Buyer Possibly Lying about Australian Item location

[sabbirissocoollike]

Hi I recently made a purchase from a seller with 11,000+ reviews and around 98% positive, it was also listed as an eBay top seller. The item location was given as Sydney and I even messaged the seller to confirm. The seller did not provide a tracking number and the shipment has not arrived after 11 days, even though I live in a metro area in Melbourne and I usually receive things from Sydney in 3-4 days at the most.

However, I have an AusPost account and today received an email that I have a parcel coming, the sender is listed as “startrack int c/o aukeys”. As this has been my only recent purchase I think it is the item I was expecting and this makes me suspect that the seller just lied to me and is sending the item from abroad. Has anyone else had a similar experience? Any ideas how best to proceed or confirm my suspicions?

[joztamps]

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@sabbirissocoollike wrote:

However, I have an AusPost account and today received an email that I have a parcel coming, the sender is listed as “startrack int c/o aukeys”. As this has been my only recent purchase I think it is the item I was expecting and this makes me suspect that the seller just lied to me and is sending the item from abroad. Has anyone else had a similar experience? Any ideas how best to proceed or confirm my suspicions?

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Wait til the item breaks down, and make a warranty claim to the seller.

[kopenhagen5]

Have a look at where the eBay account is registered.

Select the seller's eBay ID and you will see it after 'Member since' date xxxxxx.

Happens all the time from many Asian sellers.

They don't respect the rules.

There are those sellers having genuine warehouse facilities and dispatching from here but too few n far between.

[padi*0409]

If it's the seller with the 11,000+ FB that the OP's got feedback for Kopes, they're Chinese registered with very average feedback - I wouldn't have used them in a fit.

[1ozy]

I have questioned this may times with ebay support and it seems it is done by quite few sellers from abroad and even may sellers here in AU selling stuff they own and then when you purchase it they then buy it at a cheaper cost overseas which is why many AU items take so long to arrive.
Even though Ebay policies state you must own an item before listing it these sellers seem to get away with it.

The other type of sellers is those that list actual store items and then go purchase the item once you paid for it. Totally illegal but they it and I have caught a couple sellers out as those items where dearer in the store due to not being on special anymore and the sellers excuse was it was not available because the item price had gone up. So if he had the item how could the price have changed. Common sense no.

[lyndal1838]

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@1ozy wrote:

Even though Ebay policies state you must own an item before listing it these sellers seem to get away with it.

The other type of sellers is those that list actual store items and then go purchase the item once you paid for it. Totally illegal but they it and I have caught a couple sellers out as those items where dearer in the store due to not being on special anymore and the sellers excuse was it was not available because the item price had gone up. So if he had the item how could the price have changed. Common sense no.

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Would you care to show where ebay says you must own an item before listing it for sale?

If it were true then can you explain why ebay is OK with sellers who dropship?

There are also no rules about where a seller sources the items that they list.  If they want to go into a store and buy something and list it on ebay then good luck to them.   If you are referring to the hall table that came from Kmart then the seller did nothing wrong.....the same unbranded table was listed by several sellers at higher prices and no-one complained about that.  The buyer was just annoyed that the seller made a profit by having the table delivered direct from Kmart.

[sabbirissocoollike]

The seller is listed as being from China, and they changed the item location since my purchase from Sydney to Uluru. I had asked them about this and they said they are a global business with many warehouses and my purchase was definitely coming from Sydney. Also the return address was confirmed by eBay support today as being in China, so I'm fairly certain its a scam. I just wish the seller had been upfront and honest with me. Hopefully I can get a refund as I feel they just lied to be twice now.

[sabbirissocoollike]

I know what you mean, I am normally fairly careful about these things but I saw the eBay top rated seller tag and they were participating in a discount program also run by eBay so I thought eBay would have not chosen such sellers and I could trust them. Lesson learned I suppose, just hope I get my refund now in a timely manner

[padi*0409]

How do you intend to get a refund on the item?  The only ways you can do that is if you open a case in eBay's "money back guarantee" IF the item hasn't arrived before the last ETA of the parcel OR if it's "not as descibed".

You can't get a refund simply because the seller has misrepresented their item location unfortunately.

A warehouse in Uluru? - that's the best I've heard yet !!!!!!!

[sabbirissocoollike]

I agree with this in part. I have nothing against the seller drop shipping and for many items I would not care. But I do feel saying the item location is withing Australia when in reality you are dropshipping from China or something is not the best way to do it, but what makes it unaceeptable for me is the fact that the seller did not disclose this even when I directly asked them if this was the case.

Also as per my reading of the ebay articles on the subject this is against eBay rules, though I am not a seller or experinaced in this so I am not sure on this. I will be asking eBay for a refund though as its an electrical item that noramlly has a long warranty and I dont trust an overseas seller to honour it and also as I dont like being lied to.