eBay

sabbirissocoollike · ‎08-05-2018

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?

countessalmirena · ‎09-05-2018

Digital*ghost would almost certainly know more than I do about this. (Agreed - Digi knows everything!)

I've had a quick look at the policy you mentioned, imastawka, and it is a bit of a surprise! It specifically doesn't permit on-sending by Amazon or by other retailers.

Not allowed

You may not use a third party provider to fulfil eBay orders on your behalf, when:

The third party is another retailer or marketplace, such as Amazon. This includes third parties that are owned, directly or indirectly, by another retailer or marketplace; and the order is being fulfilled from within Australia.

The policy states "When eBay orders are sent by another retailer or marketplace, it can cause confusion for customers and affect trust in the eBay marketplace. We have this policy to maintain the customer experience for both buyers and sellers, as well as to protect our customers' data from being used for purposes other than fulfilment."

This must be a fairly new change to eBay's policies. It could well be driven by buyers complaining to eBay about buying items from a seller, and having it sent to them by K-Mart, or Amazon, etc.

lyndal1838 · ‎09-05-2018

@sabbirissocoollike wrote:
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.

This reply was not directed to you. Your seller is not dropshipping....he is in China and is apparently shipping direct to you.
If a seller is trying to get away with stating the wrong item location they are not likely to admit it to you no matter how often you ask.
You can pretty much be sure if the seller is in China then they will ship from China.

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.

As Padi has already said, you cannot ask for a refund because of item location misrepresentation.
As for a warranty.....is it mentioned in the listing? NEVER assume that any electrical item has a warranty whether it is from an Australian seller or an overseas seller.

Even if your seller mentioned a warranty there is no way you could enforce it, even if the goods were in Australia. The cold hard fact is that you bought from a Chinese seller and you have none of the protection afforded by buying from a registered Australia business.

If the item arrives within the timeframe and is as described then you have no reason to ask for a refund.....the only way you could get one is by lying to ebay.....but in view of your annoyance over being lied to there is no way you would ever do it, is there?

imastawka · ‎09-05-2018

@countessalmirena wrote:
Digital*ghost would almost certainly know more than I do about this. (Agreed - Digi knows everything!)

I've had a quick look at the policy you mentioned, imastawka, and it is a bit of a surprise! It specifically doesn't permit on-sending by Amazon or by other retailers.

Not allowed
You may not use a third party provider to fulfil eBay orders on your behalf, when:
The third party is another retailer or marketplace, such as Amazon. This includes third parties that are owned, directly or indirectly, by another retailer or marketplace; and the order is being fulfilled from within Australia.
The policy states "When eBay orders are sent by another retailer or marketplace, it can cause confusion for customers and affect trust in the eBay marketplace. We have this policy to maintain the customer experience for both buyers and sellers, as well as to protect our customers' data from being used for purposes other than fulfilment."

This must be a fairly new change to eBay's policies. It could well be driven by buyers complaining to eBay about buying items from a seller, and having it sent to them by K-Mart, or Amazon, etc.

Update to the User Agreement from April 4th

https://sellercentre.ebay.com.au/SU18-1/User-Agreement-Updates

lyndal1838 · ‎09-05-2018

Well the seller who had Kmart deliver the item was not breaking any rules....this was not even a rule when that happened.

It is also not going to affect sellers who order from Amazon overseas.

springyzone · ‎10-05-2018

@lyndal1838 wrote:
Well the seller who had Kmart deliver the item was not breaking any rules....this was not even a rule when that happened.

It is also not going to affect sellers who order from Amazon overseas.

If the policy is:

You may not use a third party provider to fulfil eBay orders on your behalf, when:

The third party is another retailer or marketplace, such as Amazon. This includes third parties that are owned, directly or indirectly, by another retailer or marketplace; and the order is being fulfilled from within Australia.

then I would interpret that first sentence to mean no delivery from third party retail providers anywhere. I know the second sentence says that includes orders being filled in Aust but it doesn't say the rule is limited to Australia.

I could be wrong, but that is what it seems like to me.

I can see why ebay have introduced this new rule.

I understand their point of view on this one. I know people are entitled to buy from anywhere and resell but blatantly just ordering direct & having it sent directly through the third party isn't going to please customers and ebay is right, it would be plain confusing for many of them. I remember the K mart hall table saga a while back.

I think the main trouble with it is it could make a customer feel foolish, that they were gullible & could have got it cheaper elsewhere.

And what a bad look for ebay too. Imagine if you bought something on ebay and it rocked up direct from Amazon. The message there is Amazon is much cheaper than ebay.

padi*0409 · ‎10-05-2018

Springy, the easy way out of that is if buyers/bidders could refine their search by the sellers registered location, but there is no way on this earth that eBay will let them do that.

And even if they did, I would guarantee the Asian sellers would find a way to circumvent it..........sad but true.

______________________________________________________

"Start me up I'll never stop......"

lyndal1838 · ‎10-05-2018

@springyzone wrote:
@lyndal1838 wrote:
Well the seller who had Kmart deliver the item was not breaking any rules....this was not even a rule when that happened.

