Ebay seller? beware! -update-

HowardH

Member
Joined
Jan 23, 2007
Messages
1,572
I have used Ebay on and off for 7 years without much of an issue... until now.  I had an iphone I wanted to sell back in early Feb.  It sold right away but it was to a guy in the Ukraine.  He was a highly rated buyer and I checked with Ebay to make sure there wasn't going to be any issue getting paid.  They assured me as long as I followed their guidelines, it would be no problem.  I used their billing and shipping system and that's where the problem arose.  Never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never (did I say it enough to get your attention?) use the USPS to ship ANYTHING out of the U.S.  They sat on my phone after it was shipped for over a month at a facility in Chicago and it's two months later and the buyer still doesn't have it.  So he says.  Originally, I had to wait 21 days for my payment to be released.  I called Ebay and Paypal and they assured me that after 21 days, the money would be released without any chance of it being withheld.  Wrong.  They lied.  Since the buyer didn't get it, they held it again... and I'll never see a penny.  Seems the USPS doesn't track beyond the borders and since there is no way to track it, I will have no way of verifying whether it ever got delivered meaning the funds will never be released since Ebay/Paypal can't prove it was delivered.  Is something wrong here?  Does something stink?  The buyer filed a clam with Paypal and guess who they are siding with.... yep.... the buyer!  I did everything by the book.  everything.  to no avail.  Ebay/Paypal gives no protection to a seller who uses USPS.  Had I known this, I would have never used them.  I could have gone with UPS or Fedex and none of this would have mattered.  They track all the way through the delivery process to recipient.  I called USPS today and first, they kept me on hold for 2 hours before they answered my call.  2 hours!!!  Then the guy basically told me too bad, they don't track international packages even with a tracking number once it leaves the good ole US of A.  I asked him why it sat for over a month.  His answer was so outrageous I almost dropped the phone.  You ready for this???  Wait for it... wait for it... It's because they didn't feel any urgency to get it to it's destination.  He said they didn't ship it because they didn't see any reason to do so.  It sat in a pile with other postage paying customers packages growing mold.   It sat because it could.  It's no wonder they are losing 2 billion a year.  I called Ebay and they told me they understand my feelings of getting raked over the coals but it's not their responsibility.  BS.  They have a fiduciary responsibility to let their sellers know that the USPS doesn't track internationally.  They knew it but didn't bother to tell anyone.  The end result?  The buyer will get his money back, he may even get the phone someday soon but I will have no way of ever knowing.  I am being held hostage to the integrity of the buyer half a world away.  He says he will release the money when he gets the phone.  Yeah, right.  I will never get the phone back and I am out $350.  Nice.  My advice?   Be very, very, very careful when shipping overseas and always use either UPS or Fedex and NEVER use the USPS.  Oh yeah... one other thing.  Ebay does NOT stand behind their guarantee of protecting their sellers.  I'm living proof.  It will be a cold day in He** before I use Ebay again.  You know, I didn't even get a kiss...
 
Yep, ain't it great---- :P

I sell on ebay and ship Internationally daily. Packages under 4 pounds shipped 1st Class Airmail are tracked until they leave the USA. Packages over 4 pounds, or lighter ones shipped Priority or Express are tracked door to door. That said, International mail is notoriously slow and buyers can be a huge pain expecting their purchases to show up almost overnight, then filing claims when the box is delayed. I have stopped shipping to Brazil for just this reason... ebay/Paypal always eager to give that money back to the buyer and screw over the seller who did nothing wrong.

Sorry that you had this problem.
 
Howard, that stinks.  I have never done anything with EBay because I felt like there was too much chance to " get took". 

I just shipped something by USPS to a FOG friend in Scotland and it arrived quickly and with no hassle whatsoever. 

In January , I sent three Lie Nielsen calendars to a FoG friend in England.  USPS tracked it through UK Customs and then the package disappeared.  Once it left Customs there was no way to trace it. 

Go figure.
 
