@roylo27 wrote:https://www.rdbatteries.com/shipping-page
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Shipping/Can-you-ship-nicd-battery-packs-via-USPS-if-so-what-should-I-...
I found those links really interesting.
I'm coming from a background of someone who knows very little about batteries so keep that in mind, but if I read that shipping page, I too would assume I could ship or receive dry cell batteries, subject to the correct packaging.
The lead acid type I would assume could be shipped but with stronger restrictions related to packaging and shipping. And the lithium batteries I would not assume I could post at all. Maybe big companies could, but it sounds a very restricted category.
Since the one you were buying was nickel cadmium, a dry cell one from what I can make out? I probably would have thought it could be shipped too. If I have the category right.
When buying something that is being imported, it is on the buyer to know if they are buying something that is restricted in their own country, but if yours was a dry cell battery, I can see why you may have thought it would be okay, with the right packaging.
And I did a (admittedly quick) check of the ebay link to policies on restricted or prohibited items and like you, I could not see a policy on batteries. Everything else but.
The only mention of specific batteries I came across was 18650 batteries and button batteries.
The information may be out there but if so, it isn't immediately obvious to me in that link and I have been on ebay for several years.
But the really interesting part was in the policy about the international shipping program in US.
It says this:
You agree that if any item is found to be ineligible, eBay will have no liability and will have, in its discretion and in any manner that it prefers, the right to dispose of or liquidate the ineligible item, including without limitation (A) returning the item to the Seller, (B) handing over the item to the authorities, or (C) destroying the item.
It further says:
If eBay or eBay’s service providers determine, after you have purchased an EIS Item, that the EIS Item is ineligible for eBay International Shipping or cannot be shipped to you (for whatever reason), eBay and its affiliates shall have the right to cancel your purchase in lieu of proceeding with the processing and/or shipment of the EIS Item and, upon exercising this right, may reverse the payment that you made to your Seller and to eBay for the EIS Item and will process the EIS Item as an undeliverable item.
So you were in fact right. The EIS item can sometimes be returned to the seller. But that condition is so broad, you'd assume that if it is not sent back to the seller it is then destroyed but that is just one of the 'included' options.
Bottom line really is I don't know if the company got it right about that type of battery, but whether or not they did, they have covered themselves every which way in their conditions.
You as buyer are not at fault, you weren't to know. You bought in good faith & ebay must take that attitude too as they have refunded you in full. As I said earlier, had the seller posted it through the normal postal services and it reached Australia without the proper packaging etc, customs here may have confiscated it. At least you have your money.
