Chinese Sellers with UK addresses?

[richardsuperstar]

how come there is at present so many Chinese sellers on here who are allowed to put their despatch location as here in the UK?

I've found loads of items which are undercutting most UK sellers and they all show their location as in the UK but then have their registered company address details as in Hong Kong.

its pretty clear that these sellers dont have offices in the uk and are just putting this to stop them being filtered out when someone clicks on show uk only.

surely there should be some check done by ebay to ensure that if a company claims to be in a country the address needs to be verified..

[simplesats]

I have no objection to having "from China" sellers appearing on eBay UK listing searches which sell at a cheaper price or Chinese sellers using fulfilment centres in the UK as the buyer retains their consumer rights. It is where sellers purposely lie about their location or item locations to make buyers believe they are buying from a UK seller that now presents the largest problem. eBay do have an enforcement team weeding out those sellers, but there are a lot of them. When I did a quick analysis in the category I sell in 50% were "from China" listings, 30% were China sellers with UK stock or appearing to be UK sellers and 20% genuine UK sellers. I do not think that there are very few Chinese seller who now have stock in the UK as HMRC have taken action against the fulfilment centres to ensure that VAT and Tax are paid. So that means 30% of sellers on eBay are potentially in breach of the User Agreement in some form or other. That is a lot of sellers for eBay to investigate and Yes, they do need to put more resources in to it only to keep up with the numbers of those sellers. I cannot see eBay UK getting in to a position where they actually get on top of the situation and control it.

Yesterday, I found a listing of a "UK seller" selling at Chinese seller prices. They would have been selling at a loss if all costs, VAT and eBay fees were paid. It appeared to be a non-business seller, but there was a Business Info link on their member page. It gave the name of a limited company. On searching this was a manufacturer of metal ducting. I called them and told them that I thought a Chinese eBay seller was using their company details fraudulently. They confirmed that was the case. Chinese sellers are able to open eBay accounts in the UK using falsified documents or fraudulently acquired documents, then it is hard to identify them, but the giveaway is going to be their selling price. They have to stay competitive with the "from China" sellers and no genuine UK seller is able to do that and make a profit.

I think your views on certification are correct. The process would end up being abused and therefore become ineffective.

I am monitoring what action is taken against the sellers that I have reported and will provide an update when available.

[ucsl2003]

The most sad and horrible thing is, I know there are good honest chinease people out there being exploited with bad working conditions and unfair pay, to point of slavery all for the Ebay consumer in the west. Now Ebay need to be put to trial for promoting this and causing the problem. You could argue it is the consumers fault however ti stop the influence you need to stop the supply like drug dealers and users, law enforcement always go for the drug dealers.

[myronk7]

I get really annoyed at having to troll through the eBay listings trying to work out who are genuine UK sellers. Don't get me wrong, I'm not averse to buying from Chinese sellers with goods being shipped from China but this sometimes causes problems, especially if the value of the goods is more than £16 because there is VAT to pay for imports over this amount and any VAT or duty charges are the responsibility of the buyer, so that bargain that you ordered from China is not such a great deal when the postman puts a card through your door telling you to go to the delivery office and pay the 20% VAT plus £8 Royal Mail handling charge before they will release your goods.

I have ordered things from a suposedly UK seller only to receive them through China post two weeks later. I once got a Royal Mail 48 hour packet sent from London and when I opened it there was another China Post packet inside addressed to the holding company in London. This, I thought, was not only against eBays rules, but there notchulent and lazyness just proved to me how much they thought that they could get away with such brazeness.

I have made many complaints to eBay about this practice and not much has been done about it, the seller has either not been removed or they open another account and carry on trading, sometimes using false accounts. Why should eBay take action against these rouges, they are making lots of money for them.

I have devised a way to hit these sellers where it hurts most... In their pockets. What I do is if I order something from a seller who advertises that they are a UK seller and the item comes via China Post I take a picture of the packet and open a case for "Item Not as Described". As far as I'm concerned it isn't as described because it was sent from a totally different place than the seller said it would come from. Whether this is the correct procedure is irelevent because I have had a 100% success rate. Most of the time they immidiately refund me and don't want the item back, occassionally they will ask me to send it back before they refund me but when I quote the distance selling act to them and ask them to generate a return label through eBay a message usually appears telling me that they have refunded me and don't want it back. The common denominator here is that none of these rouge sellers want it to get escalated to eBay which would probably open up a can of worms

[wyntersemporium]

And some are missing their addresses out altogether

[wyntersemporium]

Those Hong Kong residents as you call them, own a British passport

[simplesats]

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@wyntersemporium wrote:
Those Hong Kong residents as you call them, own a British passport

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I do not think that I gave the impression that I did not think they had the right to come to the UK and settle. They hold a British Overseas Passport which does not give them the right to settle in UK. Boris Johnson has allowed them to come here and settle due to the oppresive behaviour of the the Chinese government. What I did imply was that the Chinese do have the ability to make money out of most situations, even if it is ethical or not. That I have gained from first hand experience, having been married to a Chinese woman for 15 years.

[manicphonic4]

I agree with ucsl2003 and pretty much consistently do the same and have a 100% success refund rate. I am also leaving -ve feedback trying to warn other buyers to beware. I report them as well if they can be shown to be making false claims in any of the sale. The point isn't whether you do this or not and if ebay take action but doing nothing and accepting being wrongly and deliberately deceived simply tells them that we're happy for them to continue to lie, cheat, deceive and walk all over us - and we'll pay them to do it.

