Lost postal items appearing on eBay

[strangemanwithoctopusbrain]

So... I might be wrong...

i had had a package ‘lost’ from China in postage. Only to see that exact item appear in an eBay store in chullora NSW (the same suburb items from China come through to my location, according to the tracking info I have seen time and time again) 

In this store, many if not all items are marked as ‘last one’ and the range is very very diverse. It looks suspiciously like someone is stealing items out of the postal service at the chullora stage and just reselling them locally, knowing full well that PayPal will reimburse the buyer, and the seller, being in China, is too far away to do anything really about it.

As I said, I might be wrong but it looks really quite suspicious to me,...

ebay might want to compare missing items to this guys store, I reckon they might be in for a surprise... 

but I reckon whoever is doing it will ‘dissapear’ from eBay and reappear as a different seller before very long, as it would be next to impossible to accidentally stumble upon the same sort of resale of missing goods again...

I hope I am incorrect but I’ve had too many items just ‘lost in postage’ but they have to be going SOMEWHERE! And this looks a lot like a possible SOMEHWHERE to me. 

....

[lyndal1838]

I think you are wrong.

Your seller is registered in Singapore.  A lot of Asian sellers ship in bulk to an Australian location and the goods are sent from there.  There are a number of logistics companies in Botany and surrounding areas that offer this service....including Australia Post.  Chullora is a major Australia Post parcel delivery centre so it is not unusual for overseas as well as local parcels to go through there at some time during their journey.

Not all the items that I looked at are listed as the last one, and some of them have sold a lot of the item.....just look at the Sold Item history to see how many have sold.   There is no way that seller could stock a store of over 20000 items with items stolen from the Australian mail system.

You should not name and shame sellers on the boards....and your incorrect assertions are a good example of why.

[readysetgo2u2015]

many overseas sellers say they have stock here and states it in Chullora botany etc but in fact they have no stock here and use aus post international the product is then shipped through their designated post centre making it look like it came from aus but it came direct from china and your money went out of the counrty in the blink of an eye i had a seller the other day state he was in melbourne  it stated shipped on the 7th then didnt track arrived 10 days later via  Chullora  with chinese writing all over it and the tracking then showed it was shipped 17th and delivered 17th so they even manipulate the trackig  YOU REPORT TO EBAY AS ITS AGAINST THE RULES AND THEY DO NOTHING  BAN THE FAKE AUS SELLER AND KEEP OUR DOLLARS IN OUR COUNTRY 

[lyndal1838]

It is no secret that the Asian sellers give incorrect item locations.....Darwin is a very popular.

You can report them to ebay as much as you like but it has to go through ebay China and they do nothing at all.

I have already said that Asian sellers can ship in bulk to Australian locations.

If a seller is registered in an Asian country you can usually be pretty sure the items will be posted from that country.

[strangemanwithoctopusbrain]

Yes, it is quite probable I am wrong.

And yes, It looked suspicious to me. 

As to ‘naming and shaming’ that is not what I am doing. I was merely stating the situation as I saw it, openly. If the seller is doing nothing wrong then there is no ‘shame’. 

If there was another way to publish my suspicions about the trader I would have taken it. But this is the only resource I could find.

I put it out there, I’m probably incorrect, and now I’m done with it.

[davewil1964]

---

@strangemanwithoctopusbrain wrote:

Yes, it is quite probable I am wrong.

And yes, It looked suspicious to me. 

As to ‘naming and shaming’ that is not what I am doing. I was merely stating the situation as I saw it, openly. If the seller is doing nothing wrong then there is no ‘shame’. 

If there was another way to publish my suspicions about the trader I would have taken it. But this is the only resource I could find.

I put it out there, I’m probably incorrect, and now I’m done with it.

---

Which is why you shouldn't cast aspersions without actual proof.

[parachuter2006]

Funny coincidence!
I have made the same experience recently twice.
High value items never arrived or in fact were never shipped.
After being refunded the exact same item appeared from a differen seller in a nearby location to the first one.
However I don't see stealing postal items as a factor here.
I call it family group business.
Especially Asian sellers now abuse the system by creating multiple Ebay accounts.
They have someone studying overseas, friends, family, whatever, sometimes just someone willing to set up some fake Ebay account.
This is quite evident once you did long searches and noticed that a lot of items appear with identical listing typos and images but from different sellers.
I had it multiple times that my items all came from the same P.O. box in NSW or Darwin, despite originating from different sellers.
Also had some pickups of too heavy items and always I ended in someones overstuffed garage or small commercial rental.
And in all cases on parcels ready to ship I found multiple seller account names on the labels....

All this means you might buy an item from a seller in Sydney but get it delivered from a P.O box in Darwin.
Once you need to deal with a Paypal claim and it turns out the return address differes from where it came from you are for weeks of delays to get your refund.
Some dodgy seller also love to create a fake feedback history by first buying a lot of cheap **bleep** and then starting to sell value items of the last kind.
Feedback is set to private so most people will miss that there is no actual feedback for sales....
Friends told me of cases where a highly priced item never arrived and they had to wait months fr their refund as the seller disappeared after emtying the Paypal and linked bank account.


As for really lost items that seem to appear in just one store:
Without the help of Ebay it would be impossible to judge if an item really appeared out of nowhere.
But iw ould certainly possible to use the feedback system and resolution center to track if there is an increase in lost items in a certain area.
This would either confirm your suspicion or show that all is normal.
If you notice the same disappearing act from the same store while re-appearing in another you might have found another family business trying to run a scam 😉

[lyndal1838]

There is nothing illegal or suspect about "family businesses" as you call them.

Many sellers have multiple ebay accounts and stores.....it is not confined to Asian sellers but they certainly have the largest stores which probably makes it more noticable.

It is not an abuse of the system.

Sellers cannot have Private feedback.....they will not be able to sell while it is Private.  However, they can create Private listings where the item title and price do not show in feedback.

The refund must have been a very long time ago if your friend had to wait because the seller had emptied their paypal account.

Refunds have not been dependant on the seller's paypal account status for as long as I have been on ebay.

Paypal refunds and then chase the seller for their money....the buyer does not have towait at all.

You can think up all the conspiracy theories that you like....it does not mean that they are right.

[parachuter2006]

Well, opinions might differ.
I call it at least suspicious if the same seller needs multiple accounts for his business.

Ok, private listings then, still useless if you want to see the real deal.
I call it disguising negative feedback.

The refund is still in progress, altough Paypal now states it will be finalised within a week.
Problem as stated was the different return addrss and as it turned out the fact that the seller used snail mail to ship the item back.
If Ebay clsed the case three weeks ago and Paypal worked on it till today then I call it a reasonably long wait.

Consiracy theories are all good and fun, too bad if cases show it is not all just theory.
As said doing this since ebay started as a free platform...

[davewil1964]

I've got 3 accounts.

They all have always had 100% feedback. I don't think MY customers think me suss, but you are probably not one of them.