Ebay annoyances

[John M Upton]

Just ran into another Ebay Annoyance.  As a point of principle, I avoid overseas sellers and will always purchase from those who advertise as being based in the UK wherever possible.  Unfortunately it now looks like a lot of Chinese sellers have cottoned on to this and now have someone probably in their front room representing them in the UK and therefore claiming to be a UK Seller (Is there a tax/VAT/duty dodge attached to this by any chance?)

 

Stuff then arrives some considerable time later clearly from China and not the UK!  The fact that the seller sent out their replies to a couple of messages I sent them at half three in the morning UK time in terribly written broken English was when I started to smell a rat and when the item eventually turned up (the wrong one at that) my suspicions were duly confirmed. 

Edited December 24, 2021 by John M Upton

[mezzoman253]

You can usually tell by the daft user name they've used. Also if a business seller, scroll down to the owners details and it'll show you some address in China.

 

I was recently looking for something and the search revealed 5000+ hits. I then put UK only and this came down to round 300! Even then some were masquerading as UK members.

 

It's about time eBay put a stop to this.

 

Rob

[John M Upton]

My saga with the UK Seller who is patently in China continues...

 

Another broken English message received at half three in the morning (on Christmas Day!!) urging me not to initialise a return for the incorrect item supplied and asking me to accept it still!  Clearly the thought that they may have to fork out return postage back to China has given them a scare.

 

Had enough of their nonsense though. an Ebay return has been started up and I was very explicit in the details I filled in about how this was a China seller trying to masquerade as a UK based one!!!

[Andy WD]

On 25/12/2021 at 12:29, John M Upton said:

My saga with the UK Seller who is patently in China continues...

 

Another broken English message received at half three in the morning (on Christmas Day!!) urging me not to initialise a return for the incorrect item supplied and asking me to accept it still!  Clearly the thought that they may have to fork out return postage back to China has given them a scare.

 

Had enough of their nonsense though. an Ebay return has been started up and I was very explicit in the details I filled in about how this was a China seller trying to masquerade as a UK based one!!!

If they're in one of the Free Trade Zones then they wouldn't want to go through the hoops that local Customs apply, and the taxes incurred for re-importing.

[John M Upton]

Surprise! Surprise!  They refunded at 03:00 this morning and said I could keep the item.  Interestingly, the refund and keep item message they sent seems to be a much better phrased copy and paste generic message which suggests this happens a lot to them!

[Michael Hodgson]

On 24/12/2021 at 17:12, mezzoman253 said:

You can usually tell by the daft user name they've used. Also if a business seller, scroll down to the owners details and it'll show you some address in China.

 

I was recently looking for something and the search revealed 5000+ hits. I then put UK only and this came down to round 300! Even then some were masquerading as UK members.

 

It's about time eBay put a stop to this.

 

Rob

Yes, it's fraudulent, and nothing is being done about it by the police or Trading Standards and of course it benefits ebay's bottom line to allow it to continue.

 

Ebay are just another de facto global monopoly whose unscrupulous business practices are not addressed because they are too big and powerful and based in another jurisdiction..

[hayfield]

But in this case the customer was fully protected by eBay's selling rules. No loss, a quick refund. Would it be nice if our banks and credit card companies were so efficient

 

Very few platforms can quickly stop abuse, in what ever form it takes, sadly when buying we have to be very careful. I have a super plumber, very old school etc, The amount of info my bank required when transferring money to him, simply because he used a normal bank (saves banking charges) account rather than a business one .

[hayfield]

I had a notification today that something I bought was posted today, what it actually means is that they bought their postage label from eBay this morning, but eBay clearly states its as despatched !!!

[Jonboy]

On 24/12/2021 at 14:09, John M Upton said:

Just ran into another Ebay Annoyance.  As a point of principle, I avoid overseas sellers and will always purchase from those who advertise as being based in the UK wherever possible.  Unfortunately it now looks like a lot of Chinese sellers have cottoned on to this and now have someone probably in their front room representing them in the UK and therefore claiming to be a UK Seller (Is there a tax/VAT/duty dodge attached to this by any chance?)

 

Stuff then arrives some considerable time later clearly from China and not the UK!  The fact that the seller sent out their replies to a couple of messages I sent them at half three in the morning UK time in terribly written broken English was when I started to smell a rat and when the item eventually turned up (the wrong one at that) my suspicions were duly confirmed. 

