Business seller and buyer is asking me to send a high value item as a gift

[snowmanor]

Hi,

We are a business seller and have just sold a very pretty little Chinese bottle for over £600. The buyer has contacted me and asked me to send the item as a gift, not to put 'Chinese' in the customs form to USA (sending from UK) and to declare it at a low value! I've told them I won't do this as we are a business and declare everything correctly. I will not send a £600 item without correct insurance! Has anyone experienced this? would it be right to cancel the order and offer it to the next bidder or will we get penalised by eBay for this?

Thanks for the help

[tressygirl]

No, this certainly would not be right , you do not want to lie to Customs!

Message the buyer this is against eBay's rules do they still wish to purchase as the custom duty may be too much they wish to pay.

If they agree, cancel the order citing Buyer Requests to cancel , this refunds the buyer and your seller performance is not affected.

@snowmanor 

[snowmanor]

Thanks for the quick response! I have messaged the buyer to say that I will only send the item correctly. It was so much easier when GSP dealt with everything going to the USA!

[tressygirl]

Hopefully they'll agree to cancel !  I'd imagine custom duty may be quite hefty !

@snowmanor 

[plpmr]

No matter what you need to cancel the transaction and block them.

they have asked you to falsify customs declaration which is a criminal offence and if they are willing to ask that, who knows what will happen if you sell to them even with a correct declaration.

[snowmanor]

Hi, Thanks for your response

I do wonder if they will then try to scam me to say that the item has arrived damaged or some other excuse to try and get me to refund the item!

[red_magpie]

I do wonder if they will then try to scam me to say that the item has arrived damaged or some other excuse to try and get me to refund the item!

It would be the easiest thing in the world to swap if for some other "pretty little bottle".

Other sellers in this position have told us that eBay's response was "As we did not see the item, either as received by the buyer or as returned to the seller, we are not in a position to determine who has the valid case, or take sides". eBay's idea of not taking sides was to find in favour of the buyer, and make the seller refund them.

[john1297576]

I think you can cancel using a reason something like, buyer is requesting something not offered, and then no penalty for you. Certainly block them you do not want to deal with them again.

I am pretty certain that any import duty in the USA starts at a higher level than £600 so can’t see why they would wish to break the law.

[*vyolla*]

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@john1297576 wrote:

I think you can cancel using a reason something like, buyer is requesting something not offered, and then no penalty for you. Certainly block them you do not want to deal with them again.

I am pretty certain that any import duty in the USA starts at a higher level than £600 so can’t see why they would wish to break the law.

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It's a Chinese product, so subject to one of the new top dollar tariffs.