Ebay seller is not the shipper!

[w124bob]

Just had a jiffy bag arrive which was supposed to contain Xacto blades, the envelope was split along the side seam and empty. Pictures sent to seller of empty jiffy bag and seller has responded by saying he will contact the shipper, all fine so far. Except, I note the back of the package has a customs declaration sticker "CN22 May be opened offcially" plus this wording in French. Nowhere does the seller state on his Ebay listing that items arrive from the EU, I would not have bought them If I'd know this. My guess is as the item was blades they have been confiscated.

Edited June 4, 2021 by w124bob

[John M Upton]

Drop Shippers, more and more of them turning up now and they are a right PITA.  Essentially they advertise goods they don't actually have then when someone buys it, they simply order it from Amazon et-al for a lot less than the Ebay buyer paid and then have it delivered direct to the purchaser.

 

Borderline scam....

[MarkC]

10 hours ago, John M Upton said:

Drop Shippers, more and more of them turning up now and they are a right PITA.  Essentially they advertise goods they don't actually have then when someone buys it, they simply order it from Amazon et-al for a lot less than the Ebay buyer paid and then have it delivered direct to the purchaser.

 

Borderline scam....

Caveat emptor...  Sharp practice maybe - but not illegal. Indeed, isn't that how a lot of businesses work? You're paying for someone else to locate what you want.

[Michael Hodgson]

11 hours ago, John M Upton said:

Drop Shippers, more and more of them turning up now and they are a right PITA.  Essentially they advertise goods they don't actually have then when someone buys it, they simply order it from Amazon et-al for a lot less than the Ebay buyer paid and then have it delivered direct to the purchaser.

 

Borderline scam....

Should be banned, but not in Ebay's interest to do anything about as they benefit from the fees.  Unless of course the practice generates so many complaints of non-delivery, unexpected customs charges etc that customers start boycotting ebay for such lousy service.

 

I doubt this will be fixed short of legislation, and it's not high enough up political priorities to gain such attention.

[meatloaf]

Royal mail normally dont remove things the whole package is generally destroyed

[Hal Nail]

22 hours ago, John M Upton said:

they simply order it from Amazon et-al for a lot less than the Ebay buyer paid

Perhaps people are bidding too much then!

[GWR-fan]

The original requirement of eBay rules was that the seller actually had the items instock.   A seemingly popular practice now with large Chinese sellers is that individual purchases sold to say, Australia,  are bulk mailed and then a local shipping company repackage the items for delivery to local buyers.  The packages arrive with Australia Post labels and not the usual labelling one would see with imported goods.

[John M Upton]

Had a few items where the UK issued postage label is plastered over the original Chinese international postage label.

 

This is partly why the USPS has vastly increased overseas postage costs to offset the loss caused by the sneaky Chinese postal goings on.

[Mallard60022]

Thanks for the heads up.

P

[bécasse]

6 hours ago, GWR-fan said:

The original requirement of eBay rules was that the seller actually had the items instock.   A seemingly popular practice now with large Chinese sellers is that individual purchases sold to say, Australia,  are bulk mailed and then a local shipping company repackage the items for delivery to local buyers.  The packages arrive with Australia Post labels and not the usual labelling one would see with imported goods.

This practice can have significant advantages providing that the repackager is located in the same Customs' territory as the purchaser, because the repackager has to pay all the Customs' charges due and not the purchaser. Given that there is usually a per-shipment handling charge due for Customs' examination, and it is rather more than nominal even if no actual charges are raised, that can result in both a financial and convenience  gain for the purchaser.

[rue_d_etropal]

On a similar note, I have recently bought some reed swtches through ebay, from a trader who had a location specified as London so believe I should not pay any extra charges such as VAT. I did not notice it on first purchase but when I had to reorder some more from same trader, I noticed VAT had been added by eBay. Oddly the packaging shows different return addresses, which backs up the idea talked about above.

I have no problem in the way traders are selling, just as long as I only pay what is advertised.

I have put in a request to eBay for a refund. The fact that eBay have a page to do this suggests to me they know there is a problem in their system, and rather than fix it properly, hae a bodge where the customer has to request a refund, with evidence, and I wonder how many people actually realise or bother todo so, especially on low cost items where the BVAT may be very little. All those pennies add up.

[melmerby]

On 23/06/2021 at 11:03, John M Upton said:

Had a few items where the UK issued postage label is plastered over the original Chinese international postage label.

 

This is partly why the USPS has vastly increased overseas postage costs to offset the loss caused by the sneaky Chinese postal goings on.

The Chinese postal system is still allowed to operate as (IIRC) a "Developing Country" under International Postal Union rules which means the rates charged are way below the realistic value and the receiving country's post service gets little (any?) reward for their onward delivery.