SCAM - Chinese sellers misrepresenting item location - Equick

[offroad7400]

So here is the latest 'SCAM' many Chinese sellers are now using in their listings to convince you to buy from them as their stock is supposedly located in Australia and you will get the goods quicker.

'AU STOCK' is big and bold in their listing heading.

In fact the item is in China and they use a re-fullfilment service called Equick.cn who consolidate many sellers parcels on a daily basis and ship them to Sydney. Equick then despatch them using Australia Post from their warehouse in Botany.

Around 4-5 days after you make your purchase you finally receive the tracking advice from Australia Post, which makes you think the items are in Australia, but in fact they have not even left China.  Around 10-14 days later you finally receive the goods.

This activity is clearly misleading and a breach of eBay's 'misrepresenting item location' rules and needs to be stopped.

[davewil1964]

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@steves_0 wrote:

I know, I was just replying to ajarnjenny in agreement wih her opinion.

On ebay, there's a get it fast and free and expected delivery date. They're generally from aussie sellers. From the chinese ones, the products are cheaper but they don't advertise rapid shipping. So you can choose to compromise on delivery period or max your savings.

I have no problems waiting for bit longer, but I'm very much 100% aware they're not domestic sellers lol. But it's cool cos they've been around for a while and are rather consistent in their deliveries and response time. I used to buy a sh*t load of key items from them back when I was a poor student, so my perspective of them is rather fond.

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Who is unlikely to know or care, given they haven't logged into the boards for over 3 years.

Fast and free wasn't around then. Expected delivery dates might have been. I am an Aussie and you won't find fast and free on any of my listings, because I am not mug enough to fall for eBay's con jobs.

[davewil1964]

You should've reported them. Item location misrepresentation is item location misrepresentation. 

[hus2385]

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@melbourneclearance wrote:

It is actually very easy to spot these fake Aussie sellers.

1. The item is offered at an unbelievable price. Remember that Aus Post charges $7.90 for anything over 2cm thick, so no one can sell you a house with a Merc and comes with 2 kids for $1.25 Free Shipping.

2. The listing usually has a generic item location like Darwin, NT or Sydney, etc., not an actual suburb.

3. The seller has a huge amount of feedbacks. Very small amount of Aus sellers can get over 30k feedbacks.

4. Click on the seller's handle and you will see their actual location: China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, etc.

5. Their feedback rating is usually in the 98% and under range

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Also if you read their replies to the (considerable) negative feedback, you'll see their grasp of English is tenous at best. 

[qui*art]

Heres my frustration, I prefer to give my business to local Aussie sellers. But got caught recently by one of these misleading listings as I haven’t been using eBay much of late and was a little out of touch.

I ran a search and used the filter for Australia only, so didn’t think to check further. Unfortunately these misleading locations on the listing allow these listings to appear in an Australia only search.

once burnt, twice shy, it’s not a mistake I will repeat, but it’s annoying and it is deceptive.

as far as I’m concerned misrepresenting your location is dishonest and why would I want to do business with a dishonest seller”

[lyndal1838]

When you use the Australia Only filter you are getting sellers who sell TO Australia, not sellers who are located in Australia.

This why you are getting so many Chinese sellers.

[the_hunter04]

Wonder when ebay will put their foot down

[qui*art]

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@lyndal1838 wrote:

When you use the Australia Only filter you are getting sellers who sell TO Australia, not sellers who are located in Australia.

This why you are getting so many Chinese sellers.

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then the filter s poorly worded as it clearly states ‘item location’ as opposed to say.. ‘destination’... certainly the wording has added to my confusion as I think of item location as being the place the item originates from. 

[i-once-was-bump]

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@lyndal1838 wrote:

When you use the Australia Only filter you are getting sellers who sell TO Australia, not sellers who are located in Australia.

This why you are getting so many Chinese sellers.

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The "Australia Only" filter is for "Item Location".

It has nothing to do with the location of the seller or sellers willing to sell to Australia.

[singline2006]

When I order products and get a delivery date  that's when I expect it delivered.I give a few days happy to do that but

how do I explain to my customer that the part has not come cause it's 2 weeks late!!! wake up eBay this has gone on way to long!

I don't Trust Sydney orders anymore stating thats in Austraiia . unless they are up front !

[offroad7400]

As the original poster of this thread, nothing has changed in nearly 4 years since I wrote it. eBay has done nothing to police it's own policies and are happy to side with the massive Chinese sellers who provide them with volume revenue.

Since 2014 more and more Chinese sellers have adopted this fulfilment service and even Australia Post has hopped on the bandwagon offering a similar service through their StarTrek Express affiliate.

The Chinese sellers realise how slow China/Aust Post takes to delivery small single items to buyers so many are now using consolidaters in every Australian capital city to drop ship multiple sales. Each day the high volume sellers or every few days for the lower sellers consolidate all the sales for one country or one city and ship them in one box (less than $1,000 in value to avoid GST) using air freight to a freight consolidater. When the box arrives all the small packages get local postage added and mailed using Australia Post. This process gets your article delivered in 2-3 weeks instead of 4-6 weeks. Yes it's a con because the item was never located locally. It is a marketing trick to make you buy their item thinking it will be delivered faster.

Some of the consolidaters are very sophisticated and will create an Australia Post tracking number when you buy the item, but it will show nothing for 1-2 weeks until the stock arrives in Australia at their warehouse. This practice is becoming very widespread.

A trick to work out if the item is genuinely in Australia is to simply look at the sellers feedback. If they have over 100,000 sales they are obviously in China or look at their other items using the Item Location Worldwide option and you will see they sell globally using the same method.

If you have received an item which is faulty or not as described, simply give NEGATIVE feedback straight away. Don't even bother opening a resolution case, as eBay/PayPal will then insist you return the item to China for the refund. Chinese buyers detest NEGATIVE feedback and will offer you compensation to remove the feedback. They start with a low figure and will eventually build up to a FULL refund.