Quite a few of them are based at airports in Hk or China. They have Royal Mail contracts and pack multiple orders into a consolidated pallet, and airfreight it to the given uk address (often a freight forwarder) once or twice a week. The uk addressee customs clears the whole consignment is bulk and hands the parcels straight over to the Royal Mail.

[ianmacc]

1 hour ago, hayfield said:

I had a notification today that something I bought was posted today, what it actually means is that they bought their postage label from eBay this morning, but eBay clearly states its as despatched !!!

Yes that is something that happens with me. I sold a lot of items on Christmas Eve that are now showing as dispatched but I can’t send them until tomorrow when the post offices finally reopen.

[Michael Hodgson]

This is what Which? think of the ebay's system of product reviews 

https://www.which.co.uk/news/2020/03/ebay-customer-reviews/

 

And this shows what people are telling Trustpilot about ebay's own service

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/ebay.com

 

There are several other sites where similar grievances are reported, and certainly also some which are somewhat less negative, but I think the statistics given by these two respected consumer protection services speak for themselves.

 

 

 

[hayfield]

 

I rarely buy anything on eBay that's not model railway related, I also distrust some international sellers. On line sales (not just eBay) is sometimes like the wild west so I do tend to spend sometime researching items especially if they come from abroad. However I have found both eBay and Amazon customer services very amicable on the rare occasions when there are issues

 

With eBay I tend to stick with subjects I am familiar with, low to medium cost (tends to filter out chancers) and am now quite selective in what I buy. As for looking at sellers feedback I only ever look at it when there is a potential problem (late delivery). 

 

My initial attraction to an item is determined by what I can see (even bad photos or out of focus shots) as my best buys are where I have spotted things others have not, I am less led by the description. For the things I buy Its an auction, so its buyer beware. However if its missed described or broken in transit I will take it up with the seller first, then if required as a last resort with eBay. But these cases are the very rare exceptions, I have found on the whole eBay model railway sellers to be a nice and honest bunch ( well those selling kits via auctions) There are some who I think overvalue their items, I just ignore these listings as there will always be something coming on in the future

[ianmacc]

12 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

This is what Which? think of the ebay's system of product reviews 

https://www.which.co.uk/news/2020/03/ebay-customer-reviews/

 

And this shows what people are telling Trustpilot about ebay's own service

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/ebay.com

 

There are several other sites where similar grievances are reported, and certainly also some which are somewhat less negative, but I think the statistics given by these two respected consumer protection services speak for themselves.

 

 

 

I just wasted a few minutes of my life reading a few pages! Interesting. I think that as a seller though you have neutered “rights” and buyers are almost always sided with by customer service.

 

However, for truly pitiful customer service nothing in the world can trump Hermes. They will get not one more penny for me for the rest of my life!

[Michael Hodgson]

4 hours ago, ianmacc said:

They will get not one more penny for me for the rest of my life!

 

I said that about Pan Am.  Turned out they didn't get another penny from me for the rest of their life 

That's what should happen to companies with lousy service

[Jonboy]

The problem with Hermes is that on a big company level the losses are no worse than any other carrier, send out 10,000 parcels in a month* and the percentage of losses are no better or worse than any other carrier. The eBay sellers are just the tip of the iceberg for them.

 

*we ship a lot of 3PL shipments with Hermes on behalf of a customer at work.

[hayfield]

49 minutes ago, Jonboy said:

The problem with Hermes is that on a big company level the losses are no worse than any other carrier, send out 10,000 parcels in a month* and the percentage of losses are no better or worse than any other carrier. The eBay sellers are just the tip of the iceberg for them.

 

*we ship a lot of 3PL shipments with Hermes on behalf of a customer at work.

 

My experience with Hermes seems to mirror that of many others, whilst I have little or no experience with most other carriers. Hermes in my experience are just awful when compared against the Royal Mail.  Starting with their collection points, the way they treat their customers and the quality of the final delivery staff.  I have had the odd delivery from most of the others where their standards seem superior, but I believe they charge more.

 

 

[John M Upton]

Remember the UK seller that was in fact Chinese?  Well, I had to wait seven days (WHY!?!) but then left detailed negative feedback in which I chartered the whole sorry saga and identified the seller as a UK front for a Chinese trader.  Just had a look and my feedback has been deleted!!!

 

Whether that is because I returned the item and that neutralised the transaction or whether they had the feedback removed y Ebay I do not know.

 

Irritating either way though.

[ianmacc]

On 29/12/2021 at 17:15, Jonboy said:

The problem with Hermes is that on a big company level the losses are no worse than any other carrier, send out 10,000 parcels in a month* and the percentage of losses are no better or worse than any other carrier. The eBay sellers are just the tip of the iceberg for them.

