at checkout the country of origin changed, has this happened to any one else?

[walkeirojusti]

I couldn't pay for an item because I'm from Canada and at the payment page my country changed to the United States resulting in me being unable to pay for the item and cancelling the order.  Now I'm scared to buy other items fearing the same thing is going to happen and feeling like I'll never buy anything from ebay ever again.

[momcqueen]

Is it possible that you accidentally logged into ebay.com instead of ebay.ca when you went to pay? 

[walkeirojusti]

I was definitely logged into Ebay.ca but I've recently been thinking and it maybe more to do with the Ebay paypal separation because the item I had problems with is marked as paypal preferred.  I could be wrong but just to be safe I'll be buying items marked as accepted from now on.

[reallynicestamps]

Most sellers use Paypal to receive payments, because it is trusted by buyers (and by most sellers), it is relatively cheap, and it is not necessary for the seller to qualify with her bank for a merchant credit card account.

Sellers cannot demand payment by a method that is not electronically verifiable. There are a few other PP-like systems that are acceptable to eBay (ProPay and PaisaPay come to mind), and some sellers also accept credit cards directly, usually if they also have Real Life businesses.

Buyers can offer to pay in other ways.

EBay discourages this because of the lower level of security on money order, personal cheque or cash payments.

Sellers cannot demand money order, personal cheque or cash payments.

Buyers should always negotiate the use of other forms of payment before bidding.

[reallynicestamps]

and at the payment page my country changed to the United States resulting in me being unable to pay for the item and cancelling the order.

Did the seller's Shipping and Handling page offer a firm price on shipping to Canada?

Does the seller accept Canadian orders?

Was the GST involved?

[momcqueen]

With that additional information, it sounds more to me like there was an incompatibility between your address with paypal and what the seller accepts as a ship-to place of residence from its buyers.

When you say the order was cancelled, do you mean that it failed to proceed past cart to actual checkout because your shipping address was not allowed? Or....

This wasn't an item where the seller used the Global Shipping Program, was it? Maybe with an address to ship to Kentucky? That's the Pitney Bowes customs brokering and distribution centre. It's the hub and then it's redirected to the buyer outside the USA. ebay.co.uk also has a Global Shipping Program (GSP). ebay Canada does not but ebay.ca members registered as buyers might find themselves making purchases from sellers in the USA or UK who use it. That is a whole other story.

Can we have a listing item number? Or the exact wording of the message you received?

Maybe you want to source your item within Canada first if you are apprehensive. When you shop locally, it's simpler to handle problems if something goes wrong. I wrote a guide for beginner buyers on ebay http://www.ebay.co.uk/gds/10-Steps-to-Hassle-Free-Buying-on-eBay-/10000000204740571/g.html that you might find useful. It doesn't get into the nitty gritty of the GSP however. 

[walkeirojusti]

It was more like when I went to enter my card information the billing and shipping address' are the same, but the country name that's above where you enter the card number was different.  It really threw me for a loop cause this is most likely the first time in eBay history.

[momcqueen]

And it wasn't part of a drop-down menu? 

Some merchants can set their paypal payment preferences to just NOT accept payments from outside their home country. Did you contact the seller at all to see f this might have been an error on their part? 

[pierrelebel]

"when I went to enter my card information"

???

From your feedback, you are an experienced eBay buyer.  Where - exactly - did you try to enter your credit card information?

[walkeirojusti]

you know the page that comes after you check on your shipping information and the price of the item your buying, when you click continue you are sent to a page where you type in your card numbers and click pay to finalize your purchase.

[walkeirojusti]

Maybe I'm just reading to much into a small mess up that may not happen again.

[pierrelebel]

"when you click continue you are sent to a page where you type in your card numbers and click pay to finalize your purchase. "

???

I am confused.

Don't you use PayPal to pay for your purchases?  As such you do not need to ever give your credit card information (other than when joining PayPal or making change to your information).

[walkeirojusti]

No I don't have PayPal, besides the numbers are immediately forgotten by the system after purchase.

[dmil8030]

Hello 'walkeirojusti',

Some folks here do not understand the difference between a straight credit card payment and one which

is made through a paypal account.   . . .   You are a credit card user, -- I get that.

If the seller has his listings to read 'preferred' or 'accepted', that should make no difference to you at the checkout.  

If the seller has blocked buyers who do not have paypal accounts then you would never have been able to

get as far as the checkout.  But that's pretty rare, -- huge numbers of people use credit cards and sellers who

block non-pp accounts don't sell very much.  Ebay likes money so ebay makes it possible to use just about any

type of online payment, and as you know, at the checkout  the top option is credit cards.

