Probably old news too many of you but the idea of undisclosed dropshipping just dropped on me. Spoiler...eBay customer service was quick to take care of me by canceling the transaction, refunding me, and investigating the seller. Said seller had an item listed as shipping from California...implying that it's actually in California. Nothing in the listing suggested otherwise. Item location even said California. Price was at a considerable markup above the same item available from many sellers in China, but it would be worth it to get it that much faster. So I bought. It's been two weeks and the item is not even in the USPS tracking system yet, even though seller confirmed next day mailing after I paid. So it's obvious what is going on...he/she is waiting to get it from China and repackage it to mail to me "from California," gouging me via false pretense. All's well that ends well, though. Apparently eBay is really cracking down on sellers who practice undisclosed dropshipping. As well they should, it's fraudulent. So here's the lesson I just learned: if you see an item listed as located in the United States but with pictures and descriptions identical to those from Chinese sellers, thoroughly scour the seller's feedback for negs on delayed shipping.
I think I just maybe have the same issue. Bought a Instapot (3qt) on the 22nd of December . Never received a tracking order or any acknowledgment of shipping. In the description, they ship within 24 hours. Contacted the seller several times with no response. Guy now has well over 24 negative feedbacks within that time frame. I had to jump through hoops to get someone from eBay on the phone so I could start an investigation. However, I can’t issue a “formal” complaint until the 9th. The first thing I suspected is the seller places the order from China and now he got caught with his pants down.
Yep! You should call customer service and tell them that you suspect dropshipping. I think they'll take care of you. The lady I was talking to didn't even hesitate. Apparently this is happening often. Also, I chose the option to have them call me back. There was a 2-minute wait.
I've also noticed some like that will not give a specific location. It'll just say U.S., or a State, but not a City. I've always suspected those... Soon they'll be listing port cities, and as people catch on they'll list inland cities...
Same thing happened to me about 10yrs ago and Ebay refused to help in any way. The seller was even able to get the negative feedback I left deleted. A seller in Pa listed an item as buy it now, 10 available and stated it would ship in 48hrs from Pa...also said tracking # will be provided. I purchased the item on a Sunday, come Wednesday I haven't heard anything from the seller, so I send a message asking for my tracking #...Now it's Monday and still nothing, so I contact Ebay and they said they would look into it. So for another week I keep trying to contact the seller and during this time Ebay is just giving me excuses. Fast forward 3 weeks and still nothing from seller and no real help from Ebay. I find the seller listed on google as an electronics dealer and get their phone # so I call and leave several messages---no reply. Finally I leave a message threatening to call the police and within 20 min I recieve an email saying "BE PATIENT SELLER WENT ON VACATION" so I reply "calling police been patient enough" an hour later here comes my tracking # but it's not active yet Next day check the tracking # and Item was being drop shipped from a company in California and the estimated delivery date was 15 days away...they were sending it by the cheapest slowest option available. Yeah well it was a heavy item [12v 30a power supply] which the seller charged me $38.00 for shipping on top of the $150.00 I paid for it! So almost 2 months from the start of this fiasco my ps arrives and now Ebay is mediating. The seller claims they were shipped a defective lot of power supplies and had to return them to the manufacturer, hence the reason for drop shipping...But strangely enough the listing stayed active the whole time. I find that hard to believe, but any way I offered to forget the whole thing and even offered to leave positive feedback if they refunded the shipping cost. Sorry for the long storry. The seller offered to give me a refund of $5.00 which Ebay found to be an acceptable solution. I declined the offer and left neg feedback calling the seller dishonest & uncooperative, which ebay termed as abusive & promptly deleted. Sent from my LM-Q720 using Tapatalk
That's a horror story all right. I wonder if, in the intervening years, eBay customer non-service got such a bad reputation that they started setting better policies.
Not saying this is true all the time, but some sellers actually use their Amazon accounts, especially Prime, to order items for Ebay buyers. And that's why you'll see it being shipped from somewhere in the US.
Read an article that eBay is cracking down on that too. There are people who have reasons for not wanting to give Amazon any business, but sometimes a box from Amazon shows up at their door on behalf of the eBay seller. So they're angry that they ended up paying someone to sell something from Amazon that they would never have bought direct.
Anytime I see what could potentially be something from Amazon, I go look there because it'll be cheaper and I have Prime.
Well now if I do happen to buy something off of ebay I won't deal with anyone that doesn't have 100% positive feedback. I know you can look at a sellers 97% positive rating and think they sound good, but when you take in to account that their sales are in the 10's of thousands, well then they have hundreds of dissatisfied customers. I was an active seller on Ebay and although sometimes problems do arise, it wasn't very hard for me to have 100% positive feedback...because I always offered a reasonable and generous solution to the buyer...even if it wasn't technically my fault. I once bought from a new seller and she grossly underestimated her shipping cost. In her desire to get a rather large and vaulable item to me safely, she had the UPS store package it for her, insure it, 2 day shipping,etc. and it wound up costing her more than I paid her for the item and the shipping. It was her mistake but I split the shipping cost with her. She still lost money on the deal, but honestly I didn't have to give her anything---I just felt it was the right thing to do. Sent from my LM-Q720 using Tapatalk
Just found a seller with a similar item listed as in Orlando. Dig into the seller profile and you find *ta-da!* the seller is in China. No way that item is here. Reporting this one as soon as eBay customer service opens. How many dozens or hundreds of sellers do this? Ebay should weed through and cut them all off and ban upon detection any seller who registers listings in locations that don't match where the seller actually is.
eBay is going to investigate the seller. I asked what happens to sellers who get caught doing this? "The seller's account will be canceled." They'll just re-register, of course. But it's something.
All I can say is based upon my past experience, Ebay always seemed to side with the sellers, and even look the other way when less than honest sellers were clearly violating the terms set by Ebay. And why wouldn't they? The sellers fee's are what Ebay is making a profit from. The more you sell the more you pay in fees, so why not protect them? I can recall seeing sellers with less than 70% positive feedback, but people kept buying from them, so it doesn't seem like it would be in their best interest to ban said sellers. Unless Ebay's management developed a conscious--I doubt it will ever change. Sent from my LM-Q720 using Tapatalk
Agreed. There was a long stretch where Ebay ignored undisclosed dropships and fraudulent listings that gouged buyers out of postage, as well as other seller offenses. But this does seem different. Who knows...maybe enough screwed over buyers got fed up so that purchases [fees] dropped, and mgmt decided they finally had to enforce their own rules. Maybe sellers even started policing each other because the dirtbags harmed everyone.
I had a seller refund part of the price because it cost less to ship today. Just saying, pay attention to the reviews before bidding.
Had the same thing happen with some footwear. Seems to be a common problem in many markets these days.
