Seller claims to be in the UK - return address is in China.

[th_sled]

Help !

I just tried to return an item from a seller who claimed to be in Leicester and the return address is in China.

I can't close the return because then I'm forfeiting my right to return so I've left it half open.

I can't it seems get eBay to intervene because I can't complete the return as I'm not accepting I have to send it to China.

Does anyone know how I get out of this hole ?

Apologies if this query is in the wrong place but I've not been here for a long time. 

[th_sled]

People may like to know how this was ultimately resolved.
I had in fact two purchases with this issue.
Both sellers were asked to supply UK return addresses. Neither were able to.
One seller simply refunded the whole amount fairly promptly without return of the item. They got good feedback.
The other one, after being threatened with negative feed back and eBay involvement initially offered a 30% refund and were ultimately persuaded to offer a full refund less UK postage costs. They'll probably get neutral feedback if any.
Had this seller remained difficult the next stage would have been a eBay chat, on the basis that eBay would either force a refund or provide enough evidence (because the chat is emailed to you) to make a case for a chargeback via the credit card company under Section 75 thereby bypassing any eBay nonsense altogether. I have done this successfully before with eBay. However in the end this was not necessary.this time.

My thanks to all those who contributed and provided useful suggestions and lines of enquiry.

[rusticrye]

If the 'posts from' location was shown on the listing as being in Leicester, then the address on the returns label Ebay have supplied you with should be in Leicester.  Are you saying this isn't the case...? If so, contact Ebay.  Live Chat and Request-a-callback are available in Help & Contact during working hours.

If you simply mean that the seller has supplied you with an address in China, ie. no returns label has yet been supplied by Ebay, ignore him and escalate the case to Ebay on the date shown.

@th_sled 

[th_sled]

Thanks for your interest.
Yes, the seller claims to post from Leicester using Royal Mail 48, which is actually a fib as they used Yodel.
No return label has been supplied. It is a voluntary return, ie I'm returning it because I no longer need it. It seems therefore I have to pay the return postage and label it myself.
All the eBay process does if I initiate a return is give me the China address and tell me I have to send it there at my expense and mark it 'despatched' when I've done that.
I'm happy to pay return postage to a UK address but not China. This is a seller who gets through the 'UK sellers only' filter. Somehow.
There doesn't seem to be any way I can trigger the 'ask eBay to step in' process without agreeing to send the item to China.

[thedemon2014]

You cannot search for items by seller location. The search criterion is item location.
Chinese sellers are allowed to state that they have a UK distribution centre but should send items from that location, and accept returned items to the same place, not China.
Follow the advice given by @rusticrye and escalate the case to eBay when you can.

[th_sled]

Yes I accept your point about the seller/item distinction.
However it is somewhat academic if, as you suggest, an item purporting to be in the UK should be returnable in the UK.
I'm surprised eBay even allows sellers to be 'UK based' for sales purposes and then provide a Chinese return address.