Misrepresentation of item location

[porcelain_dolls_by_me]

The issue of Chinese sellers misrepresenting items to be located at false Australian locations has been a long standing issue with Ebayer's. 

Ebay Australia must be well aware of this issue, but notwithstanding never-ending complaints have chosen to turn a "blind eye". 

Forget the fact it may disadvantage Austyralian sellers,  they dare not alienate some of their biggest fee payers.

HOWEVER, now EBay are required to impose a 10% GST on purchases made from overseas sellers it is going to be interesting to see how things evolve.  My suggestion is that whilst they have been able to put the issue of location misrepresentation into the too hard basket (after all, it only upsets the Aussie locals)  the Australian Government will carry a lot more weight.

That is, I have no doubt the Government would launch proceedings against EBay to claw back the GST payable on the sale of any items they could prove EBay should have known were not located/shipped from (for example) Darwin, but Beijing.

EBay have tried to cover their "a**" with the following comments in todays email about the introduction of GST.....

"We take item location misrepresentation seriously on eBay. As part of eBay’s Selling practices policy, we have deployed technology to prevent and detect violations across listings and transactions. Sellers found in violation of this policy are may be subject to listing removal, warnings, suspensions by eBay, and may be at risk of compliance action by the Australian Tax Office."

My suggestion is that best they do indeed stop the item location misrepresentation becuase if they don't then I am sure that many Ebay sellers (including ourselves) will not hestitate in raising the matter officially (with the Government. 

The resultant fallout could/would be a costly nightmare for EBay.

ABOUT TIME

[davewil1964]

Except from 1 July they will have to pay GST at the border. I think. I can't imagine it will only apply to goods purchased online.

[lyndal1838]

The $1000 limit applies to goods coming into the country via the mail service and as such are smaller individual parcels.

Any items imported in bulk by air or sea (shipping containers etc) have to be cleared by Customs and all duties and charges paid before they are released to the importer.  Somehow I doubt that a Chinese seller is going to package his items into small parcels and post them to himself in Australia.

No doubt the Chinese sellers will find a way to rort the system but it may not be as easy as it is with ebay actually helping them.  Ebay has a lot to lose if the ATO finds them helping overseas sellers to get around the rules and they may decide it is not worth it.

[worzel*gummidge]

Some rorts are good. Some evil like the Government rort us all the time and the sheeple applaude them....

[lyndal1838]

That is hardly a helpful comment...if you must complain about the government try Community Spirit.

[davewil1964]

I suspect CS is not the correct forum for his type of posts. Or, at least, the reaction he is trying to elicit.

[padi*0409]

They're likely to get eaten alive over there.......................

[lyndal1838]

True....why do you think I redirected him?

[brerrabbit585]

---

@lyndal1838 wrote:

The $1000 limit applies to goods coming into the country via the mail service and as such are smaller individual parcels.

Any items imported in bulk by air or sea (shipping containers etc) have to be cleared by Customs and all duties and charges paid before they are released to the importer.  Somehow I doubt that a Chinese seller is going to package his items into small parcels and post them to himself in Australia.

No doubt the Chinese sellers will find a way to rort the system but it may not be as easy as it is with ebay actually helping them.  Ebay has a lot to lose if the ATO finds them helping overseas sellers to get around the rules and they may decide it is not worth it.

---

Why not?  Their postage is a pittance compared to ours and their goods are heaps cheaper, so it wouldn't be hard for them to send lots of large packages worth less than $1K. 

There are quite a few warehouses and associated websites here that are run by Chinese people and they could easily get a lot of their stock by mail.  If they're buying from Chinese websites I can't see most of them putting their hand up to pay gst, either the buyers or the sellers. 

[porcelain_dolls_by_me]

The $1,000 limit applies to goods imported by any means - imported via post and imported by couriers such as FedEx, DHL etc.

[porcelain_dolls_by_me]

The galling part is that under the Universal Postal Union agreement the Australian taxpayer actually subsidises the postage of items from China to us.

In effect we are handing the Chinese sellers an unfair cometitive advantage over Australian sellers on a silver platter.