 

*we ship a lot of 3PL shipments with Hermes on behalf of a customer at work.

The losses are no worse possibly but the way they treat you as the claimant is truly pitiful. Royal Mail claim form is a web form which, once you’ve done a few times, is intuitive and quick. They also pay in full within days. Hermes are set up to make most people give up the effort and it’s blatant. 

 

It’s true that you get what you pay for 

[hayfield]

22 minutes ago, ianmacc said:

The losses are no worse possibly but the way they treat you as the claimant is truly pitiful. Royal Mail claim form is a web form which, once you’ve done a few times, is intuitive and quick. They also pay in full within days. Hermes are set up to make most people give up the effort and it’s blatant. 

 

It’s true that you get what you pay for 

 

But are the losses with Royal Mail anyway near that of Hermes ? Certainly I have received many times less parcels from Hermes but no issues with Royal Mail, but plenty with Hermes

 

What happens when Hermes delivers the item to the wrong house, they do very kindly send you an email with a photo, I have had two of these with in a 6 month period, both photos were different, sadly neither  look anything like my property,  When you contact them their bot would not allow you to message them stating it had been delivered to the wrong property. When you can actually speak with someone, firstly they emply you are a liar (even when their evidence backs up your claim, then they tell you to go away as you are not the sender.

 

Then there are many sites where genuine customers are at their whit's end trying to obtain recompense for missing/damaged items. My own view is that Trading Standards should compel them to be more customer friendly and pay out in a timely manner for their mistakes

 

Sadly I have an item on the way to me, I have a porch where items can be left out of sight from the road, in the past they leave it, but on the window ledge in full view from the road.  

[John M Upton]

And another twist on the tale of the UK Seller who wasn't.  They have just been kicked off Ebay!! 'No longer a registered user' although like the proverbial mushroom, I expect they will reappear under another name doing the same trick again before too long.

[Ruffnut Thorston]

Or, they have closed that account themselves…

 

One way of loosing negative feedback!

 

Just open another account! 

[hayfield]

On 31/12/2021 at 18:06, hayfield said:

 

But are the losses with Royal Mail anyway near that of Hermes ? Certainly I have received many times less parcels from Hermes but no issues with Royal Mail, but plenty with Hermes

 

What happens when Hermes delivers the item to the wrong house, they do very kindly send you an email with a photo, I have had two of these with in a 6 month period, both photos were different, sadly neither  look anything like my property,  When you contact them their bot would not allow you to message them stating it had been delivered to the wrong property. When you can actually speak with someone, firstly they emply you are a liar (even when their evidence backs up your claim, then they tell you to go away as you are not the sender.

 

Then there are many sites where genuine customers are at their whit's end trying to obtain recompense for missing/damaged items. My own view is that Trading Standards should compel them to be more customer friendly and pay out in a timely manner for their mistakes

 

Sadly I have an item on the way to me, I have a porch where items can be left out of sight from the road, in the past they leave it, but on the window ledge in full view from the road.  

 

In fairness the item arrived today, which given all the holidays and covid is not too bad, item not very well packed, but that is not Hermes fault and thankfully not damaged

[sparky66]

I had the 'UK seller that was actually Chinese' issue myself over Christmas, although not for a model railway issue. Nephew wanted a particular Pokemon plush that is seeminly hard to find new now. Searching ebay and disregarding a bunch of Chinese sellers with long delivery times I finally found what looked like a UK seller of one that should arrive before Christmas. The plush never showed up resulting in me panic buying a replacement gift and I got a refund from the seller. Anyway the plush just turned up this morning in a box covered in Chinese labels. Sellers account has an address that when looked up on google maps appears to be a random council house in Folkestone and their ebay inventory appears to be a ton of random items so I suspect they are just ordering things direct and posing as a UK seller.

Edited January 6, 2022 by sparky66

[Crosland]

I had a case where the seller was clearly trying to do some kind of drop shipping but hadn't realised that the pandemic was creating havoc with supplies and there was no way they could get the items that I had ordered.

 

I should have known better than to assume they had them in stock.

 

The refunded quickly but never really acknowledge the real of issue with advertising stuff you do not have available and then pretending it will be delivered rather than just cancelling the order.

[John M Upton]

Looking for something else the other day, I noted a lot of flash signs on item photos saying 'UK seller' or Union Jack flags but when you looked closer, they were all Chinese sellers again trying to get around the rules and I suspect dodge the taxman too.

 

Getting fed up with it.