is the first I’ve noticed eBay doing this, as sales on eBay have slowed for the season. Whatever the case, does anyone have an answer or even a guess is to how eBay can charge a promoted fee months later?!?
eBay's policy pages and reports for Promoted Listings say that attribution can take up to 72 hours to reconcile, so it's not uncommon for an order to come in without an ad fee initially only to have it tacked on within a few hours or days - but months later would be well beyond even that very generous wiggle room eBay has given themselves.
Other sellers chimed in, sharing that they also are being charged ad fees for months old sales, with some even going back to January - and that it appears to have started sometime yesterday.
Today I've had 5 sales charged promoted fees from as far back as January.
I just checked my "all transactions" in my payment tab. Low and behold, I too have one from April 4th. There should be an expiration date to eBay's hands on funds. If there are no time limits, what prevents them from going back even further and claiming "we forgot to take your PL fees out". This is ridiculous!
I have 10 of these charges on my account as of now. Started yesterday.
I see 9 charges on my account yesterday as well. Mine are all for orders from April 19th that were not flagged as promoted sales (although I promote all my items).
Found the same thing today. Sale from April 22nd, just now being charged for the Promotional Fee. I wasn't charged originally and looking back at my sales records via eBay Seller Hub, the order shows that it wasn't even sold via Promotional Listings. I'll definitely be contacting them about this, as should everyone else that is seeing this issue, regardless of how small the fee is.
Several sellers say they contacted support and were told it was a widespread technical issue they are working to resolve.
I just spoke to an agent about this and it's a glitch in the system. They are working to correct it and she assured me the fees would be reimbursed...Yes she said it was widespread across the site. The way she talked there have been many sellers reporting it.
But another seller says support told them the fee should have been charged on the original sale and was legitimate, so no refund would be forthcoming - illustrating how eBay's poor customer service, which often gives out confusing and conflicting information, compounds problems and makes already frustrating situations even worse.
I was just told by ebay its just a fee that I wasn't charged before on sale and they can't do anything about it but took note that I complained so, you need to make a complaint also the more of us do this may they will do something about it.. We should be charged all fee's day of sale
A similar situation happened in November 2024 in Australia, where sellers were shocked by notice they would be charged for months old shipping and selling fees that eBay had failed to collect due to a technical issue.
Liz Morton
And in 2022, eBay had another similar situation with Final Value Fees not being taken out at the time of sale and instead being back charged as one lump sum months later.
Liz Morton
Understandably, some sellers were concerned that eBay may have pulled the trigger on applying the new ad attribution model coming soon to the UK, Australia, Italy, France, and Spain to the US as well.
I wonder if this "glitch" is happening because of the way they're going to 'attribute' PL charges now.
Liz Morton
Other sellers say they were appropriately charged ad fees at the time of sale months ago and are now seeing double or triple fees being applied on the same orders today.
Double & Triple charged for promotional fees for Items that sold months ago!
Why am I being charged promotional fees ( which I was appropriately charged for months ago) yesterday and today ( 6/6/2025) ?
And the issue is not just limited to the US, sellers in the eBay Canada community are also reporting being charges for ad fees on months old sales.
Promoted Listing Fee Charged a Month after the item sold? Item DOES NOT say Sold via Promoted!
A pricey item sold May 1st and they charged us a "Promoted Listing General Fee" today, June 6th.
We can't find anywhere where it shows there was a promoted listing sale for this item in our records and we take screengrabs of everything. There is no mention in any invoice, receipt, message, order info, or accounts until today.
It very speficially DOES NOT say "Sold via Promoted Listings" in the orders area as it does on many other items.
Why the delay? Why no mention of Promoted Listings anywhere? And how does eBay provide proof of Promoted Listings?
Has anyone else run across this, and if so what steps did they take to address the issue?
There has been no official acknowledgement of the issue from eBay staff and it has not yet been added to the list of ongoing technical issues in the community forum.
eBay updated their Marketing Terms and Conditions effective January 15, 2025, giving themselves far more wiggle room to institute stealth rate increases and attribution changes without proactive notice to sellers.
Liz Morton
Here's what the current version of the Marketing Terms has to say about fees - and unfortunately for impacted sellers, it's vague enough that there could be room for eBay to be able to charge ad fees outside of the 72 hour timeframe they've previously given for ad attribution (emphasis mine).
Fees
You agree to pay the applicable fees for your participation in the Marketing Services based on your account settings, as described herein and via the Marketing Services (the "Marketing Fees"). Marketing Services may contain certain default settings, pricing and targeting methodologies, and other advanced features, which may be updated from time to time.Detailed information about Marketing Fee methodologies and other program features are available via the Marketing Services. You agree to review that information and stay informed about the Marketing Services you use, including related product details also available via the Marketing Services, to ensure that your participation and settings remain consistent with your objectives.