The Ebay supervisor said he understood the problem and maybe they should post something in their best practices section for Sellers about this type of situation.  I'm not a professional Ebayer who does this for a living.  I'm one of the millions of ordinary sellers who sells something a couple of times a year with the expectation they will take care of me and warn someone about how USPS doesn't track first class packages once they cross the border.  I couldn't have been more wrong.  USPS is simply pathetic. 
 
i wouldn't sell to anyone outside the USA. seems like that adds another risk factor.
 
Howard,

USPS doesn't even track reliably INSIDE the US. I paid extra for tracking from an ebay sell once they never even updated the database.

When I complained they pretty much said "too bad".

USPS deserves to go out of business.
 
Hi. Totally understand your issue with shipping international, but really the issue is most of the time with the carrier or non tracked service...I live in Canada, and buy lots of items from the USA. Us Canadians like usps since it transfers to our Canada Post and the brokerage is fixed plus we just pay our gst so we know what to expect. I will normally pay the extra shipping to get tracking numbers and for the most part if it takes extra time it is usually Canada Customs that slows the process...I know it's a bit of an extra hassle to ship outside the usa, but for those of us that are trying to support businesses in North America which for the most part make quality items please don't discount us because of the hassle....I buy lots of items from the usa, and really appreciate vendors who understand shipping to Canada.....Outside of North American, sometimes the laws in some other countries are well...less than trustworthly....hence I don't buy from them either....too bad there are bad people in the world hiding behind the lack of laws, but well there is..
If you have concerns shipping to Canada, make sure the buyer is willing to pay for tracking...that way both parties know it was shipped and where it is......both parties win...
Greg
 
fritter63 said:
Howard,

USPS doesn't even track reliably INSIDE the US.

[blink]
TRUE FOR SURE! The USPS "tracking" system within the USA needs a complete overhaul. Why other carriers have figured it out but not the USPS yet is beyond me...
 
Lol, reading this post makes me laugh a little inside. I'm sorry you had to go through this but let me tell my story. I bought an xbox one and sold my old 360 on eBay. I shipped it on dec 26th. By January 20th it was sitting in Iowa since January 1st. I called usps, couldn't get through their idiotic automated system as it seemed no matter what route I took I was routed back to the main menu eventually, and by some stroke of pure luck I finally got through to an agent. This was about an hour later. I explained my situation and was told it takes 30-60 days (!!!) for the package to arrive to California from Chicago. I explained that's never been the case before and was basically told I'm SOL and I could call a local branch. So I did that, was on hold for another 30 minutes, then a rude guy told me he'll try to email the Iowa center and he'd get back to me in a few days. He didn't so I called him back. The guy I reached asked what was up, I said I'd like to talk to so and so, ok hold on. 30 minutes later same guy answers and asks who I'm holding for and I tell him to which he replies he's gone (this was 10:30 am by now). I said are you kidding, when is he coming back? "He's gone for the day". I laughed and asked what kind of work hours do they have where a guy just leaves at 10:30 for the day and proceeded to ask if he could help me. After a grumble he said ok and tried to help but got to a point where I had to call some state branch.

So I call them and wait for another 30 mins on hold and talked to a lady that basically said they couldn't help me to which I was fuming at this point and said no wonder usps is going under. Convo over. It's now march 31 and guess where my package is? Iowa. Point being, I will never use usps to ship anything again. Bunch of idiotic BS.
 
why not report the phone stolen to Apple, does that not stop the unit ever being operational again? Just guessing...
If the buyer had the phone and could not initialize, he would have to get back to you???
I thought Apple could track all phones with GPS if it was turned on????
 
It's interesting how much our experiences vary.  I've had by far more negative experiences with UPS than I've had with USPS.  
 
eBay sucks period, there's a reason why it's dying. Even my friends/family don't buy anything on eBay anymore.

Buyers screw sellers and Sellers screw buyers all the time. It's to the point where if I get burned I just leave negative feedback, I don't even give sellers a chance to do right. I've been burned so many times on eBay that I almost avoid it at all costs and I never try to seek a resolution because that takes way too long and I never end up getting anything for it.

Often it's sellers putting up misleading pictures and selling you stuff that's clearly used when you purchased "new" or NIB - "new in box." And there's a lot of shipping & handling abuse on eBay too, small items have outrageous S&H costs so they don't have to pay eBay/PayPal Fees. It also makes it very difficult to find a deal on anything when all of the cheap items on eBay have these atrocious shipping fees.