But getting you sorted out, hmmmm....

To start with, you'll want to confirm that your own account information is as it should be.  

Make sure you first see the little Canadian flag at the top of the page. Then find the My eBay just to the right

of the flag.  Click it.

Then over toward the left, click the Account tab.  See the far left column where is says My Account ?

Select Personal Information.  Is the address there the correct one?  The same one as on your credit card statement?

If not, move over to the far right where it says Edit and click that.  Then click Change and make the

necessary corrections. 

When you choose Addresses from that left side column, -- do they look the way they do on your card statement?

Be sure to click the Save button at the bottom if you have made any changes.

Now then, when you're trying to buy something and if the checkout page has defaulted to the US version, 

there should be a scroll-down bar where you can find your own country.  Pick Canada from the listings and

click to update it.  It should then present you with the usual Canadian version and accompanying options.

Make sure you ascertain that you have the Canadian form as soon as you begin the payment process, and

not after you have entered what the machine can interpret as wrong information.

It is important to enter your address the same way every time, -- if you write Woodland Drive one day and then

abbreviate to Woodland Dr. the next, the machine might raise its eyebrows.  Same for if you live in an apartment

and put the unit # on the second line, not the first.  Do everything the same way every time.

So then, if your addresses match up and you are on the right page you should be able to just enter your card info

like usual and click your way through to confirming your purchase.

Happy shopping 

[momcqueen]

It's a lot simpler in my opinion to create a free-to-use (for buyers) paypal account and use that to check-out. One is not required to link it to a bank account until reaching certain sending limits that, in most cases, takes years to reach. 

[walkeirojusti]

Good news it was just 1 particular item that this happened to me.  So I got no worries any more and I can't thank you all enough for your support in my time of panic.

[maximus7001]

Why would you not just get a paypal account? It makes life much easier and will continue to be used more everywhere as time goes on.

All you need to do is go to www.paypal.com and sign up.

Without a paypal account you will run into trouble if you ever need a friendly refund from a purchase gone wrong , damaged in mail ect.. Doing a cc chargeback on the seller to get your refund is unfair in this case and will ding him with a $20 fee from paypal on his end when he may not deserve it.

[dmil8030]

<<Without a paypal account you will run into trouble if you ever need a friendly refund from a purchase gone wrong ,

damaged in mail ect>>

Refunds are not a problem with credit cards, the seller simply uses the Refund link in his/her paypal account.

If 'walkeirojusti' received, say, a box of shards instead of the porcelain vase, after sending the seller some photos

of the damage, the seller refunds, the buyer gets a notice about it in email, and a few days later the refund shows up

on the credit card.  Easy easy easy.

A chargeback should only be initiated in an extreme case when a seller flatly refuses to offer any assistance, 

but that would be really rare.  Most sellers are very decent and conscientious people.  

Credit cards are prickly about chargebacks and require all transaction details including photos of damage, receipts,

and emails.  And it takes a long time, too, whilst they make inquiries.  They don't issue refunds just for the asking.  

But if  it has to come to that, I don't suppose a buyer with a broken item and no compensation is going to worry about

"dinging" the seller for that $20.

Usually, though, a pleasant exchange and the inclusion of photos showing the damage is all that is needed

to solve a problem.  

Well, that's been my experience, anyway.  

[momcqueen]

---

@maximus7001 wrote:

Why would you not just get a paypal account? It makes life much easier and will continue to be used more everywhere as time goes on.

All you need to do is go to www.paypal.com and sign up.

Without a paypal account you will run into trouble if you ever need a friendly refund from a purchase gone wrong , damaged in mail ect.. Doing a cc chargeback on the seller to get your refund is unfair in this case and will ding him with a $20 fee from paypal on his end when he may not deserve it.

---

I have to agree with your advice. Paypal offers a first-line of compensation, should something go wrong with the seller's handling of a transaction and, if you pay via credit card through paypal, your credit card is your final line of defence if things were to go wrong. 
It's as simple as using an email address to create an account and then one also has another place to stash funds. I don't generally keep a large running balance in my paypal account but if I feel like maybe an online retailer is a bit sketchy, I'd rather give them money through paypal than straight-out hand over my credit card information. 

[momcqueen]

(Plus you can use it to send money to people, like friends or relatives. It's a lot easier and more private than strolling to the postal office to stand at the counter and loudly let everyone standing in line behind you hear that you're sending a money order to someone.)