topic Re: When will ebay stop overseas sellers listing their products as in Australia when they are based in Buying

When will ebay stop overseas sellers listing their products as in Australia when they are based over

masterlay — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 00:18:06 GMT

When will ebay stop overseas sellers listing their products as in Australia when they are based overseas,?? It is easy to check, click their feedback and then negative feed back and it shows, based in china,singapore,etc. If I can do it why can't ebay?? Totally undermining confidence in the intergraty of ebay listings and unbelievably frustrating.

Re: When will ebay stop overseas sellers listing their products as in Australia when they are based

*tippy*toes* — Thu, 01 Nov 2018 01:38:31 GMT

Never. The Chinese are the untouchables. Just keep doing what you're doing by checking feedback and also where the seller is registered. That's about all you can do.

Re: When will ebay stop overseas sellers listing their products as in Australia when they are based

tower951 — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 06:04:22 GMT

@*tippy*toes* wrote:

Never. The Chinese are the untouchables. Just keep doing what you're doing by checking feedback and also where the seller is registered. That's about all you can do.

Ebay is operating in Australia has the means and responsibility under local law to reign in sellers who are making false statements. What's lacking is (at least I've been unable to find) a mechanism by which buyers can lodge a formal complaint to Ebay.

I was recently bitten by what appears to be just such a seller - charging several times the going ex-China price on the basis the item was located in Australia. There was even an AustPost tracking number issued (suspicious as the item was under $10) but no further activity recorded. Of course the item never turned up. When I contacted the seller I was given the option of a refund or waiting 35 business days - despite the seller allegedly having another five items located in Australia. No point taking my business to the several other 'local' sellers advertising on Ebay as they all appear to be the same seller!

Australia has great consumer laws. Unfortunately there is nobody to enforce it.

Re: When will ebay stop overseas sellers listing their products as in Australia when they are based

davewil1964 — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 06:11:23 GMT

eBay don't sell anything and therein lies the problem.

If the seller is overseas and lists stock as in Australia, other than a blanket ban, it would be very expensive to check every possibly non-compliant listing. As some (many?), particularly Chinese, sellers DO in fact keep stock here, a blanket ban would probably be illegal.

On the other hand, if the seller is overseas, Australian consumer law does not and cannot apply.

Re: When will ebay stop overseas sellers listing their products as in Australia when they are based

padi*0409 — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 06:41:30 GMT

@tower951 wrote:

Ebay is operating in Australia has the means and responsibility under local law to reign in sellers who are making false statements. What's lacking is (at least I've been unable to find) a mechanism by which buyers can lodge a formal complaint to Ebay.

Australia has great consumer laws. Unfortunately there is nobody to enforce it.

What Tippy says is unfortunately true, ebay Australia has no control over ebay China's actions, and neither does Australian Consumer Laws. Where the seller is registered is what counts, you can see that location by looking at their feedback.

Edit. Got slack and missed your post dave........................

Re: When will ebay stop overseas sellers listing their products as in Australia when they are based

porcelain_dolls_by_me — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 07:35:49 GMT

The Chinese sellers are a very lucrative source of revenue for eBay so they are not going to bite the hand that feeds them.

Re: When will ebay stop overseas sellers listing their products as in Australia when they are based

digital*ghost — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 09:41:32 GMT

@tower951 wrote:

Ebay is operating in Australia has the means and responsibility under local law to reign in sellers who are making false statements. What's lacking is (at least I've been unable to find) a mechanism by which buyers can lodge a formal complaint to Ebay.

eBay's care factor is really the only thing that is lacking here - formal complaints have been made numerous times, and eBay trot out the same nonsensical excuse every single time.

According to eBay, even though the sellers are listing on eBay AU, because they are registered in China, they are under eBay CN's jurisdiction, and if you need to raise a complaint about a seller registered in China, the complaint has to be directed to eBay CN, not eBay AU, and only eBay CN can take action against the sellers. eBay says internal policies are to blame for this situation, and keep promising they'll do something to fix the "loophole"

It's clearly absolute hogwash -even if eBay AU can't reprimand the sellers (i.e. take action against their accounts) they 100% do have control over enforcing the AU site's policies on all items that are specifically listed here, as all sellers have to agree to / abite by the policies of the site they list on. eBay AU could demote their search rankings, or end listings in breach of policies...

