I would expect (through experience) that a person / business who has lied in their eBay listing about the item being in Australia, lying about the item being a particular brand and being genuine, and lying about re-sending and item if a buyer enquires about an item not having arrived or being fake, would not hesitate to lie directly to me if I enquired prior to buying, "Is this item being posted from within Australia (domestic postage) or is it being shipped from China?"
This is not to decry the Chinese people. It is an acknowledgement that business practices, social customs, and "face" work very differently in different cultures. For example, in western cultures it is often lauded when someone lies in order to be kind. It's also the case that the business practice of giving a false impression in order to induce people to buy product X rather than the competitor's product Y is admired as "sharp business practice". Advertising in any country is designed to grab a market share even when the item being advertised is shoddy or at least no better than everything else on the market.
We're used to these sorts of lies here in Australia. We regard advertising that says a particular product may lessen the symptoms of a cold with at least a bit of cynicism, I think. Political advertising in particular may get the average Australian's bovine ordure antennae quivering.
We're not used, however, to the way in which Chinese loss of face works, and how face can be gained or lost through behaviours which reflect some form of value, worth, status, honour or morality. In particular, Australians automatically think "Ah, morality, then that means that if I believe what this person is assuring me is true, I am trusting in his sense of morality, which means I can trust him because it would be shameful for this person to lie to me like that. So - I believe him!" ... and that's not how it works. Rather, putting it in an incredibly simplified form, if a westerner is fooled by a Chinese businessman about being able to produce or sell or provide items of high standard or genuine quality for a price that is ludicrously low, the loss of face is the westerner's, not the Chinese businessman's. The westerner should have known better, and was party to fooling himself by greed - that is at least part of the Chinese perception.
So... I wouldn't bother asking a Chinese eBay seller whose feedback shows he has already lied repeatedly to other buyers about item location (and almost certainly about item quality), "Is this item being posted from within Australia?" To even ask would suggest I'm willing to ignore evidence and be party to fooling myself. What would a reply assuring me that yes, indeed, the item would be posted from within Australia be worth...?
