Users may not use systems or techniques to circumvent or avoid eBay fees. Sellers should review the ‘Some Examples’ section below to ensure they are not engaging in any practices that circumvent eBay fees.
Violations of this policy may result in a range of actions, including:
Outside-of-eBay Offer - Offering the opportunity to purchase the item or other merchandise outside of eBay through the eBay Web site. The eBay item page may not refer to or promote the seller's individual Web site (including home page URLs which directly or indirectly promote Web sites outside of eBay), sales outside of eBay, or other businesses. However, sellers may include links to their eBay Store and eBay Store items, provided that those links are not URL redirects. Please see the complete Offers to Buy or Sell Outside of eBay policy.
Unreasonable postage or handling costs - The seller may add a reasonable postage and handling fee to the final price of the item, but may not charge excessive postage and handling fees, excessive required insurance fees, or excessive (or not applicable) taxes in an effort to make the item appear artificially inexpensive, to avoid eBay fees, or for any other purposes. A postage and handling fee may cover the seller's reasonable costs for mailing, packaging, and handling the item. Postage and handling fees may not be listed as a percentage of the final sale price. Please see the complete Excessive Postage Charges policy.
Listings with additional purchases - Listing an item that requires or offers an additional purchase. Outside of reasonable charges for postage, handling, insurance, and taxes, the buyer must not be required to pay an additional amount or sign up for a service or any other required action not relevant to the transaction for something as a condition for receiving the item or receiving the benefit of the item. For example, travel certificates that require the holder to buy or pay for something (such as a hotel room for seven nights) as a condition of receiving the benefit of the coupon (such as free or discounted airfare).
Email address, phone number or domain name in the title, subtitle, item location or images - Listings with contact information (including home page URLs which directly or indirectly promote an outside-of-eBay website) in the title, subtitle, item location or images are not permitted. Exception: This will be permissible only in listings that are offering a domain name for sale.
Catalogue Sales - Listings of catalogues from which buyers may directly order items are prohibited. In these situations, the seller will typically offer the catalogue for low bid prices and complete sales outside of eBay for items found in the catalogue. Old (from which you can no longer place an order) or collectable catalogues are permissible. Please see the complete Catalogue Sales policy.
Reserve Fee Avoidance - Cancelling bids and ending a listing early because the seller's desired price has not been met. Sellers who do not want to sell an item below a certain price should use the reserve price option or set their starting price at the minimum price they are willing to accept. Please see the complete Reserve Price Violations policy.
Payment Surcharges - Although sellers may offer a discount to the buyer for preferred forms of payment, sellers may not charge eBay buyers an additional fee for their use of ordinary forms of payment, including acceptance of cheques, money orders, electronic transfers or credit cards. Furthermore, some forms of payment surcharges are forbidden under the laws of some countries. Please see the complete Payment Surcharges policy.
Extension of Listings - eBay listings (both 'auctions' and fixed price listings) have a fixed duration. eBay may on rare occasions (for example, as the result of a site outage) extend the duration of a listing. Extension of listing duration by a seller, via either manual actions or the use of automated tools, is not permitted. Extension of listings by a seller for any reason is not only a form of fee avoidance, but also harms the finding experience for buyers.
To report a listing that circumvents eBay fees through an offer outside of eBay, unreasonably high postage or handling costs, or a catalogue sales violation, contact us with the item number.
Although there are legitimate reasons for ending a listing early, eBay will investigate sellers who abuse this option.
Note: Posts made in eBay’s Want It Now area must also comply with this policy. Want It Now posts that violate this policy may be removed. Repeated violations may result in suspension. You can report a Want It Now violation of this policy from the Want It Now Policies page.
Why does eBay have this policy?
Listings that circumvent (avoid) fees may provide a poor buying experience and create an unfair playing field by putting sellers who pay all their eBay fees at a disadvantage. Furthermore, these listings undermine the trust and legitimacy of eBay’s marketplace.
