Fake Australian sellers

[osf2005]

Maybe it's just me, but when are eBay going to do something about sellers in Asia claiming to be in Australia! If I want to be something directly from China I'll do it, but when I put the Australia only filter on and I have to check every sellers details to see if they are really Australian it's frustrating! Fraudulent and about time eBay steps up and does something...

[lyndal1838]

I believe the accepted postcode for a distance search is Innaminka 5731

[davewil1964]

That covers almost all of the continent. Definitely includes Darwin.

I doubt there is anywhere in Australia within 2000km of both Perth and Cairns, but not Darwin.

[lyndal1838]

I have never used the distance search Dave....I am just quoting what I have read on the boards.

It is usually pretty easy to pick the Chinese listings with location as Darwin.....really it is just Buyer Beware.

[woodduck*2012]

Yep well its still going on and getting worse, as soon as you find a product to sell and all goes well, it would seem that before to long other listings start to slowly appearing at super cheap prices untill they flood the 1st page with adds for the same item, pushing Real Aussie sellers to the second page in some cases 3rd or forth page, Check out Koala-ok in darwin plus there is another five at least that state Darwin Australia.

Under cutting Australian sellers by selling at china prices, for example and 6 arrow heads in china are around $1.10 each + free postage = $6.60 all up, when you put in Australia only up come a whole page of sellers claiming to be Australian sellers in Australia selling the same 6 arrow heads for under $10 + free post.

Funny that most are in Darwin or sydney, melb and have massive bad feed back.

Firstly with Australia post Just one of these arrow heads because its over 2cm thickness is $7.60 to send + EBay fees etc, you do the maths they are either seller at a loss (not likley) or arent in Australia (extremely likley).

They are hurting Australian sellers, most items by these chinese imposters or drop sellers, would be costing them dearly at the prices they sell at, if in fact they were in Australia.

Its seems the Aussie poeple dont read sellers feedback and just jump at a cheap price, then winge and wine, after it takes 6 weeks to arrive they realise they have been scammed, Hence the NEG feedback they leave.

Read some of the huge amounts of NEG feedback these sellers receive in a 1 month period and its extremely clear.

EBay doesnt give a **bleep** due to the massive amounts of sales these chinese factories have, can you just imagine the amounts of money EBay is making from them in final value fees etc.

Aussies need to read the feedback, understand Australian postal cost, EBay fees and all would be clear, they are not supporting Australian sellers simply because they are being tricked by the fraudulant and mostly chinese sellers.

**bleep** me off to no end.

[rechargelife]

This is bloody true! We bought an item last month ago from a location in Australia & address in Australia but then I doubted it when the item arriving a bit longer. When the item arrived I checked my history purchase and that item bought or the seller location changed to Shenzen China - now it changed to HongKong!

Not to mention the item is dirty with a smudge of ink and a cat hair like inside the item that is declared new item upon selling!?

Why can't eBay have the technology to detect location or put restrictions screening for a valid ID or something? 

[digital*ghost]

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@rechargelife wrote:

Why can't eBay have the technology to detect location or put restrictions screening for a valid ID or something? 

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Because seller location and item location are two different things.

There are a lot of legitimate sellers who are located in one place (be it city, state or country) while the item ships from a completely different location. The item location is what matters because that's what affects delivery time and so forth, and so of course it is what some sellers will lie about, and is also something that is unverifiable. 

I would say this issue could come to a head when GST starts being charged on all imports, but not if they go with the vendor collects model (especially if ebay is deemed the vendor under those regulations), or they find some other way to hide it in the initial costs (probably easier to do with the UBI line postage option). 

[levethane]

Good to see nothing has been done... Paying extra because the item is listed in Australia only to have it turn up 4 weeks later with Chinese stamps all over it.

[lyndal1838]

If the GST is charged on an item that is supposed to be in Australia then you know it is actually coming from overseas.

You don't have to complete the payment if this happens and you believed it was in Australia.

[woodduck*2012]

I just tested your GST theory, seller based in china came up as the best match for me in Australia, checked the account and is based in china with supossed AU stock comming from sydney, NO GST WAS ADDED TO THE SALE.

So EBay has just directed me an Aussie in wollongong to a China Based seller, the seller is also getting out of the GST, it would appear that EBay has a very big interest in the dollars and nothing more, the China Based seller is getting out of charging GST and turning up as BEST MATCH, there is seriously something wrong with EBay allowing these sellers to not only rip off australians but also rip off and get around the ATO laws.

This is getting much worse with many more China Based sellers basically taking over EBay Australia, flooding the pages with fraudulant and duplicate adds, how is an Aussie seller to compete when your own countrymen and women are being steered by EBay to the Best Match being China Based.

It seems the Chinese own EBay world wide, they getaway with item location miss representation, Duplicate listing until they take over the first 5 pages of any search,  and they might as well take away these stupid miss leading choices like "Australia only" you still get 5 pages of Chinese frauds.

[lyndal1838]

Not all Chinese sellers are shonks.   There are a number who do have stock in Australia and it appears that the one you are looking at is one of those.

And just to be quite clear.....the seller is not avoiding GST.....it is the BUYER who is responsible for paying GST.  In the case of ebay sellers, ebay is responsible for forwarding the GST to the ATO.   There must be some way of ebay knowing that the goods are in Australia....most of the Chinese items I have bought have had GST added by ebay as per the rules.

Before getting up in arms, wait till your item arrives and see where it was sent from.