Are all sellers from China dishonest? Which ones are thrust worthy?

[stblo68]

I have purchased 3 items from sellers in China in the past few months and none of the items were as described.  Not only that but the sellers tried to trick me into positive feedbacks only to go back on their word and not deliver their own proposed solution to a bad experience.

Have you had good experiences from Chinese sellers and if so, who are they?  I am considering never purchasing items from asian sellers ever again (only north american) and quite possibly dropping ebay altogether. Their money back guarantee is too little too late.  It does not help me recoup my recent losses.

[rufis1966]

Before you buy from anyone you should always check Feedback, If they have a lot of Negatives, read them and find out what people are complaining about. Then you decide if you want to buy from them or not. I have purchased from Many different asian sellers, a few had issues, but most are fine. And be reasonable…if you purchased something for a dollar or less..Dont have high expectations for it being a quality item. I laugh at people who buy Jewerly for a penny then complain how it turned their Fingers green ..LOL What did ya expect for a penny?  Guess it all depends what you are buying. Always check Feedback!

[Anonymous]

Hi.I bought a lot of staff from China over the years and never had problems for a simple reasons:always checked feedback before buying,never bought brand name items as they are for sure fake and never allowed seller to string me along past paypal resolution deadline.Got a lot of cell phone accessories etc.If it comes and the item has at least reasonable quality-all is good-positive feedback,item never arrives or wrong one or garbage,contact seller at once-usually they are more than happy to refund this 2-5$ just to avoid bad feedback,if they starting to  try to play games to postpone till deadline for feedback and Paypal dispute ,I open a case at once and usually get refund  ASAP,in 1-2 rare cases I had to escalate to Paypal claim after which eventually I got full refund from Paypal.basically,for a cheap items ,if you will follow this guidelines you'll be fine,considering that most of the same items sold in Canada or US are the same   from China just more expensive and with faster shipping)))Good luck!

[reallynicestamps]

Chinese sellers are no different than sellers elsewhere, but that means no worse and no better.

The biggest problem is with Paypal's policy that to get a refund the unhappy buyer has to return the item with Confirmation of Delivery. To overseas that service starts around $40.

Another problem, as noted, is buyers who will only put in a nickel, but want the dollar song. If it sells for a dollar with Free Shipping it will be worth a dollar or less. TANSTAAFL.

And of course, there is the buyer who absolutely knows that since everything is made in China anyway, that he can buy more cheaply there than at Future Shop and get the same quality. This ignores the fact that when a Western manufacturer has items made in China, he has a strong quality control program in place. The seconds and knock offs and over runs are the rejects by those manufacturers. If they are not out and out counterfeits.

There are many good Chinese sellers. They will have 99% or higher feedback. They will have 4.9 or higher DSRs.

And remember a seller with one negative out of ten FB is a poor seller. A seller with 500 negatives out of 10,000 FB is a pretty good seller. Because; arithmetic.

[mikeandterri1987]

Get used to it and you can add the watch sellers from India to that list. It's part of the eBay experience...

[dmil8030]

Hello 'stblo68',

<<I am considering never purchasing items from asian sellers ever again (only north american)>>

A wise course of action, in my opinion.  You did ask for the opinions of others.   Or at least never spend more than 

you are willing to throw away.  About the only thing I will continue to buy from there is dog doo bags because, well,

I buy them to throw them out, don't I.

<<...quite possibly dropping ebay altogether>>

No no no, you can get loads of excellent stuff and have fun doing it by shopping wisely and doing a bit of reading.

If you haven't already had a look at this one, it is perhaps the most important link for new buyers:

http://pages.ebay.ca/help/buy/item-not-received.html

The only reason the Money Back Guarantee would be 'too little too late' is if you yourself waited too long to seek 

compensation.  I have to agree with you that there is a disproportionate number of sellers from that region who are

willing to take advantage of new ebayers' inexperience.  You will have seen this link about timelines:

http://pages.ebay.ca/help/policies/money-back-guarantee.html#timelines

If, however, there is a serious problem with an item, ie, Seriously Not as Described, or it does not show up, according

to the paypal Purchase Protection pages you have 180 days in which to lodge your grievance, if you qualify.  

