“US Seller” located in China

[IndySales]

I went looking for a part I needed for a project. Amazon was out of stock and there was only one US seller on eBay. Even better, they were close to me – a few hundred miles – so I expected it would be here faster than the guaranteed delivery date.

I get a shipping label the next day. Red flag #1: It’s in a completely different state. Red flag #2: It never updates.

Delivery date came and went. I decided to check their eBay profile and am greeted with “<seller> is located in China.” Their feedback is littered with negatives about claiming to have US stock while shipping from China, yet somehow they still have a “guaranteed delivery by <x>” tag on their listings.

I can’t believe this is still a problem on eBay in 2019.

[Jay]

Yeah, give them a bad review. There is a system to flush those sellers out.

But if there listing says they are a US seller but actually not, you could call eBay and see if they’ll take action since they’re breaking a clear policy.

[Timo]

@IndySales:
This is a good example of how eBay is driving off good buyers. And good buyers determine all our sales there.

Give them a bad review and if you have time, call eBay to report this. Perhaps you will have a chance to tell them that you are a seller and that they are driving off all your good buyers when they don’t enforce their own rules.

If the item fails ‘Guaranteed Delivery’, you might get a refund of your paid shipping charges or a $5 voucher from eBay. You have to file for this somehow in your myEbay buying area.

[IndySales]

Thanks Jay and Timo. I will definitely report them to eBay. This stuff drives me nuts.

Good call on the $5 voucher. I found it shortly after making this post. Interesting how buried it is in the options. IMO, it should be automated.

[Old Dad]

I tripped over a scam seller on eBay a few weeks ago. I thought the lead time for shipping was a little long but went ahead with the purchase. When I went back to check on the order after a week, there was no tracking but their feedback had stated filled up with red donuts for not shipping products. The really irritating thing is I then had to wait until the end of the delivery window to open a case, and now wait another 7 days to give the seller time to respond. Hello? It’s obvious they aren’t going to ship this, by the time the case is closed I will have been out the money for almost a month.

I don’t buy a lot on eBay; this reminds me of the Wild West eBay. There needs to be a better process to rein in these scam sellers and immediately refund the buyers who are affected when a seller goes rouge. Yes, I know, this is a very isolated instance, but to the buyers that it happens to it isn’t trivial, for sure.

Getting back to the thread topic, I checked before buying and this was supposedly a U.S. seller, now I see he is actually from Vietnam, an eBay member since Jan 2019. I peeked at feedback before buying, didn’t notice Vietnam, at that time is feedback was OK, but now a steady stream of negs since then (including mine).

Interesting to see this order is now missing from my purchase history. Maybe that’s normal.

[Timo]

I buy a lot less on eBay these days. Perhaps partly because my sales are down compared to years past and partly because of bad seller issues.

Telling myself the following:
Maybe we should stop giving bad sellers a pass and report more seller issues instead of letting them slide. After all, their bad behavior helps tarnish our eBay seller reputations too (guilt by association).

Sometimes posting a negative feedback might be deserved but many of us hesitate because we are sellers too, and know the pain.

[Author]

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