US Buyer won't provide SSN to UPS for clearance purpose and says he won't pay customs & tariffs

[sickballfc.ig]

I am a seller based in the UK but list on both US and UK ebay. Sold an item to the US, not through Global Shipping Programme but charged shipping cost and used UPS myself.

Declared properly with UPS. UPS then requires Tax ID/ SSN from buyer. Buyer refuses. He also says he won't pay customs / tariffs because ebay didn't state he would have to. 

 He is asking me to have the item recalled and refund him, but I have done my part fair and square, and have wasted loads of time in this. Should I entertain him? For such cases, who will ebay side with?

Thanks.

[plpmr]

Ads far as eBay are concerned if a buyer refuses to pay import charges then they don't have any buyer protection.

[style_wise]

As @plpmr says you have done your job. Personally I wouldn't be responding to Buyers messages except as a courtesy if they are polite, or have made a genuine error. I would let them open a Case and respond there.

That said, I personally would also not provide my tax ID number to a stranger over eBay! SSN are actually more heavily guarded than NI, and we all have seen how people feel about giving that to eBay itself, let alone to a Seller 😱

[sickballfc.ig]

No, he doesn’t have to give it to me, I don’t ever want to deal with it. He can send it to ups directly

[*vyolla*]

eBay should side with you, but your buyer can then issue a not received chargeback via his debit or credit card provider if they funded the payment that route. 

Best case scenario is for them to open an eBay item not received claim, it's found in your favour then, if they do issue a chargeback eBay should foot that bill. 

[wellingnorth]

I had a similar case to Brazil a little while ago where the buyer refused to give their Brazilian tax id to customs and the item was returned to me. I got in touch with CS and in the end they refunded both me and the buyer so this is probably worth a try. I can't recall exactly how it worked but I think they had the buyer open a case where I added the tracking , then ebay closed it in my favour and refunded me and then after that the buyer appealed and they refunded them as well.  

For what it's worth it looks like ebay are displaying the following banner at the top of the page if you look at an international item with shipping to the US selected

You can see this if you go to ebay.com, search for one of your UK items, amend the 'shipping to' top right of the page to the US, then click through to the item page. 

[magpiecorner1]

I was under the impression that on B2C imports to USA the import fees had to be paid by the seller?

And that all online sales are regarded as business sales as the items are not gifts.

[*vyolla*]

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@magpiecorner1 wrote:

I was under the impression that on B2C imports to USA the import fees had to be paid by the seller?

And that all online sales are regarded as business sales as the items are not gifts.

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Not if you ship via UPS or DPD, then the tariff is collected buyer end. 

Online sales aren't all regarded as business sales, else private sellers would all be stuffed with German packaging rules etc. Private sellers sales aren't considered business sales, still subject to US tariff though.

[vintagevilarosa]

What I dont understand is that packages sent to the USA from outside of the USA have always had to pay customs and excise so why this buyer thinks he doesnt have to pay is ridiculous!

[*vyolla*]

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@vintagevilarosa wrote:

What I dont understand is that packages sent to the USA from outside of the USA have always had to pay customs and excise so why this buyer thinks he doesnt have to pay is ridiculous!

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Honestly, some buyers are just completely oblivious to import fees. We get a good few questions whereby a buyer is up in arms about having to pay Customs Duty on an expensive item they've bought over £135. 

[wellingnorth]

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@vintagevilarosa wrote:

What I dont understand is that packages sent to the USA from outside of the USA have always had to pay customs and excise so why this buyer thinks he doesnt have to pay is ridiculous!

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Previously anything under $800 was exempt so perhaps the buyer didn't realise that this has changed recently?

[sickballfc.ig]

The item is higher than $800 and would have led to import fees anyway.