But they don't. They are like a glutton sitting at a neverending sushi train. They could walk away from the feast, but they just sit there stuffing their face, shrugging their shoulders and going "we're trying to stop the train, but we don't have the off button, so what else can we do?"

Re: When will ebay stop overseas sellers listing their products as in Australia when they are based

countessalmirena — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 10:30:29 GMT

@digital*ghost wrote:
They are like a glutton sitting at a neverending sushi train. They could walk away from the feast, but they just sit there stuffing their face, shrugging their shoulders and going "we're trying to stop the train, but we don't have the off button, so what else can we do?"

Oh, digital*ghost, that is delightfully phrased.

I am now thinking of eBay as ebāo, e-包 (or to make it properly Chinese, 电子包). It all makes sense if we think of eBay as a bun or dimsum, and the eBay management people doing an all-you-can-eat of e-noodles.

Re: When will ebay stop overseas sellers listing their products as in Australia when they are based

tower951 — Mon, 05 Nov 2018 09:39:14 GMT

@davewil1964 wrote:
eBay don't sell anything and therein lies the problem.

If the seller is overseas and lists stock as in Australia, other than a blanket ban, it would be very expensive to check every possibly non-compliant listing. As some (many?), particularly Chinese, sellers DO in fact keep stock here, a blanket ban would probably be illegal.

On the other hand, if the seller is overseas, Australian consumer law does not and cannot apply.

The seller yes - not Ebay. Ebay is a business operating within Australia and is bound by local laws. It can certainly act on breaches of Australia consumer law occuring on its platform in the same way it would be required to act were Australian criminal law being broken. If complaints to Ebay Australia prove difficult or unsatisfactory, lodge them with the ACCC instead. The ACCC has an easy webpage just for that. With enough consumer complaints they may act.

Re: When will ebay stop overseas sellers listing their products as in Australia when they are based

lyndal1838 — Mon, 05 Nov 2018 12:01:46 GMT

The Chinese sellers are in China, listing on the Chinese site. There is nothing that the ACCC can do about them.

Complaints made to ebay Australia are referred to ebay China who do nothing.

Plenty of members have complained in the past and nothing happens.

Re: When will ebay stop overseas sellers listing their products as in Australia when they are based

brerrabbit585 — Mon, 05 Nov 2018 12:31:48 GMT

You'd do better to report them to the ATO because the GST isn't being collected on their goods when it should be if they're overseas. There was something mentioned about this a while ago but I can't remember the details.

Re: When will ebay stop overseas sellers listing their products as in Australia when they are based

dodge_ute — Wed, 07 Nov 2018 22:51:53 GMT

Asian sellers pretending to be Aussies is in my experience reaching epidemic proportions!

Of my last half dozen purchases, 4 were pretending to be OZ based but turned out to be foreign.

I'd suggest that in future you double check SHIPPING ESTIMATES before buying.

Expedited shipping from say China takes around 10-16 days so if you know that for example Sydney to Melb should take 2-3 business days then smell a rat if the seller is wanting a lot more time than Aussie Post requires for your destination.

Many Asian sellers will have made a gazillion sales so if they have a gazillion sales on their feedback then triple check their pedigree!

And of course read their NEGATIVE FEEDBACK. If an Aussie has been conned by a would be Aussie seller then there should be a clue in feedback.

I have personally had some excellent trades knowingly dealing with sellers from China, Hong Kong etc but in my view if a seller is OK with misrepresenting their location they are also OK with CROOKERY in general, therefore have nothing to do with such buggers!

Re: When will ebay stop overseas sellers listing their products as in Australia when they are based

lyndal1838 — Wed, 07 Nov 2018 23:20:19 GMT

It is a lot quicker and easier to look at where the seller is registered.

If they are registered in China it is almost certain the items will be shipped from China.

It is not completely foolproof because there are a few Chinese seller who do have warehouse facilities in Australia.

Re: When will ebay stop overseas sellers listing their products as in Australia when they are based

padi*0409 — Wed, 07 Nov 2018 23:23:09 GMT

@dodge_ute wrote:

Of my last half dozen purchases, 4 were pretending to be OZ based but turned out to be foreign.

And of course read their NEGATIVE FEEDBACK. If an Aussie has been conned by a would be Aussie seller then there should be a clue in feedback.

Then why haven't you left negs for those sellers to help warn others ??????

Reading a seller's feedback will show their country of registration, that is the best way to see if they are likely to be drop-shipping to Australia.