It is also not going to affect sellers who order from Amazon overseas.
If the policy is:

You may not use a third party provider to fulfil eBay orders on your behalf, when:
The third party is another retailer or marketplace, such as Amazon. This includes third parties that are owned, directly or indirectly, by another retailer or marketplace; and the order is being fulfilled from within Australia.
I am afraid I see it differently springy so we will have to agree to disagree. I will be watching with interest to see if any sellers ask for clarification. I see it that you cannot fulfil the order from Amazon Australia.

then I would interpret that first sentence to mean no delivery from third party retail providers anywhere. I know the second sentence says that includes orders being filled in Aust but it doesn't say the rule is limited to Australia.

I could be wrong, but that is what it seems like to me.
I can see why ebay have introduced this new rule.

I understand their point of view on this one. I know people are entitled to buy from anywhere and resell but blatantly just ordering direct & having it sent directly through the third party isn't going to please customers and ebay is right, it would be plain confusing for many of them. I remember the K mart hall table saga a while back.

I think the main trouble with it is it could make a customer feel foolish, that they were gullible & could have got it cheaper elsewhere.
If you remember the hall table saga then you will remember that the table purchased was the cheapest on ebay and with free delivery. The table itself was unbranded as were all the others on ebay.

And what a bad look for ebay too. Imagine if you bought something on ebay and it rocked up direct from Amazon. The message there is Amazon is much cheaper than ebay.

I have done it many times.....there are several DVD sellers on ebay who ship direct from Amazon UK or US. There are also booksellers who ship from UK book sellers who also have their own ebay stores. I have several times bought from the overseas store when ebay has had a discount offer....far cheaper than buying direct from the UK.

There is no doubt about it.....Amazon is much cheaper than ebay when you buy in bulk. And "bulk" is the important word here. I could buy a DVD direct from Amazon for $xx but a person with an account and buying 10 or 20 DVDs can get them for $x

digital*ghost · ‎10-05-2018

@lyndal1838 wrote:
Yes, I am sure Digi knows.....is there anything the lovely Digi doesn't know?

I don't know how to bake bread.... (procedurally I understand the instructions, practically, it does not turn out well. ).

But I will say, in the new policy that's being discussed re: third party retailers, the pertinent word is "when".

That is, it's not allowed when the retailer is recognisable, and when the order is being fulfilled from within Australia. This does actually mean using suppliers from outside Australia is ok, even if they are recognisable.

Third-party suppliers, dropshipping etc, is ok but the new policy also states that the invoice in the package has to contain the eBay seller's business info, not the third party's business info. I believe this did come about as a result of the K Mart sellers (there's still plenty of them on eBay right now, though), because obviously buyers were receiving items directly from K Mart with K Mart invoices / receipts.

For the OP - you may be able to get a refund on your item if the seller allows change of mind returns (not via a claim via the MBG, as has already been mentioned), just make sure that any condirtions have been met - original and return postage may not be refundable, but you can look into the funded returns program offered by PayPal, as they will cover up to $45 postage on eligible returns.

(PS, I feel I should thank you guys for the compliment, honestly, though, there's a bunch of stuff I don't know - just ask the poor rep I could barely contain myself from yelling at last night, for reasons I won't go into now lol ).

lyndal1838 · ‎10-05-2018

Well if we are going to talk about cooking I take after my grandmother who grew up in the country.....I am OK with the basics of roasts, grills, steamed vegies, casseroles and stews but any of the fancy stuff is not in my repertoire at all. Rarely bother with cakes although I do shortbread and biscuits adequately.

But back to the topic.....I appears that I was correct that orders can be fulfilled from 3rd parties outside Australia but not from within.

I must admit I don't have a problem with buying from sellers who use a 3rd party such as Amazon. I cannot get as good a price as a seller who is buying in bulk. The seller gets a cut and I get it cheaper than buying direct from Amazon. It is win-win as far as I am concerned.

countessalmirena · ‎10-05-2018

Lyndal, it will be interesting to see what happens if/when a buyer tests the policy... probably without even knowing that the policy's been updated. One unhappy buyer getting onto the phone, angry at having purchased through means that allows a middleman to make a profit... Hmm. If the seller is buying bulk, surely all of the DVDs/CDs would be going to one address (the eBay seller's), and that would mean there'd be no direct third party fulfilment - or am I missing something? (It's definitely possible; I've only had one cup of coffee today thus far.)

(Re bread and cakes and pasta - I've had to increase my repertoire to make sugar-free and low GI breads for one family member, gluten-free pasta (oh, for the stretchiness of normal pasta dough!) for another family member, not forgetting yet another who can't have eggs, and oh, yes, the lactose-intolerant one formerly known as dairy-intolerant. It's stretched my culinary imagination to the limit. For the life of me, I cannot use my Marcato Atlas machine to roll the GF pasta dough - it just breaks and crumbles, so I have to do it all (rolling and shaping the ravioli) the old-fashioned way, which is very difficult for me to do at the moment. But there's no doubt that the gluten-containing bread turns out by far the best, and I've learned the knack of getting a gorgeous golden-brown crusty top and a pillow-soft buttery-white interior I do use a bread machine for the kneading and the first rising of the dough and the knocking back of the dough, but after that out it comes into the baking cloche for the final proving. No choice. I have an injury requiring surgery which stops me from being able to knead effectively, so I rely on all sorts of gadgets.)

Spoiler

Or perhaps I just love my kitchen gadgets.

Spoiler

It's not as though I have all that many.

Spoiler

Or if they are many, they are necessary.