I also notice a lot of tools on eBay (especially Snap-On) are priced above MSRP. Even used tools sell for above MSRP!!!! Now I buy a lot of stuff either locally or on Amazon.com. Last time I bought a phone I used the classified on Kijiji and it worked out nicely.
 
TelcoRandy said:
eBay sucks period

^^^This.

I did a quarter of a million dollars in sales on ebay back in 2001. I had thousands of positive feedback points. I always refused to use PayPal because I considered them too great a risk. One time they charged me back $3500 for an item that the buyer had already received and swore that he had never filed a claim on. I actually did some detective work and called a PayPal exec at home on a Sunday morning. Boy was he surprised!! But I got my money!

[eek]

Ever since that event years ago I refused to do business on ebay using PayPal. It wasn't too long after that when ebay decided to 'insist' that you use PayPal, so I stopped doing business on ebay entirely because the risk was just too great.

Even if a seller uses ebay to list their products, I will do anything I can to buy from them via another method. Except for the rare collectibles or something that can't be found anywhere else, there is ZERO reason to buy anything from ebay. I have NO IDEA how they are still around...?

 
batcave said:
Sounds like a trip to Ukraine is coming soon!

[unsure]

Might want to wait until the near civil war sort itself out before turning up there. It's all a bit messy. That and the threat of potential Russian invasion.
 
    I realize that other people have had bigger problems than I have on Ebay.  I've been using Ebay for at least ten years. Mostly for personal stuff as opposed to business sales. About 1500 transactions, 50/50 on selling and buying.  I have had only a few problems and those were mostly minor. Of course the more transactions the more likely someone will have a problem eventually (of course if someone gets a problem right away that would be a huge turn off).  I think some item categories are more likely to draw problematic transactions than others. As far as selling goes I find it very useful to sell things, and get a good price for, that I would not really have a good way to sell otherwise.  Classifieds and Craig's list I find to be much more of a nuisance and not worth the hassle when it comes to the communication and payment. Unless the item is difficult to ship.  For me  as both buyer and seller the Ebay / PayPal system has worked great.  I don't even mind paying the fees, they are in business  selling a service after all. Especially when I get to sell to a national or world wide market.  As a seller though, I don't like that I can't leave negative feedback for a buyer anymore. But as a buyer  I understand where this comes from.  Not trying to push aside the problems people have had just pointing out that it works well for some. As always the stories of problems tend to rise to the surface and all the successful things settle.  For me the risk is small compared to the benefit.

Seth
 
Wuffles said:
batcave said:
Sounds like a trip to Ukraine is coming soon!

[unsure]

Might want to wait until the near civil war sort itself out before turning up there. It's all a bit messy. That and the threat of potential Russian invasion.

So send the postmaster in!
 
duburban said:
i wouldn't sell to anyone outside the USA. seems like that adds another risk factor.

Plus one here. I do not sell outside the USA. Problem solved.
 
Maybe it's just me, but selling something to the other side of the world to countries that are still in the proces of getting rid of their 3rd world status sounds like a recipe for disaster. I wouldn't have touched such a sale with a ten foot pole.

Surprised though that the problem mainly seems to lie with USPS. That's a terrible treatment you got from them. A company like that should go out of business ASAP.
 
This has nothing to do with ebay, but rather about shipping USPS or otherwise.

When the Fogtainers were in full bore planning a Russian member asked whether I would ship to Russia.  I started checking it out and found that for me there was only one option.  I admit I don't remember which company would.  The insurance was outrageous.  The reason for this and why others would not ship there was due to the "unlikelihood" that the product would arrive at its destination due to theft.  I didn't ship of course.

Shipments to Europe and Australia went via USPS Priority Express and yes the tracking was dismal in Europe.  Australia delivery times were only a day or two longer than shipping to the other side of the US.  Outstanding!  I only had one issue in Europe and it turned out that the packages were "located" in a facility although the tracking showed them as being delivered to the correct address.

Peter
 
Back
Top