An item that is simply a cheaper quality than you had hoped for will not likely be considered, 

https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/ua/useragreement-full?country.x=CA&locale.x=en_CA#13

One of the key problems is that those sellers are experts at photography but the item you actually receive does not

look like what was pictured.  The time to ask for restitution is right after you discover the problem.  Those sellers 

know they are selling rubbish so your complaint will not come as a surprise.

So now I would ask you this, -- for all the money you thought you would be saving by buying that cheap stuff from 

China, -- how much have you really saved?

It seems to me you would be much better off spending a little more and ending up with something you can use,

and do this by choosing North America from the left side column under Item Location.

But that's just my opinion. 

[thestuffofchris]

I wouldn't generalize ALL Asian sellers as bad. Japan, for example, has proven to be a great place to buy from, especially for those specific items that I collect. The products are genuine, the shipping is usually quick, and they have always packaged the items very carefully. Yes, there are a lot of Chinese sellers who sell cheap, low-quality, imitation products, but like most others I avoid those.

I believe it was femmefan1946 who once gave the advice to another user that instead of sorting by LOWEST price & shipping, sort by HIGHEST price & shipping. Instead of scrolling through dozens of junk listings which will inevitably clog up the first batch of results, go backwards through the fewer higher priced items down to a price point that you are comfortable with.

As a quick example, an out-of-print CD I've been recently considering is being sold by a few Chinese sellers for about $15-20 CDN with free shipping. A Japanese seller is selling the CD for about $40 CDN plus shipping. The difference? The Chinese sellers are selling a well-known bootleg version of the CD, while the Japanese seller has the authentic version. Guess which one I'll be buying?

[bunnygunn]

I am finding eBay is a joke now. Everything is a scam on here especially the Asian products. The last four items I ordered were completely not like their descriptions. Everyone else jacking up rates of shipping. It's so hard to tell what's legit anymore. I'm done with eBay till they improve their site.  

[femmefan1946]

zombie thread from 2014

[damonbradly]

After years, I am done with eBay as well. The last straw was a fake motor for an x380 quad copter I bought fromI even sent him a photo of a real one and the piece of **bleep** he sent and he's still claiming its real.
&nbsp;
Another Chinese seller sent me a fake sj4000 camera.
&nbsp;
the language barrier is a huge issue too. You think they'd hire a translator.
&nbsp;
Ebay does nothing to prevent this. It will cost them in the end.

[patken123]

I think if another country ,let's say sri lanka came on the scene selling all these cheap items even cheaper, we would see the same disgruntled buyers questioning the sri Lankans honesty . as nicestamp says: maybe the problem is"buyers who will only put in a nickel, but want the dollar song."in my opinion it's wiser to stay away from sellers with less than 99.9% FB.

[sylviebee]

When China sends us stuff, they’re not sending their best things.

They’re sending things that aren’t well-made, and they’re foisting those problems on us. They’re sending electronics that don’t work. They’re sending clothes that don’t fit   They’re sending garbage that no one wants.

………….. and some I assume is good stuff.

[prarie_nerd]

I've had surprisingly good luck with China sellers. Most stuff arrives quick & is good quality. They all have lots of negative feedback but when they're selling thousands of items a month & when buyers are impatient & usually already have thier mind set on China Sellers like this that is to be expected.
The only time I had a real problem was when I was trying to buy Android TV Boxes. 1 seller was really good & reliable but I got ripped off by about a dozen others

[tyler@ebay]

Hey everyone,

Due to the length of time that has passed since this thread began I have locked it from future replies. If this is still an issue that warrants discussion, don't hesitate to begin a new thread!