A federal class action lawsuit claims eBay charges sellers who use eBay Mobile to list items with their mobile devices for upgrades they did not ask for and were not told about.

The eBay Mobile class action lawsuit involves two overlapping problems with fees that eBay charges sellers who pay to list items for sale on eBay's websites, the Plaintiff says.

"First, sellers using 'eBay Mobile' - which allows sellers to list items for sale on eBay's websites through their mobile devices - were charged for optional upgrades that they did not ask for and were not told about. Upgrades that were supposed to be optional were instead automatically added to sellers' listings, but were not disclosed, inflating the amount sellers paid to list items for sale on eBay through eBay Mobile," the class action lawsuit states.

"Second, when eBay discovers that its systems are improperly charging fees, it ought to tell its customers about the problem and account for the money eBay improperly collected. But it does not. On information and belief, eBay's practice is not to proactively disclose system errors and overcharges to customers, even when eBay knows it has improperly charged and collected fees," the class action lawsuit further charges.

eBay has since corrected the issue by updating eBay Mobile to change the functionality of, and certain disclosures provided during, the eBay Mobile listing process. Among other things, the eBay Mobile Update, for the first time, allowed sellers to select or decline certain options alerting them to the specific Optional Feature Fees that would apply to the options they selected during the listing process, breaking out the total of each fee in the final review page.

The class action lawsuit alleges eBay Mobile did not work this way before the update, at least through September 2011.

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