Item location misrepresentation

[bigdonut]

This has been happening for years.

I started reporting them (Chinese), the more people report the soonier they might do something about it.

KLM Search is useless because they are say they are in Sydney, Darwin, Melbourne and I even seen one the other day at Broome.

Look at the item, Half way down the listing, Right Hand Side there is a Report Button, (Under Ad)  Click it and  Report Category : Listing Practices, Then Reason for report: Other Listing Practises, Then Detailed Listing: Item location misrepresentation.

The More People that do it the better chance something will get done.

If you message ebay they will say that they are warehousing in these cities (Which most are Not) Some are if they have Woolworths pickup but 99% are in Hong Kong and China.

Not only does it have an effect on our business but buyers are getting ........ (Not Happy)

Not only is it coming from overseas but ebay give them up to 30 days or more to deliver the item and what do they give us before we get a defect...

The other issue is Drop downs, when you search an item and it comes up for $1 when infact the battery that runs it is $1 but the item in the search is actually $10... Thus they get first up on the search by price.

If saying you are in Australia (Seller) then you should be liable for all the Consumer laws and paying GST as we are.

Chinese sellers get away with Blue Murder with 20 user names selling the same thing for 1c difference.

If ebay checked they would see that the payment goes back to the same Paypal Account, all they would need to do is cross reference the paypal account to stop it.

And yes my sales have also fallen off a cliff in the past 2 Weeks from 20-30 a day to 1 or 2 sales a day

Ok I have had my 2c Worth

[englishrosegardens]

I'd say eBay's biggest problem is that they have no proof of where the items are located, and without this they can't act.  They could leave themselves open to lawsuits if they deleted thousands of Chinese listings without evidence.

[dazzledayz]

I'm pretty sure the Tim Davis explanation is the correct one.

In the World of Booksellers there is a UK operation that started up here a couple of years back 😉

They initially claimed their items (500,000+ at the time) were located in Sydney.

Interstingly, the location matched that of their Sydney solicitors office.

Numerous complaints about location misrepresentation had the desired effect in this case.

Different strokes for different folks ... quite.

Mind you, this same seller averages 100 combined neuts/negs per month and never sees retribution.

As fo late shipment rates, if feedback is anything to go by, they must have a significant % (but see above).

It seems quite obvious that there are multiple internal contradictions in rule enforcement.

[digital*ghost]

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@englishrosegardens wrote:

I'd say eBay's biggest problem is that they have no proof of where the items are located, and without this they can't act.  They could leave themselves open to lawsuits if they deleted thousands of Chinese listings without evidence.

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Any buyer who has purchased an item supposedly located in Australia but sent from China can provide plenty of evidence.

It's interesting that this is one of the few scenarios where eBay won't take a buyer's word (or evidence) for it. 

[englishrosegardens]

I know what you're saying, but they'd have to do a lot of work to collect evidence, and it wouldn't necessarily relate to current listings.

I also know that ebay often acts without evidence when deleting listings, but I think the legal implications could be greater in some areas than others.

There are so many other areas where nothing is done about their own policies that I wouldn't really expect anything to be done in this area. On my smallest selling ID I'm competing with a seller who has six of each item listed in six separate listings and reporting them is an absolute waste of time. I have an extra feature on my product that sets it apart from the rest, but I still need to be seen in order to sell anything, and I'm swamped by several hundred duplicate listings that I can do nothing about.

When it comes to ebay injustices, I try not to think too much about it because it'll only affect my health (God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can't change).

[davewil1964]

WOBA are running 99% which means thousands of positives. Which makes sense, given they have over 220k feedback in that few years.

And they no longer misrepresent location, so the argument is specious, at best.

[digital*ghost]

I can certainly agree on the energy spent on it from a personal or even business point of view, and I'm definitely not losing sleep over continually worrying about these issues (though I might if competing sellers were culprits of this practice), but I do have to maintain the general position of questioning eBay practice(s) and their explanations for them if I find suspect, even if I'm not actively campaigning (or protesting) them.

Perhaps it equates to the same thing as acceptance, but I personally think it's healthy to question eBay at pretty much every turn, rather than just take everything they say at face value - it's not a deep resentment or mistrust thing, though it can often look like it, for me it's just a logical step in processing information. 

[englishrosegardens]

Yes, I get that you don't tie yourself in knots over things you can do nothing about, as some tend to do. Nothing wrong with querying things and being aware of what should or shouldn't be.

[lyndal1838]

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@englishrosegardens wrote:

When it comes to ebay injustices, I try not to think too much about it because it'll only affect my health (God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can't change).

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You must be one very serene person Rose if you can cope with all the injustices that ebay hands out.

[englishrosegardens]

Nope, but I've learnt to live with a lot of their rubbish, especially the stuff I can't change.  I've had a lot of stress and injustice from ebay (more from dodgy sellers than from ebay itself, which is why I rarely buy now) but it's a drop in the ocean compared to the other stress I've gone through in my lifetime, which I've paid dearly for healthwise, so I know I have to learn to just let some things wash over me.  I've never been one to cry over spilt milk (spilt money) because I know it's such a waste of time and energy, and I prefer not to be weighed down by it so I tend to do whatever I can to blot out all memory of it.  

Every time ebay brings in another change that either makes more work for me or makes my business riskier, I sigh and then just keep plodding on.  I could worry about next year's changes when we'll no longer be able to put "does not apply" in for the UPC, etc, but there's nothing I can do about it so I'll just face it when it comes.  Everyone else in my category has the same problem so either ebay will have to provide the answer or there'll be a lot of 'used' products for sale.

I'm lucky that my main product isn't subject to scamming and I rarely have a lost letter, but I can feel for others who aren't so lucky.  I've seen where people are so paranoid about lost mail that they insist on reg'd post for $5 items, but they're just giving money to AP that they could put in their own pockets.  I used to worry about lost letters but not to that extent, and recently I even decided to raise the limit where I insist on sending registered because it was just costing me more in fees when I charged it, but I did add 50c to my postage on all items to self-insure. 

My pet peeve is people who come to the boards to rant and rave about the cost of postage - and I do mean RANT AND RAVE!  They might think they feel better for it but this isn't the case because many of them keep saying the same thing over and over again, which isn't "getting it off their chest" at all.  As a friend of mine says, postage is what it is, and no amount of  ranting is going to change it.  I think slow postage may be something we have to get used to as well, though I hope not.  Over the last several years I've had the occasional letter that takes its own sweet time to arrive but I've been lucky that my buyers have been prepared to wait.  I feel my personal messages saying I've posted their items makes them trust me more when there's a problem so I'll continue to take the time to send them.  When there is a problem they tend to click reply to my message rather than opening a case so that's another reason to do it.  My basic reason for doing it is because I like to treat others how I'd like to be treated.

[cakeconstructions101]

Thanks, I just reported a user as per your details. I think to get eBay's attention you need to report them for more than one listing. Found a user that has half listings saying location Hong Kong and half NSW. Items are $1.00 and free postage which is just impossible in Australia.