Item in Australia? eBay and Aust. Post Partner UBI Smart Parcel to enable customer deception

[the_fleecy_alpaca]

Having waited 2 weeks for another item 'in the post' from a chinese registered seller claiming the item to be in Australia. I punched the reference number in the tracking website for Aust Post (it wasn't a tracking number - just the "AP Article ID" ) and found that the item had only been in their system for 4 days despite the seller marking it as posted 11 days earlier. A couple of emails asking which country it was being sent from were answered with either genuine or faked 'pigeon' english giving generic answers to anything but the question asked. The return address on the label is very interesting. UBI Smart Parcel.  http://www.ubismartparcel.com/en/ubi-smart-parcel  When I check their website I find they offer a service to chinese sellers in maintaining a 'virtual' overseas warehouse. They claim they can provide this seamless service including pre printing Australia Post  franked address labels from back in China due to their extensive partnerships with companies including eBay and Australia Post. Why is eBay and our federal postal service aiding and abeting these miserable liars. I choose to purchase from Australian sellers who run businesses, pay taxes and employ people locally. Why would our own government allow Australia Post to participate in this deception that is hurting Australian sellers.

[prate1055]

This exact same thing is happening to me, choose to buy from Australia only to later find out it is from China and taking forever to arrive. EBay needs to stop this practice.

[lyndal1838]

There are a number of logistics companies in Australia that provide warehousing facilities for overseas businesses and dispatch the goods via Australia Post when necessary.

It is all legit....the goods are in Australia as listed.

[digital*ghost]

---

@the_fleecy_alpaca wrote:

Why is eBay and our federal postal service aiding and abeting these miserable liars. I choose to purchase from Australian sellers who run businesses, pay taxes and employ people locally. Why would our own government allow Australia Post to participate in this deception that is hurting Australian sellers.

---

UBI has been around for a few years, and while I understand there are now sellers using it to add legitimacy to false claims about an item's location, it hasn't always been that way and there are many sellers who offer it but are 100% up front about the item location. i.e. The problem more lies with the sellers who lie than anyone else.

Personally, I always select UBI Line (where available) if the package is not urgent enough for a courier. It's a little more expensive than standard air mail, but it's faster, and Aus Post at least get something for delivering the package once it arrives here. That would be Aus Post's incentive (and an understandable one all things considered). As for eBay - in a perfect world (or at least, on a perfect site), you could report sellers who are blatantly breaching policies and something would be done to curb it. Alas, ebay is very far from perfect. 

The only recommendation I can make is to check a seller's feedback and profile page - feedback to check for ratings and comments re: postage time, and profile page to check where they are registered. 

[fiona27au]

Same here, add said one week delivery, been one week, aust post have not got item yet, tracked and comming from china, this seller will be geting all negative feedback

[maxwelloau]

WFT! Ebay sending source says Botany Australia and so i purchased based on item is in Australia! Then instead of a few days pos IN Australia it looks like a total of 24 days it might be! Downright EBAY scamming.
Not happy Jan.

[lyndal1838]

There are a number of logistics companies located in Botany who act as warehouses for overseas sellers and dispatch the goods as ordered.   They are not necessarily as quick at dispatching as the seller would be....but the goods are still in AUstralia and being dispatched via AP.

[mwilliames]

We all need to ban together and stop the overseas sellers being able to sell under "Australia Only" listings.  Its wrong. People want to support their country and know what they are buying is quality and is going to arrive in the time specified. If every one continues to report the ones using "virtual warehouses" things might change. Im a seller selling quality product and then get undercut with an inferior product at half the price. Trying to represent that your product is much superior is very hard via photos.  

---

@the_fleecy_alpaca wrote:

Having waited 2 weeks for another item 'in the post' from a chinese registered seller claiming the item to be in Australia. I punched the reference number in the tracking website for Aust Post (it wasn't a tracking number - just the "AP Article ID" ) and found that the item had only been in their system for 4 days despite the seller marking it as posted 11 days earlier. A couple of emails asking which country it was being sent from were answered with either genuine or faked 'pigeon' english giving generic answers to anything but the question asked. The return address on the label is very interesting. UBI Smart Parcel.  http://www.ubismartparcel.com/en/ubi-smart-parcel  When I check their website I find they offer a service to chinese sellers in maintaining a 'virtual' overseas warehouse. They claim they can provide this seamless service including pre printing Australia Post  franked address labels from back in China due to their extensive partnerships with companies including eBay and Australia Post. Why is eBay and our federal postal service aiding and abeting these miserable liars. I choose to purchase from Australian sellers who run businesses, pay taxes and employ people locally. Why would our own government allow Australia Post to participate in this deception that is hurting Australian sellers.

---

[tennis_sweetspot]

yeah I bought a few of these and they were not warehoused in Aust like the "ebay apology merchants" above have stated. It is sent from china and labeled to look like it is from Aust but par for for the course dealing with scumbags like ebay and paypal. delivery est is always like 5-20 days but there is no way it will make anyhere near 5 days. 

I have no problem buying direct from china but there are a lot of issues that make me want to know the truth up front.