Bad Ebay Experiences

[midwestbroncosfan]

As long as you have insurance. Also, the buyer has to be willing to pay the huge shipping fee associated with Fedex and UPS. Don't EVER ship USPS overseas. You will never see your product again and will lose your money. It happened to me! $400 is a LOT of money to lose. I learned the hard way.

Shipping with UPS or Fedex would solve problems overseas though correct?

 

[midwestbroncosfan]

I sell on ebay as well and though I do offer international shipping, it is a pain in the ass to do. I never know what to put on the customs form, which countries would owe tax on the declared value, etc. At USPS You can't use the automated postal center for international shipping, and I beleive you have to drop them at the desk or request a face to face pickup for customs reasons, which makes actually getting the package out in the specified "handling time" hard sometimes. I would assume most people on this board have a real job with hours that coincide with the USPS counter hours (I swear mine is only open for like 30 minutes a day somedays), making finding time challenging sometimes. And god forbid you come at the last minute, with the treatment, remarks, and glares you get from the employees you'd think that you were there to kidnap their dog, not give them business.

When I do ship international, I ship USPS First Class which runs 30.00$ and they give you a tracking number and insurance up to 100$. For any real expensive items (i.e. over 200$) I just state no international shipping, I figure it is better to be safe than sorry. I also refuse to ship to anyone with a feedback profile of less than 10 or an ebay history of less than 90 days, figuring if they have been on for that long and have that much feedback, they are being honest on the other side as well. Haven't been burned yet, but if I do get burned, the international selling is done. The other thing is that ebay allows international sellers to open "did not receive item" cases as soon as the estimated delviery date passes, even if (like many have said) customs takes their merry time with it. Then you have to go through that whole hassle of closing the case, responding to ebay, etc, even if you upload the tracking number. Sometimes, the hassle is just not worth it.

I realize I am talking to many of the great international buyers on the forum, who I would gladly do business with, but as has been stated before, with the lack of seller protections, ebay has become a swampground of scammers looking for someone ignorant to ship them a pair of Oakleys for free. You can't blame people for just staying away from it all together.

I hear you on this one and AGREE!

 

[Kevin Bunch]

I haven't read all 5 pages of this conversation, so this may have already been said, but most sellers don't want to do transactions outside of the US because of the postal service, not the buyers.

I recently sent a package to Malaysia and now I'm out a new pair of matte rootbeer frogskins w/ fire. I paid for tracking, insurance, and delivery confirmation, but the seller claimed he didn't get it. The tracking says there has been two attempts to deliver, but because the words "delivery confirmed" do not appear on the tracking, i got screwed. After a lot of paperwork, if I'm lucky I'll get the $295 the package was insured for. The buyer paid $312 which has already been taken from me, the shipping was $40 which is just gone, and the glasses are gone.

I have no problem with buyer outside of the US, but if your country's postal service is ****, like Malaysia's don't be surprised when no one wants to take the risk

 

[jk-27]

Yeah, that's one reason why I don't sell to Italy, not because of the people but because their postal service is notorious for losing packages.

 

[tmac777311]

Thought I would add this for all you non-americans. Please add your phone number to both your ebay account and your paypal account. Reason being many private shipping companies (UPS, Fedex) will NOT ship international to certain places without a phone number and it is just another pain in the ass thing to ask for during an international ebay transaction.

 

[Oakleynerd]

i never had the problem without my phonenumber . . .

 

[Mr. Bright5ide]

Shipping with UPS or Fedex would solve problems overseas though correct?

It would definitely benefit the seller mostly I think. And benefit the package actually getting there. If the buyer is dishonest and lyingly says they never received their package that's a different story.. If anyone works for an airline or is in the military you can save huge on shipping Fedex. When you go to the store let them know you have an interline discount & show them your employee id, it's something like 75% off which is a much higher discount than FedEx employees even get believe it or not. Like midwestbroncosfan mentioned the buyer has to deal with the extra fees however. I shipped a pair of Pit Bosses to Taiwan via FedEx and everything went smooth. I wasn't able to request a signature so I wasn't sure whether or not that would happen but when I tracked the package online it did show a name confirming it had been signed for. Not sure if this varies from country to country however as often-times what happens in countries that don't have FedEx is that the package will be handed over to a local courier company in that country who is then responsible for delivering said package.

That said, I've shipped to Canada via USPS on several occasions without incident & will probably continue to use them for anything going that way.

 

[qBan]

ive sold some things on feebay but never shipped outside of the US there.
however, ive sold plenty of things thru here, and ive shipped to australia and indonesia, the buyer always got their products in no later than 10 days for both countries. i guess if youre willing to take the risk to help someone... Only done it with members on the forum though