Seller say item is in UK but it comes from China

[bordonbert]

Yes, here is me moaning about the same old issue that so many posts over the years have groaned on about. When are ebay going to do something about this damned problem of the seller listing the item as "Location: Somewhere in the UK" and claim it will be delivered via "Royal Mail 2nd Class Post".  So you buy it then realise that the delivery date is going to be two or three weeks in the future.  The "Your item has been posted" message may come the same day but the item doesn't appear for a couple of weeks as it traverses the great open wastes of China.  And this after filtering by "UK Only" for item location.

This is absolutely rife on ebay and has been for years yet the powers that be act as though there is nothing wrong with the practice.  It is misrepresentation and as such should be considered illegal and a breach of ebay's own rules.  They should insist that if the listing is just Drop Shipping then that is made clear and not disguised with information which is basically lying.  Many buyers make buying decisions prioritising items local to them and this is a way to con them into making a wrong assumption as to which is the better buy.

Ebay still insist that the seller is responsible for the item arriving in the stated time but they should be responsible for seeing to the the correctness of all information given in the listing.  They should be keen to clean up their act and take steps when this is pointed out.

I deplore the corrupting power of the almighty dollar, and it is sad how honesty and fair dealing always evaporate when people are making enough money.  Do ebay actually give a donkey's dangling dong abut its buyers as well as its sellers?  Certainly doesn't look like it to me.

[plpmr · Accepted solution]

Such location misrepresentation can be costly for a buyer who gets hit with import duty etc.

Many buyers make the same complaint like you and questioning what are eBay doing about it?

Yet, just like you, the buyers never leave feedback to reflect their experiences, I wonder why?

Sellers conduct would soon change when their feedback is a mass of red.

Here's the link to eBay's “IMPORTANT: ACTION FOR ITEM LOCATION MISREPRESENTATION POLICY VIOLATIONS”

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Announcements/IMPORTANT-ACTION-FOR-ITEM-LOCATION-MISREPRESENTATION-P...

[bordonbert · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the heads up on that policy statement. I'm certainly going to take it on board.

One difficulty with that is that there was no real section in the feedback to which that applied. The 80 character limit on feedback meant that, by the time you had commented briefly on other aspects you were running out of space to complain. I know this is a cop out but it is a genuine difficulty. Most buyers being positive people want to at least mention something of the good sides of a transaction, I hate just being totally negative. I have to admit, that is my gullibility in situations like this I suppose.

I notice the feedback comment box seems to have been extended recently. That should certainly help. I will do what you suggest in future. Without our help in pointing this out it makes it difficult for ebay to get to grips with the problem. Thanks for the advice, it is very relevant and appreciated.

[plpmr · Accepted solution]

Feedback could be simply - Seller falsely says item located in UK when its actually dispatched from China

[bordonbert]

Thanks to all of you who responded.  From the link that Plpmr posted I can see that there actually IS a policy to act on this just s you say.  Maybe this is one of the reasons why the feedback comment box has been extended recently?  Anyway, it's good to know that ebay will perhaps provide us with some muscle behind our complaints now.

I'm fully intending to start with negative feedback every time this happens now.  The new response limit allows me to at least say that the rest of the transaction was good but to point out to other buyers that it is not honest in that one respect.  One further thing that touches on this which ebay could do is to allow us to store "UK Only" as a default preference in searches.  But I guess that could exclude, (read tick off), so many of their current sellers in China that the alternatives may start picking up more of ebay's business.  I suppose we can't have everything.

[papso22]

There has been a recent announcement about them clamping down on this.  

[ruby*tuesday]

You can Report them to Ebay is against the "Item Location Policy."