We may charge for your use of any feature or tool of the Marketing Services at any time upon reasonable notice to you (e.g., via the user interface of the Marketing Services).
The measurements and standard methodologies used by eBay (including those of its Partners) are definitive and will be used to calculate your Marketing Fees according to the pricing method established in your account and as may be further set forth in the Marketing Services.
Marketing Fees are subject to our then-current minimum and/or maximum rates. We reserve the right to modify the methodologies and algorithms we use to calculate the Marketing Fees from time to time.
And here's the really important part for sellers impacted by this issue: eBay says disputes about ad fees must be submitted in writing within sixty days of the charge.
Any disputes about Marketing Fees (which we will evaluate reasonably) must be submitted to us in writing within sixty days of the date you incurred such charge, otherwise you waive such dispute and such charge will be final.
Marketing Fees are exclusive of applicable taxes for use of the Marketing Services, except as may be otherwise indicated via the Marketing Services. Sellers are responsible for paying applicable taxes associated with using the Marketing Services, in accordance with applicable laws and as further described in the User Agreement.
Collection of Marketing Fees and applicable taxes may be carried out via the means specified in the User Agreement, or as otherwise agreed in writing, including as set forth in your applicable payment agreement with us. You will reimburse us for all reasonable expenses and attorneys’ fees incurred in connection with our collection of amounts payable and past due.
eBay reserves the right to offer credits and/or discounts. You understand third parties may generate impressions or clicks on your Ads for improper purposes and you accept this risk.
That Marketing Terms page does not provide details about how to contact eBay to dispute ad fee charges, but it does reference the User Agreement - which likely means that these disputes will be handled under the latest update which forces users into using eBay arbitration.
Liz Morton
eBay has not responded to request for comment at time of publishing, but hopefully the company will simply do the right thing and process automatic refunds for these ad fees charged in error.
If eBay does not do the right thing, here's the information sellers will need to send a written dispute to the Litigation Department in Draper, UT.
A party who intends to seek arbitration must first send to the other, by certified mail, a valid Notice of Dispute ("Notice"), which may be downloaded at this link.
The Notice to eBay must be sent to eBay Inc., Attn: Litigation Department, Re: Notice of Dispute, 583 W. eBay Way, Draper, UT 84020.
eBay will send any Notice to you to the physical address we have on file associated with your eBay account; it is your responsibility to keep your physical address up to date.
To be valid, you must personally sign the Notice and complete all information on the Notice form, including a description of the nature and basis of the claims you are asserting, the specific relief sought, and the email address and phone number associated with your account.
Download eBay's Notice of Dispute Form: https://p.ebaystatic.com/aw/help/legal/Notice_of_Dispute.pdf
eBay has been increasingly engaging in ethically dubious practices around ad rate and attribution in an effort to keep the Promoted Listings money train rolling - like making stealth updates in Q4 2024 raising the Promoted Listings General Dynamic rate minimum from 2% to 5%, instituting a massive 10X minimum bid increase on Promoted Listings Priority cost per click ads, going from $0.02 to $0.20 per click, moving cost per click ads to a monthly average budget instead of weekly, and using link shortening and redirects to ensure sales made from Social sharing are attributed to ads.
Liz Morton
The Q1 2025 earnings call showed that eBay's insatiable appetite for ever increasing ad revenue is not going away any time soon, but it also showed that sellers' willingness to participate may be hitting a wall.
Liz Morton
First party ads (all of the various seller paid Promoted Listing ad products including cost per sale, cost per click, store display ads, and offsite ads) contributed $418M in revenue in Q1.
That represents 14% year over year growth but notably is down from $434M in Q4, which could indicate that those changes eBay made to ratchet up minimum rates have slowed adoption rates and caused sellers to pull back on advertising as it continues to eat further into their profit margins.
Interestingly, eBay made a change to the Ad Revenue chart in their earnings presentation, adding a new metric for "Off-Platform Ads" to track ad revenue from subsidiaries like TCGPlayer and Qoo10 in Japan, which likely means those sites are soon to see an influx of ads as well.
Liz Morton
Meanwhile, eBay continues blasting sellers with limited time fee discounts and credits in a desperate attempt to get them hooked with a "the first taste is free" (or 50-75% off) offer to entice them into giving Promoted Listings ads a try.
These fees on months old sales which are clearly being charged in error will likely be counted in the ad revenue numbers for Q2 and if they are eventually refunded, that will likely be accounted for somewhere else without anything directly connecting the two - raising questions about whether this error is a desperate attempt to artificially goose ad revenue before the next quarterly report.
If I were an eBay shareholder, I'd definitely be keeping a close eye on this situation.
Stay tuned for updates and let us know in the comments below if you've been charged Promoted Listings ad fees for months old sales!
