Can anyone tell me what is happening with eBay this time.

Dave64 said:
Section 14 specifically mentions 'flippers'. Bummer. Thanks for the clarification though mtangent. I would love to know if you know of any stores in Australia or venues where I could find such difficult to find items as they are often not illegal to buy or possess just import. Cheers.
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That's just luck, & expensive. The current Regs have been in place for a few years now, not much stock is still sitting in a shop for that long. Best to keep an eye on the secondary market.
 
Metal Made Fox said:
Strange, I sold a watch on ebay a couple of days ago and listed shipping to the USA only, and yet I had some guy from Italy bid on it. Needless to say I had to cancel his bids and block him.

I refuse to ever deal internationally. I will not buy from or sell to anyone who isn't located in the United States. It's not worth the hassle to me.
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Two points relating to what you mentioned/experienced.

1. If a buyer was originally registered in any 'other' county outside the U.S. but.... is currently "living in the U.S. with a U.S. shipping address" in your case it was "Italy", the transaction will go through because his mailing address is somewhere in the U.S. but you won't know that until he wins and the auction is over, only then will it reveal/show you a U.S. address.
Your buyer for your watch... did he actually tell you it will be shipped to him in Italy?..... if yes, then you probably do not have "Italy" selected/check-marked as one of your "Will not ship to" countries, within your seller preferences area.

Sometimes someone bids on my items and it shows they are in a country I don't ship to... but their shipping address in the Ebay system is within the U.S. that's why the system allows them to bid, which is fine with me.

2. It's not enough to state "just in text" within your items description area: "U.S. sales only/I don't or I won't ship outside the U.S. what the seller MUST do to stop one or more countries from being able to bid on your auction/s is... you MUST go into your 'seller preferences'.. and go to the "blocked countries" area, then select ALL the countries you won't ship to, it's very easy, you just put one or more checks in boxes next to the particular countries.

The only countries I ship to outside the U.S. are Canada, France, Japan, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Poland..
I used to ship to Germany but started to have frequent problems so I no longer ship there, I have no issue with Germany, just their 'Postal System'.
The worst offender is Russia where I absolutely will not ship to, as postal "pilfering" is rampant.
 
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Wow, I never thought about that. You are most likely correct, he probably had an address in the U.S. to where I could ship to. Now I feel like an ass because he seemed to really want the watch on account that he was the one placing the most bids on it.
 
chambelona59 said:
Two points relating to what you mentioned/experienced.

1. If a buyer was originally registered in any 'other' county outside the U.S. but.... is currently "living in the U.S. with a U.S. shipping address" in your case it was "Italy", the transaction will go through because his mailing address is somewhere in the U.S. but you won't know that until he wins and the auction is over, only then will it reveal/show you a U.S. address.
Your buyer for your watch... did he actually tell you it will be shipped to him in Italy?..... if yes, then you probably do not have "Italy" selected/check-marked as one of your "Will not ship to" countries, within your seller preferences area.

Sometimes someone bids on my items and it shows they are in a country I don't ship to... but their shipping address in the Ebay system is within the U.S. that's why the system allows them to bid, which is fine with me.

2. It's not enough to state "just in text" within your items description area: "U.S. sales only/I don't or I won't ship outside the U.S. what the seller MUST do to stop one or more countries from being able to bid on your auction/s is... you MUST go into your 'seller preferences'.. and go to the "blocked countries" area, then select ALL the countries you won't ship to, it's very easy, you just put one or more checks in boxes next to the particular countries.

The only countries I ship to outside the U.S. are Canada, France, Japan, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Poland..
I used to ship to Germany but started to have frequent problems so I no longer ship there, I have no issue with Germany, just their 'Postal System'.
The worst offender is Russia where I absolutely will not ship to, as postal "pilfering" is rampant.
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When ebay implemented the new Global shipping program a few months back, it automatically reset my shipping preferences to international. I didn't realize this until I put up a new item, and my listing said I shipped to every country under the sun, lol. This is probably what happened to Metal Made Fox.

To be honest, their new Global Shipping Program looks like it would work well. If I'm reading it right, you are only responsible for getting the item to their distribution and they are on the hook from there. So if an international buyer claims they never received the item, you get to keep the money as long as you have tracking information to ebay's distribution center. Unfortunately, everything that is "fun" seems to be on their international prohibited list, lol.
 
El_Toro said:
When ebay implemented the new Global shipping program a few months back, it automatically reset my shipping preferences to international. I didn't realize this until I put up a new item, and my listing said I shipped to every country under the sun, lol. This is probably what happened to Metal Made Fox.

To be honest, their new Global Shipping Program looks like it would work well. If I'm reading it right, you are only responsible for getting the item to their distribution and they are on the hook from there. So if an international buyer claims they never received the item, you get to keep the money as long as you have tracking information to ebay's distribution center. Unfortunately, everything that is "fun" seems to be on their international prohibited list, lol.
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Yes, when it first came out (Global Shipping Program) it was activated by default, a seller had to 'deactivate' it if he didn't want it.
Why I don't like it: I don't want or like a "middleman" involved in the buyer getting his item from me..... It means I have to first send it to Kentucky (it's Pitney Bowes that gets it and then sends it out to the buyer in the 'other' country) I prefer to ship it out immediately next business day.
I have it down to a science, no need for a middleman.
By the way.... Not every seller gets to use EBays Global Shipping program.... It's only offered to sellers who have above average ratings.
 
Hi mate -
yes I've had a close encounter of the global shipping kind.
I would contact seller for a cost of shipping -that will find out if they ship to Oz or not. Many sellers on ebay are unaware of it. I know -
As far as ebay global goes its up to the seller to organise the listing correctly re postage.
Ebay global is a huge gyp .
Oh and don't bother contacting ebay about it -I'm still waiting for an answer coming on 3 months.
I was recently informed of international postage agencies sucha as comgateway.com (or whatever) where you get a USA postal address and can accumulate purchases which the pack and send overseas.
I'm suspicicious because they don't mention any thing about cost -and (going out on a limb here) i bet it aint free. could be an option.
 
Dave64 said:
Section 14 specifically mentions 'flippers'. Bummer. Thanks for the clarification though mtangent. I would love to know if you know of any stores in Australia or venues where I could find such difficult to find items as they are often not illegal to buy or possess just import. Cheers.
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Cutting edge knives, Ebay and platatac - to name a few
 
I had the same problem when I bought a Lansky sharpener kit.
It was caused by the kit being listed in the knives section and the global shipping company by default regards anything listed in that category to be illegal.
Ask the seller to ship the item via USPS or to relist it again in a different category and there will be no problems.
 
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