International Buyer Able To Bid Despite Country Being Excluded In My Policy
Summary: boundarycoins reported that a Czech bidder won one of their auction listings, despite having excluded the Czech Republic in the settings. They later discovered this might be because the buyer has a UK address. krafty-kreations explained how the Global Shipping Programme (GSP) works, while the_book_seekers and others shared similar experiences with international buyers using forwarding services. pillarboxred discussed the ease offered by eBay's program, but lord_and_lady_m warned about potential legal issues sellers could face due to buyer location discrepancies and unauthorized sales.
A Czech bidder has won an auction even though I have excluded Czech Republic in the listing.
Item number 318826361987
The listing has GSP applied to it. I can’t post to Czech Republic as I am not posting to the EU due to their regulations.
Does anyone have any idea how they have managed to bid? They haven’t paid yet, if they supply a UK address at checkout then I don’t mind but I’m not sure how eBay allowed it unless they are not currently residing there or they have used a VPN? Anyone else had this happen?
pillarboxred
·3 weeks agoIf you are registered to use the Global Shipping Programme or its successor (I forget the name), then YOU will only be sending your items to eBay's Hub in the UK. EBay undertakes to ship it from there with all paperwork and compliances in place. We don't have to worry about the VAT or any of the other regulations as eBay does all that.
Make sure you use a Tracked method to send your item to the eBay Hub in England. For example, you are selling computer software: it's up to eBay to know whether the item (if it is fully and correctly described in the listing) can lawfully be sent to a given destination. Do not worry and enjoy the proceeds. That's how I am looking at it.
lord_and_lady_m
·3 weeks agoLet me jump in here. When i last read the GSP t&c's, the small print did say you remain liable as the seller for ensuring your product can be sold into that country.
For example, if you have a licenced product for sale that can only be sold in the UK, and you find yourself having sold it to another country via GSP or the new one, you may open yourself up to being sued. And yes, I and may other ebay sellers have seen it happen and are extremely nervous about people being inadvertantly auto-enrolled. It's happened before and the seller is liable.
So this is more of a 'be wary' warning. It's not always so straight forward.
sml192
·3 weeks agoWhilst the terms for both GSP and eIS state that eBay and its third part service providers have no liability for undeliverable items they also state that if an item is deemed to be undeliverable and disposed of, or liquidated, that the Seller will retain their payment in addition to the Buyer being refunded.
pillarboxred
·3 weeks agoOh, it is a mess. Who is going to sue if they have been able to buy an article that they should not have been able to? I can see legal authorities prosecuting a seller for selling computer equipment to a banned territory but the buyer will be overjoyed.
lord_and_lady_m
·3 weeks agoThe brands hire lawyers to trawl ebay, amazon and etsy for sales. They then buy your product and you ship it to the country that they want to catch you out on, then file a lawsuit and get ebay to shut down your account and freeze your funds. In many case they didn't even buy a product. They, just took a screenshot of it in their basket to prove that it may have been possible and that can be enough for a judge to allow a restraining order to be granted.
pillarboxred
·3 weeks agoI'm lost. If you can show a UK journalist and/or lawyer how this has happened, it would be of great interest. If it has happened to you, every step in the trail should still be online and timestamped for law enforcers to access. Fakes are often given away to charity shops which are happy to sell them (although they should not) and, from there, they enter the secondary market at fairs, vintage shops and online platforms. An expensive brand might know how few buyers they have: three buyers in Edinburgh, say, eighteen in London, one in Inverness, and so on and can see the number of items in circulation online and might know how many of them must be fake.
lord_and_lady_m
·3 weeks agoWe've gone worldwide with this issue. Journalists have been involved. I've been going to ebay open for a number of years to highlight the issue and even spoke to their legal team and asked about liability. There were hundreds of people worldwide on a forum trying to help each other out when they got caught up on a lawsuit. There were many threads on this on the old ebay forum. They have now disappeared.
There are no articles about the liability issue. Many won't talk about it as to get out of the lawsuit and have your account dropped by the courts, you normally sign and agreement. The lawyers are in the US and come for sellers in other countries. It happened to me years ago and I have never opted in to GSP since as I inadvertantly got caught out with the use of a trademarked word within my listing, however I have been auto-enrolled a number of times since and complained. I spoke to someone at the open about auto-enrollment a fews years ago highlighting to potential problem that could be faced when auto-enrollement happens, and I was passed to legal. They did nothing.
Here's one article to give an example of the lawsuit.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-people-getting-sued-by-big-smiley/
sml192
·3 weeks agoThat lawsuit relates to trademark infringement. Trademark infringement occurs the moment you list the item and generally has nothing to do with where the item is being shipped to. You will always be liable in matters relating to trademarks and brand names.
maarsy
·3 weeks agoi frequently have buyers bid that are registered outside of the uk but still have a place to ship it to here
krafty-kreations
·3 weeks agoIf it is GSP then you would only post to a forwarding center in the UK and they then forward it on to the buyer.
boundarycoins
OP3 weeks agoIt’s ok they have paid and I have a Surrey address to send it to. They must have set the account up when in the Czech Republic but live in the UK now so it explains how they were able to bid.
the_book_seekers
·3 weeks agoI'm UK only and have been getting non-UK buyers who use third party couriers to ship their goods on. By using these companies they lose their ebay's money back guarantee which should protect sellers, but I've found there always seems to be some kind of issue and there is one company that, if used, I will cancel the order.
boundarycoins
OP3 weeks agoYeah I’ve had a few of those before. Asia buyers mainly for football shirts when I was doing those more regularly.
I have sold a few books to the Philippines via one of those third party couriers as well.
I took location on this too literally wondering how an EU buyer could even bid but it does now seem as if this buyer is currently in the UK.
the_book_seekers
·3 weeks agoSellers used to be able to block buyers based on their registered address, but ebay changed it. Buyers can now change their postal address to get what they want. I'm watching the eIs replacement for GPS with interest. If the new system actually works as advertised I might be tempted to open up to a few countries, but not the EU. Not with the EU regulations.
jlovie
·3 weeks agoI've had quite a few sent to Japan via forwarders, mainly motorcycle literature.
Never had any problem with them, even had positive feedback for some.