[simplesats]

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@simplesats wrote:

Yesterday, I found a listing of a "UK seller" selling at Chinese seller prices. They would have been selling at a loss if all costs, VAT and eBay fees were paid. It appeared to be a non-business seller, but there was a Business Info link on their member page. It gave the name of a limited company. On searching this was a manufacturer of metal ducting. I called them and told them that I thought a Chinese eBay seller was using their company details fraudulently. They confirmed that was the case. Chinese sellers are able to open eBay accounts in the UK using falsified documents or fraudulently acquired documents, then it is hard to identify them, but the giveaway is going to be their selling price. They have to stay competitive with the "from China" sellers and no genuine UK seller is able to do that and make a profit.

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This eBay member no longer has a seller account. All his listings have been removed from eBay.

[stanm1282k5os]

I have been asking the same questions for ages, We lose all the UK buying rights if buying outside the UK!  Yes we can still claim back from paypal though.  I am seriously thinking of giving up on Ebay as nearly everything you search for after you click UK only is based in China or Hong Kong if you check the business adddress not the Item Location which I believe is false.

My problem is I have bought a few items thinking I was buying in the UK only to recieve a parcel covered in Chinese writing and import stickers, And everythime the item has been next to useless always cheap rubbish. I can return it I suppose but at what cost to China? 

All Ebay need to do is ensure when we press UK only it matches a sellers business address not item location it can't be that hard to do.

If you want a laugh try looking up cctv recorder and cameras I did first 100 were all location UK and none of them were in the UK. I went to Currys and Ebay lost out.  

Ebay is being ruined by all this cheap rubbish being sold from abroad and it puts buyers off using the site.

The prices on Ebay have crept up on a lot of things, But I think the whole country is going mad with prices everything has gone up to silly amounts, so much I will do without rather than pay daft amounts and I would do the same if I was a billionaire.  While people keep paying over £1000 for a phone which is not any where near that amount and they keep paying £300 for a pair of trainers, prices will keep rising as people are daft enough to pay it. If no one paid it the manufactures would reduce the price with no great strain to there companies.

[trippleman955i]

A friend recently had massive quality and delivery issues with one of these suposedly UK suppliers. Now I have the same problem with the delivery. This when eventually sorted will be my last ebay purchase until it is resolved.

[mytinis44]

I'm so upset with eBay know well that the Chinese are lying to their customers as genuine sellers from the uk normally post and their customers gets their item within 2-5 days max.Shame on you eBay for letting them get away with it for so long

[mytinis44]

I can tell that you are a Chinese seller

[simplesats]

There has been a large increase in the amount of fake accounts in search listings. It appears a few Chinese opportunists created multiple fake accounts in January and they have now started to having listings placed on those accounts. To get a good idea if they are fake, go to the member page and open the business information tab if there is one listed there. If the email address has no similarity to the business name then check the item location matches the business address. If they are in different parts of the UK then the seller is most likely fake and you are dealing with someone selling from outside the UK.

[simplesats]

Just so that everyone is fully aware of how bad the situation is, I am reporting my findings of a sample of 85 sellers with listings for Android TV Boxes as this is a general item sold by both UK and Asian eBay sellers.

55 were in serious breach of the User Agreement in that they had applied deception to some extent in their eBay registration or listings - fake UK account, duplicate accounts or items not located in UK.

18 were Hong Kong or Chinese sellers in minor breach of the User Agreement or UK law in that they did not provide business information or contact details.

12 were found to be either genuine UK, Hong Kong or Chinese sellers adhering to the User Agreement.

So nearly 65% of all sellers were in serious breach and all from Hong Kong or China. Less than 5% were genuine sellers registered in UK.

eBay should take note as this is certainly not the way to promote the enhancement of the buying experience or to maintain the medium to long term viability of eBay UK.

[Anonymous]

I doubt ebay will do anything I put ik sellers and agree they are not genuine I have reported duplicate sellers same address ul same products but are same from china ebay do not update you about any you complain about probably because they not bothered amazon are worse cant even choose uk only at all on their site hope you do find out but I wouldn't build your hopes up. I wonder if a petition would make ebay take notice 

[myronk7]

A petition would be a good idea to let eBay know members feelings on this subject, but if it was done on the eBay forum I suspect that it will mysteriously disapear.

[mytinis44]

I’m so fed up with Chinese sellers,I made a purchase from a Chinese seller with a fake English address of which took a long time to arrive.EBay say that they will look into it and five minutes after speaking to them,they sent out a survey asking me how they did.?????????,really?.That made me mad as they only said they were going to investigate

Mr irie Akposheri

[wyntersemporium]

Will do that next time. Also noticed a German name also only showing GB / DE vat only not address

[mytinis44]

Wow,really.the thing is that even from Germany it’s only maybe 5-6 days

Mr irie Akposheri

[arnsbrae]

This needn't be complicated.

All Ebay has to do is make seller location one of the filters for buyers.

Then the buyer can make up their own mind. Not having that filter means the buyer often has to scroll through pages and pages of items, checking all of them individually to see the seller location.

If things are left as they are, this issue will eventually go viral, forcing change to be made.