Sellers falsely claiming item located in Australia; resultant GST evasion

[lefant53]

I am currently in dialogue with a seller of an item which he claims to have posted 2 weeks ago from NSW (to Victoria). Tracing the item with Australia Post shows several scans over the period, but all have narrations which indicate the item has still not actually been handed over to AP. His responses seem like stalling tactics (please reconfirm your address, check with your post office) while he ignores my simple question "Where and when was it posted?" I strongly suspect he is waiting to receive the item himself from overseas, and only then will he actually post it using the tracking number he created the moment I paid. I notice he has several negative feedback comments complaining of long delay and items finally arriving either direct from overseas or having been re-posted in Australia. Assuming he arranges his imports (not through ebay) in parcels with a declared value (true or otherwise) below A$1,000 he will not pay GST. So by extension I will become the beneficiary of GST evasion, since GST would have been payable by me through ebay if the item location had been declared truthfully. Have other buyers encountered this, and what, if anything, are ebay and the ATO doing about it?

lefant53

[lefant53]

My "question" is: Is anything being done to stamp out the practice of sellers LYING about having an item available in Australia when in fact the buyer will have to wait ages for them to arrange for it to come from overseas (either direct to the buyer or via the "Australian" seller). And about the deceptive practice of a seller obtaining a tracking number from Aust Post as soon as the sale is made, although it will be weeks before he will be able to post the item. Apart from negative feedback, what else can we do?

[davewil1964]

Probably not. But if people stopped buying from the shonks, it wouldn't be worth their while to continue on eBay.

If people did get caught out and opened INR cases through eBay when their items were a reasonable amount of time overdue, especially if a tracking number with no activity for many weeks was generated,  the shonks would be losing money and it wouldn't be worth their while.

I don't know about Malaysia, but eBay China certainly won't do anything about them. The Chinese government subsidises exports and, except in a few notable cases, doesn't believe in intellectual property. All eBay Australia can do is report them to eBay.cn, but I doubt they even do that, given it is a pointless exercise.

The time to do your due diligence is PRIOR to purchase. Caveat emptor.

[digital*ghost]

This practice (sending bulk shipments to Aus, dispatching via Aus Post to their respective buyers once here), has been re-branded as "just in time fulfillment", and apparently eBay is quite fine with it. It's like a cross between pre-ordering and dropshipping, and (anecdotally, at least), eBay say it's cool to say the item location is within Australia, because it's dispatched from within Australia when it gets here, even though it was initially dispatched from overseas.

Sellers can be reported for item location misrepresenation, but I wouldn't know how effective it is, though suspect it's pretty ineffective judging by how many sellers are still doing it, nearly a year after the new GST legislation on low-value imports was introduced.

PESA has a report form here, which I noticed the other day : https://www.pesaaustralia.org/misrepresentation

Could be worth a shot.

[lefant53]

Thanks very much, digital*ghost.

As I've never sold anything on ebay (but bought often) I had never heard of PeSA. I'll certainly gather the evidence and follow up with them.

Thanks again,

lefant53