If you are in the unfortunate position of having found this page, you are no doubt being harassed with non stop telephone calls from a company called Akinika Debt Recovery, formerly Iqor Recovery Services, claiming to be instructed by Ebay. What should you do?
My Ebay Akinika Story
I log in to ebay several times each and every week. I had no idea I had any outstanding fees with ebay due to my debit card being changed when it snapped. That is, I had no idea until Akinika debt recovery started harassing me with phone calls each and every day.
In one 17 day period they called 21 times at various times of the day. If that isn’t harassment, I don’t know what is.
So I logged into ebay as usual to check what was happening. As usual, no pop up message from ebay saying that I owed them some money – nothing at all. I was allowed to use the service easily and without restriction from my Ipad, Iphone and computer.
Now you would think, would you not, that if a company was really keen to let you know that your debit card was out of date so that they could take payment from you, they would alert you wouldn’t they? Certainly, any other company whose app I use let’s me know in advance if my card is expiring so that I can continue to use their service.
It leads me to believe that Ebay are quite keen to make additional fees by charging “administration fees”, which, as a former solicitor, I can assure you are in no way legally payable UNLESS or UNTIL court proceedings are issued. If you pay your debt to Ebay in full, you do not need to pay any administration fees at all.
Administration Fees Payable To Akinika/Ebay
Once I hunted around Ebay and located the message saying my card was out of date, I updated it and payment was taken instantly.
Akinika kept on calling, claiming an £8 administration fee was payable.
I had had enough of their harassment by now, so sent some strongly worded emails to Ebay questioning their unscrupulous tactics and those of their appointed company Akinika.
They pointed me to their terms saying that they allegedly allow them to charge any administration fees if they chase a late payment so, therefore, they were payable.
I replied to them explaining that they could say whatever they liked in their agreement, but as a solicitor I know that you cannot charge additional fees for chasing a debt UNLESS OR UNTIL you issue court proceedings when you still cannot claim an administration fee, simply your legal costs if it is above a certain amount. As my debt (now paid) was only £20 and had been paid in full with no proceeedings issued, no fees were payable.
I pointed out that whilst I knew this because I was a solicitor, clearly from the number of comments about Akinika on various websites, other people didn’t know this and they were incredibly stressed and some frightened by Akinika’s antics.
I have written this blog post to hopefully save you from this stress.
Summary If You Are Being Harassed By Akinika Debt Recovery
- Check to see if your card is out of date and pay any outstanding fees to Ebay directly from within your Ebay account;
- If no court proceedings have been issued, no legal administration fees are payable, whatever Akinika might try and tell you with 50 phone calls made anytime from 8am to 8pm.
Ebay
I find Ebay’s use of this company and endorsement of their tactics to be totally unacceptable for a company of this size.
They know what Akinika do and if anything seem to be intrinsically linked to them.
I shall be doing all I can to buy and sell items away from Ebay now due to their attitude to their customers.