I am so, so tired of getting screwed over by eBay in regards to foreign buyers. I have nothing against our friends in other countries, but shipping to them is a major hassle. Filling out customs forms, getting accurate cost estimates, and having to physically go to the post office is not something I enjoy doing.
When you set up an eBay auction, you have to select the areas you will ship to. I always select U.S. addresses only. So, WHY does eBay allow buyers in foreign countries to bid? EBay knows your address when you sign up for an account, so why is it even possible for foreign bidders to enter a bid? I don’t get it.
Here’s what happened to me last night, which is just the most recent example… I sold a vintage toy for a final bid of around $60. It turns out the bidder is in Slovenia, so I tell him I don’t ship to foreign addresses, as clearly stated in the auction, and will be canceling the transaction.
At this point, the bidder has to AGREE to cancel the transaction. Well, this Slovenian bidder doesn’t agree to cancel it, and as a result, eBay will not reimburse my listing fees. Realize, I have not received ANY money at this point, but I am charged by eBay for the listing fees and the final value fee, which is around 10% of the sale price. So, I’m out around $7 without having any money coming my way.
At this point, I have two options. I can choose to send the item to Slovenia, or I can eat my losses and relist the item. Of course, I can’t relist it until the final eBay arbitration is complete, which can take anywhere from seven days to a month. After this point, the auction will take another 7 days, before it will be sold again and then I have to wait for payment. Of course, it might sell to another foreign bidder, and this whole process could start over again!
The icing on the cake is when you get an insulting email from the buyer that says “you are a great seller thx for nothing.” Never mind the fact that my auction explicitly stated that I DO NOT SHIP TO FOREIGN ADDRESSES, I am somehow a horrible seller.
Ebay is not my source of income, it is a fun place for me to find items for my collections. I buy a LOT of things on eBay and I also sell a lot of items, and as a result have earned an eBay feedback rating of 732 with 100% positive ratings. (That’s pretty good.) But I swear, transactions like this really do get me wishing there was a serious competitor to eBay out there.
I usually try not to rant too much here on the site, but sometimes a guy just needs to blow off some steam. Now back to your regularly scheduled program…
Can you put “U.S. ONLY” on your Ebay sales?
Sure you can, but it doesn’t seem to do any good. Foreign bidders can still bid on the item. It seems like it would be such an easy thing for eBay to disallow those bidders, but for whatever reason, they won’t do it.
That doesn’t sound cool at all. There must be something you can do.
I have run in to this problem as well! On the ‘my account’ page on ebay, you can set your auction preferences so that only bidders in your shipping area can bid on your items. (you need to check mark some boxes) I set mine as this and have not had a bidder from Japan or elsewhere since!
I think you might have gotten lucky so far. I always check that box and it hasn’t seemed to make a difference for me. I’ve had plenty of foreign bidders win auctions before but this latest one just got to me because the buyer was so rude, actually insulting me for not doing something I explicitly said I would not do, and then I get penalized by eBay. It’s just frustrating.
Another reason for me to stay away from evilbay.
I take it you’ve already searched for this in the “Answer Center” or called the customer service hotline.(?) I have found these avenues helpful for my own eBay problems.
Have you actually found a human to call at eBay? I’ve tried all the phone numbers I can find and all I get is automated messages telling me to find the answer here or there on the site. Of course, you can’t send an email, you have to click through their questionnaire which only points you to web pages with “help.” If you have a phone number, I’d love to have it.
I have been able to contact a human after obtaining a PIN number from their customer support page.
Thanks Jon. I’ll look into it. Unfortunately, in this particular case, the buyer closed the case by denying the request to cancel, so I think the PIN number may no longer be valid.
Of course I can’t guarantee that they’ll actually resolve your issue, but you should be able to obtain a new PIN at least to talk to an actual person about this. Good luck!
I may have a weird explanation. As I am a Canadian, there are two ways for me to get to eBay – eBay.com and eBay.ca. Now I always log into eBay.com mainly out of habit but also because eBay.ca always limits what’s available to view.
Yes, you heard right – eBay. ca limits what I can see! Basically as near as I can figure out, when sellers (like yourself) put down shipping location filters (say U.S. only shipping requirements), eBay.ca picks up on this filter (most times – eBay is nothing if not inconsistent). But rather than simply telling my computer that I cannot purchase the item, it simply removes it from any search parameters. Gone. Doesn’t exist.
Let’s take an example. I do a lot of specific searches where there may be only a few items at any one time. Let’s say I’m looking for the Robots Heroes Snarl (and I am). If I go into eBay.ca and type in my search, I may get nothing but there may be three sellers who are willing to sell within the U.S. eBay has basically prevented me from even seeing these items, and thus prevented me from coming up with alternate arrangements.
From their perspective, the filter works. Except it only works if you are able to limit customers to their respective .suffix portal. Since you cannot, and eBay glitches, you get the situation you describe. That said there may be a way to change your internal master preferences. While I find there are auctions that are U.S. only where bidding can be done (and is), there are others where I must contact the seller for permission.
This brings up one of my pet eBay.com peeves. Because a lot of item, as soon as I log in to see if the seller minds making an exception for Canada, or will ship to a U.S. address if you can provide one, eBay tells me that the seller is not taking any questions. I know this is false because there is a lengthy workaround that sometimes works. But it is galling. No one says a seller has to answer the question, but eBay should let you ask.
In general, as a Canadian, I get frustrated when I see items go on eBay on which I cannot bid. Particularly when they go for peanuts. But I understand the frustration of foreign shipping. In general, for a billion dollar company, eBay doesn’t give a shit.
If I am searching through eBay.com, logged in or not, I can see the items in question. However, a lot of time, as soon as I try and contact the seller (log-in required)
Hey Colin, thanks for the reply. This does clear up some of the confusion, but it doesn’t seem like there is anything that can be done about it.
If I saw something on “eBay.Slovenia,” I would certainly ask about whether or not the item could be shipped to me in the U.S. before bidding on it.
I went ahead and got the only online shipping quotes offered by UPS and the USPS (which are express and priority services) to ship to Slovenia, and the lowest price for this item was $500! I know I could have gotten lower prices if I took the item to the post office and had them work up an estimate for a cheaper option, but that requires me to make an extra trip to the post office, which is why I don’t ship overseas in the first place (that and the customs forms).
I’m waiting to hear if the seller accepts the $500 shipping charge. Something tells me he won’t go for it, so I might be able to cancel the transaction after all. What a mess.
There should be a mechanism which can be activated if the seller agrees to take bids from outside the listed country. I ask if I can bid on USA only items and about half of the sellers say it’s OK. What I find infuriating is that Ebay are preventing me from even contacting some of the sellers surely there must be a better way, the whole aim of a selling website is to……….SELL !! Why is it a problem if I wish to speak to USA sellers ? Ebay are becoming too involved invoking the old “sledge hammer to crack a nut” scenario. Come on guys have a re-think and come up with a more sensible compromise option.