Edit. G'day lyndal.

Re: When will ebay stop overseas sellers listing their products as in Australia when they are based

digital*ghost — Thu, 08 Nov 2018 01:13:54 GMT

So, apparently, it's not about the money...

"BEIJING (AFX) - The Chinese unit of US online auction service eBay will scrap all sellers' transaction fees from today, amid market pressure from local competitors offering free services, including Yahoo-invested Alibaba.com, the Financial Times reported."

http://shares.telegraph.co.uk/news/article.php?id=1140858&archive=1&epic=EBAY

Re: When will ebay stop overseas sellers listing their products as in Australia when they are based

foxette-in-sox — Thu, 08 Nov 2018 04:47:15 GMT

Trivial comment and of no value to this post lol-Lyndal, all those rubbish purchases my granddaughter recently made were from sellers registered in Hong Kong or China. The actual address on EVERY parcel, without exception, was North St, Botany, NSW or Ermington (I think).

Re: When will ebay stop overseas sellers listing their products as in Australia when they are based

lyndal1838 — Thu, 08 Nov 2018 06:46:26 GMT

Yes Foxy, that could be right.

More and more Asian sellers are using logistics services to ship goods to Australia in bulk.....there are a number of such services located in Botany that I know of and Ermington also has a large industrial area and an AP distribution centre.

So in part their location as Australia is true....they just leave out the part about the goods having to travel thousands of kilometres to get to the Australian warehouse AFTER you have bought them.

Re: When will ebay stop overseas sellers listing their products as in Australia when they are based

dodge_ute — Thu, 08 Nov 2018 06:48:39 GMT

@padi*0409 wrote:

Then why haven't you left negs for those sellers to help warn others ??????

So its my job to discipline Ebay members?

Silly me I thought that was Ebay's job.

I was also mistakenly of the view that Feedback was a non compulsory personal judgement call members had to make???

My only excuse my lord was that I was waiting for the transactions to conclude before I left feedback.

Would my lord care to tell me what he would give me permission to write in such feedback?

I remain your humble servant................

Re: When will ebay stop overseas sellers listing their products as in Australia when they are based

countessalmirena — Thu, 08 Nov 2018 07:33:05 GMT

@digital*ghost wrote:
So, apparently, it's not about the money...

"BEIJING (AFX) - The Chinese unit of US online auction service eBay will scrap all sellers' transaction fees from today, amid market pressure from local competitors offering free services, including Yahoo-invested Alibaba.com, the Financial Times reported."

http://shares.telegraph.co.uk/news/article.php?id=1140858&archive=1&epic=EBAY

Am I right in saying that has been the case since 2006? Australian sellers are well and truly at a disadvantage in terms of calls upon their purse.

The very fact that eBay caved in to the pressure at that time, in order to maintain their presence and gain revenue from other opportunities (advertising, I think?), means that Chinese eBay sellers are already on a different planet with its own playing field. The logistics exercise of having warehouses here with stock shipped out in bulk means that we - by which I mean the Australian consumers - are already enabling the Chinese model of economic routing.

There is probably nothing that can stop this. Australians love a bargain, and continue to buy from Chinese sellers in sufficient numbers to make the giving of feedback and the warnings about item location misrepresentation and the lack of quality control and the unenforceability of warranty just meaningless bird cries in the wind.

Re: When will ebay stop overseas sellers listing their products as in Australia when they are based

digital*ghost — Thu, 08 Nov 2018 07:34:34 GMT

@lyndal1838 wrote:
Yes Foxy, that could be right.
More and more Asian sellers are using logistics services to ship goods to Australia in bulk.....there are a number of such services located in Botany that I know of and Ermington also has a large industrial area and an AP distribution centre.

So in part their location as Australia is true....they just leave out the part about the goods having to travel thousands of kilometres to get to the Australian warehouse AFTER you have bought them.

Apparently this is being called "just in time fulfillment", and it's kind of a cross between dropshipping and pre-orders.

Goods don't go direct from the original supplier to the buyer, but to the warehouse, and then to the buyer.

Also apparently, this means that it's not dropshipping or pre-ordering, so the same requiresments don't apply, and saying the item is located in Sydney is ok by ebay because it gets to sydney sooner or later....

So, if you are ever breaching eBay's rules, I guess that means you can call it something new or different and eBay will just have to say it's ok because they don't have any policies for the new thing.