Sellers mailing items to "Ebay:<random letters>"

[k3vinh3ng]

I've had 3 purchases recently (4 purchases in total) where ebay sellers have been sending items to address:

Ebay:<random letters> 

followed by (nearly accurate) address.

eg, today I received an Australia Post noitification saying that a parcel will be coming to:

John Doe

Ebay:4q7gln9 123 Fake St

Sydney NSW 2000

(name and address have been changed for privacy, but the bolded section is what I'm asking about).

last month, I had Australia Post notifications saying that a parcel would be delivered to:

John Doe

Ebay:nphjhhd , Suite 123, Level 4,5

67 Pitt St

Sydney NSW 2000

worse yet, because of the way the the address was split, the item was never delivered.

the real address was of the format

John Doe

Suite 123, Level 4, 567 Pitt St

Sydney NSW 2000

(another recent purchase had Ebay:kps2vz4 added to the address line)

not all sellers have this issue when sending parcels to me, but I can't tell in advance which sellers are likely to add these random characters (and potentially mess up my address).

Does anyone have any advice on why this happens, and how I can avoid this in the future?

[davewil1964]

As has been stated - the AP label generator puts them on separate lines, but then prints the label with one line for address lines 1 & 2.

It is nothing to do with the sender. You obviously haven't sent anything using it. IT IS AN AP THING!!!

[davewil1964]

If you consider gutterpunk's answer as a solution, you obviously are looking for a reason to blame the seller, rather than looking for a solution.

[k3vinh3ng]

Davwil,

You seem to be taking this very personally.

from what I have come to understand, there is nothing that the buyer can do to fix this, other than to try to shorten their address (which is what I intend to do).

If there is a problem between the Ebay / the seller(s) / Australia Post, then this should be highlighed via the appropriate channels.

In fact I think this thread would be an excellent example that could be used, to get all appropriate parties around the table to deal with this incompatibility.

That said, I think it's rough to say that the buyer needs to chase up Australia Post for compensation, when the seller has the ability (and intelligence) to double check that the details are correct.

as a matter of fact, I received a message from a seller back in early November, saying:

Hi mate,

As attached your address, there is ebay:rnxxzgg, what’s that for? Do we need include that in your post address? Please let me know, thanks!

I replied that I had no idea what he was talking about, and gave him my full address as normally formatted.
He said "thanks" and sent the parcel to my properly formatted address, which I received with no problems.

If there is an issue with the way addresses are "automatically" copied from Ebay to Australia Post, shouldn't sellers (who can see both the input and the mangled output) group together and escalate the issue with both Ebay and Australia Post, so that the system gets fixed?

[tangledstitches · Accepted solution]

I'd suggest spreading your address over an extra line, not condensing it.

Instead of:

John Doe

Ebay:nphjhhd , Suite 123, Level 4,5

67 Pitt St

Sydney NSW 2000

Try:

John Doe

Ebay:nphijhhd,  Suite 123, Level 4,

567 Pitt St

Sydney

OR

....... Suit 123,

Level 4, 567 Pitt St,

SYDNEY NSW 2000

The last version would leave plenty of room for ebay's code without pushing some of your address onto the next line.

While it may fit at the moment if you only shifted the street number to the next line, if ebay's code numbers get longer you've already allowed for it.

It's not as simple as you think when it comes to sellers complaining to ebay and getting things changed.  Most requests fall on deaf ears.  It would take thousands of complaints before they even think about fixing this fiasco, but in the meantime use the workaround I've described above.

[k3vinh3ng]

Thanks tangledstitches,

Your suggestion makes a lot of sense.

Truth be told, I actually already split my address across 2 address lines:

Suite 123, Level 4,

567 Pitt St,

Sydney, NSW, 2000

But recently, my some of my parcels have had both Address line 1 and Address line 2 concatenated (along with the tracking string),
and it's when this happens (and without manual intervention) that problems occur.

The thing is, it's not all sellers that have this issue.  I've had heaps of parcels delivered without problems (and split nicely at the appropriate lines), probably 80-90% are fine.  It's just a few sellers (typically those based in Chullora NSW) that really make a mess of my address.

From what I've come to understand, if an item is in "Chullora NSW" it's likely to be a china based seller drop shipping from a direct from China wholesaller.  (Similar to sellers whose items are in "AU, Australia")

[tangledstitches]

If you click on their feedback number it'll show where the seller is registered on their feedback page (just under where it shows their username and their date of registration), so always check their feedback, whether you suspect they're from China or not.  Some do post out from warehouses in Australia but a lot ship from China, but in either circumstance they probably send so many parcels that they're too busy to check the postage labels, or aren't aware that they need to.  I only send letters these days and hand write them all but when I used to print ebay's postage labels I doubt I would have thought of checking that the address printed correctly if it showed properly on the screen.