US seller says shipping regulations prevents him from shipping plastic brushes to Canada (?!)

[sonometrics]

I recently bought a set of drill-mounted plastic bristle-brushes. The seller is in the US. The cost of the brushes was $15 and shipping was $3 (USPS). About a day after the purchase I get a message from the seller, saying that they "received a notice from the shipping company that your package could not be sent out due to the transportation restrictions according to their new shipping policy."

I asked how can there be such a restriction on transporting plastic brushes? I said that these are not chemicals or batteries, and asked if indeed the items are in the US and would be shipped from the US to Canada. I got a reply that again they claim they got a notice from the shipping company that they can't ship the item and they have contacted other companies and they also can't ship the item. They say the item is in the US, and that "the shipping regulations have changed".

I see the item is still listed on Ebay.ca, same price, no change in shipping method or destination restrictions.

What am I to make of this?

Edit:  I see now that the original listing is still there, but the vendor seems to have added several more ads for the same item but showing the shipping cost as $20.  So as I suspected, he is trying to back out of the sale because of the low shipping cost of the original ad.

Should I challenge him on this - by pointing out that if the "shipping company" regulations have changed then why is he still showing the item for sale to Canada?

[marnotom!]

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@sonometrics wrote:

Should I challenge him on this - by pointing out that if the "shipping company" regulations have changed then why is he still showing the item for sale to Canada?

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To what ends?

[femmefan1946]

Some eBay sellers will list on dotCA which may give them a slight boost in Search, but are terrified of shipping outside the USA.

Sounds like you met one of them.  Ugh.

It's too bad we can't get a Blocked Sellers List, so we just would never see these guys.

However in this case

TThe cost of the brushes was $15 and shipping was $3 (USPS)..... the same item but showing the shipping cost as $20. 

Yes he underestimated the shipping cost and instead of telling the truth - and $20 does not sound unreasonable for a tracked package to Canada- he went for lies.

If you were in a transaction you can leaves appropriate feedback.

The most effective feedbac is calm and factual.

"Cancelled purchase Relisted with higher shipping" for example would politely explain your annoyance.

[marnotom!]

I browsed listings for drill-mounted scrub brushes and the only ones I could find with shipping rates around three dollars were ones from China, so if there's something to the seller's story, I'm thinking that the brushes may have been listed with dropshipping from China in mind but the latest wave of COVID transmissions has put a moneywrench into their dropshipping scheme.  The seller might be now sourcing the brushes from and shipping them from the United States.

I think a response to a "challenge" to this seller will be the buyer ending up on the seller's BBL.

[pjcdn2005]

The seller was almost telling the truth.  He sounds like he made a mistake a set up the listing for shipping with a first class flat which is our version of lettermail. He wouldn't be able to ship those brushes with that method so technically that part is correct however he lied about their being a change and lied about it being his mistake.....there was no change but he did goof in setting up the international shipping section.

  Some sellers would have just paid the extra cost and sent the item since it was their mistake but ebay cannot force him to send those items so there really isn't any reason in confronting the seller at this point.