China origin sellers

[bolivarcigars]

Ok someone help me out here.  How can ebay allow so many direct china sellers who show pictures of models in items they are selling but are not actually what they have manufactured?  It is very very frustrating.  An item is listed at a cheap cheap price, shows a model which to me is obvious from a USA collection even if manufactured in china and what you get is not what is illustrated.  It is like Alibaba or aliexpress.com   Why has ebay allowed this influx of china sellers who list pictures of items they are not actually manufacturing.  What you are buying is SIMILAR TO THE PICTURE not exactly.  Just don't get it.    

[momcqueen]

That is an excellent question but, unfortunately, one that I cannot answer.

There is a weekly chat session on these discussion boards where you can pose your question directly to ebay Canada staff. It's scheduled for every Wednesday at 1 pm EST. Sometimes it is postponed but it's hosted by an ebay staff member and often it's the same dozen people (like me) who ask questions and put concerns to staff.

Yours is a valid question as well, and you are not the first buyer to wonder aloud as to the reason. 

Is there any chance you can join the formal Discussion next Wednesday? 

http://community.ebay.ca

[momcqueen]

... although probably not this upcoming Wednesday as it's Remembrance Day. It may be set aside until Nov. 18 or postponed merely a day, I'm not sure. 

[bolivarcigars]

This issue has to be addressed.  Maybe they should have it as part of the advanced search and have an option to avoid any item with a location of China.  But that does not excuse what I think is illegal for people to use photos from actual companies product and their models and post them and represent that they have that item when in fact it is completely different. 

[momcqueen]

I have to agree with you there. As a buyer, I have ZERO interest in anything coming directly from that region and, as a seller, I spend hours and hours taking and uploading my own photos for my items. 

But any item received that doesn't match what you saw in the listing photographs is grounds for an Item Not as Described case, you know? You are protected in that respect. 

[rjburke99]

I've recently been through something similar with a Chinese seller. eBay policy says "if your request qualifies, we'll send you a refund". This is not a guarantee of a refund. Period.

The Chinese seller offered a discount but refused a refund. A PayPal dispute found in my favor but I was obligated to pay for return shipping with tracking! Calling PayPal directly resulted in a "one time" full refund. The eBay guarantee seems full of fine print that makes it unsafe compared to what I expected.

[reallynicestamps]

The good part is that PP took responsibility for making the refund.

And PP probably now has a Black Mark on that seller's record. And all the other IDs associated with the PP account.

(Sellers can have several eBay accounts, but must have a credit card for each one. PP allows several eBay IDs to share a single account. )

But yes, the problem with fakes and counterfeits is that neither eBay nor PP will really take sides. It's a 'he said/she said" situation. So both require that the item be returned to the seller before forcing the refund.

And honest sellers, who are sometimes victimized by dishonest buyers, prefer it that way.

Recently eBay decided that sellers should pay for the return shipping.

Well, whoop de doo.

That just doesn't work with international sales.

Not specifically Chinese, NO seller can issue return shipping to buyers from other nations.

It's a huge flaw in the policy, annoying sellers and buyers alike.

And all because the *cough* parochial *cough* xenophobic *cough* American who came up with the idea didn't realize that many eBay users are , shockingly , NOT AMERICANS!

[pjcdn2005]

The ebay Money Back Guarantee and the Paypal Buyer Protection plan are two separate things.  As another poster mentioned, ebay does require a seller to pay return shipping with a service that has delivery confirmation if an item is not as described and the seller wants the item back.  But since the seller cannot print a return shipping label from another country, the seller and buyer have to come to an agreement about the label such as the seller sending the money for the buyer to pay for the label. If the seller refuses to pay for a return label, the buyer can ask ebay to step in and ebay will usually force the seller to refund without requiring a return. Unless an item is expensive, it is unlikely that a seller from overseas would ever want to pay for a return label as it is quite expensive.

There's no guarantees with the above system as ebay may not rule in your favour...although they do tend to rule in a buyer's favour when an item is not as described. But it is best not to purchase any item from overseas that you are not willing to pay to return it when there is a problem.

As you found out, Paypal always requires a buyer to return an item at their own cost.

[rjburke99]

Thanks for the clarification. Yes, kudos to PayPal.

I started with eBay "not as described" dispute resolution. There was no button to "escalate" the transaction to ask eBay for help, at least, not by selecting an action from within the dispute tracking pages. The process is not seamless. Lost all confidence in the eBay process when the item disappeared from My eBay -> Summary when exchanging messages with the seller during the dispute grace period.

When the item disappeared from My Summary I could have tried to find a different menu to get eBay to help but at this point decided to try PayPal, then my CC company, then my bank. I was reasonably confident that at least one of them would refund my money. When the item disappeared there were no messages from eBay. Seemed shady.

I wasn't stressed or worried about the outcome. More like an experiment. I wanted to see how buyer friendly the entire process was. The result is that I have a lot less confidence in eBay than when I started. The buyer protection marketing puffery doesn't match my experience.