High number of items never arrived from China sellers

[oragex]

Hello everybody

I have been purchasing from China sellers many items in the past 5 years.  Most of the times, I would very rarely had an item that never arrived, perhaps 1 out of 20 items from China. 

However, this dramatically changed in the past about 12 months.  I have now about 4 items out of 10 that never arrived, even 4,5,6 months after the purchase. 

This percentage of 'lost' items seems very high.  I then started to look at the 'estimated delivery date' for these items, and noticed something interesting: the delivery date is almost always over 60 days - the normal timeline for asking a refund and leaving a review.  In fact, for most items from China, the delivery date limit is exactly 9 weeks - 1 week after the 60 days delay for refund/feedback.

Isn't this strange ?  What if China sellers actually never ship a part of their orders, and take advantage that most buyers will wait over 60 days then won't ask for a refund any longer ? Of course, I am aware that there is always possible to ask for a refund in the Resolution Center, but most Ebay buyers are not aware of this and don't even know how to access this Resolution Center.

So what do you people think ?  Was I just very unfortunate to have this many items missing ?  Or could it actually be a China sellers trick ?

[reallynicestamps]

Most people are honest, including most Chinese sellers, but there are a lot of people in China, so the chances of being scammed are pretty high.

CYA.

Read the feedback.

Not just the percentage, although anything under 99% is not good, but also the actual comments (click on the neg number to see just those) and look for a pattern of complaints about non-delivery.

Look at how long it has been since the seller's last feedback and the recent.

Hacked accounts often have a long dormant period before suddenly starting to sell. Usually the new listings are high value, but if someone who had been only buying purses, suddenly started selling DVDs, there is room for suspicion.

You spotted the long delivery periods. While some sellers of cheap items keep their prices down by using cheap slow shipping, some keep them even lower by not actually having any items at all, never mind shipping them. Watch for FB about non-delivery.

And don't just blame Chinese sellers. There are 1.7 billion Chinese and 335million Americans. If 0.01% of each were scammers that would be 17 million Chinese scammers and 3,350,000 Americans. Same percentage, more people.

My system is to Search Highest Price plus Shipping First, which tends to make it easier to drill down to my price point instead of wading through page after page of garbage listings.

And when I find a good supplier, I add one of his items to my Watch List (there is also a Preferred Sellers List, but the Watch List has a picture of the Thing I bought successfully.)

For those who read your post, the Resolution Centre is at the bottom of this page.

The Paypal Resolution Centre is at the top of your PP account page under Tools. You can open a Dispute at any time after payment  and the deadline is 180 days from payment.

Both suggest contacting the seller, but this is not a requirement. 

[oragex]

Thanks for the reply. 

You say to "read the feedback" 

That is exactly the problem.  The feedback is only left by buyers who actually received their item. As for the buyers who never received the item, most of them will wait past the 60 days period - because the last shipping date is always over 60 days long, and won't be able to leave any negative feedback for non received item.  So the actual feedback sellers have does not include the items which were never shipped out.

I think Ebay must do this correction:  for each transaction, the feedback period must be longer than the shipping time period.  If the shipping time is 67 day, the feedback time should be at least 67 days too.  And Ebay should keep the 'ask for a refund' button for the same duration as well.

[femmefan1946]

As well as the feedback, you should be reading the Shipping terms.

If the shipping will take more than 30 days from Asia, plan to buy elsewhere.

I've been doing mail order since the 70s and on average it takes 20 days from anywhere in North America and 30 days from China.

If it is taking longer, the seller is using Surface shipping which can take months - never mind that there are pirates in the South China Sea.

I once had an order of cast iron benches lost to pirates. The company was good about replacement, but we missed the patio season.

[ciadoubleagent]

So far this year I am zero for 4 packages. It has been over 4 months since I ordered my items from China and nada.  Like the OP I used to get things from China in about a month, lately though, its been absolute garbage.

[patken123]

I buy from reputable sellers with over 99.2% positive FBs, even if the order does not make it here on time, it will usually arrive ,honest sellers should not pay a penalty for slow delivery of orders, in fact they should be encouraged to stay on and keep selling , they are the ones in direct competition with the crooked scam artists, if you choose the right seller ,they usually come through for you .

[brettjet38]

I actually make an effort not to purchase items directly from China, why should I financially support Communism or a Communist system ?!

[femmefan1946]

Please open the Item Not Received Disputes.

Getting your refund and giving sellers who do not provide prompt delivery is one of the few ways we have to discourage poor customer service.

If the item does arrive eventually, you can return the refund using Paypal's Send Money service.

Some customers will only send a partial payment, covering the cost of the item not the (failed) shipping cost.

Remember that the voluntary Feedback system does not affect eBay's assessment of the seller.

It is useful to other members, but is probably statistically higher in comments about failed transactions than reality, because happy people don't complain.

[oragex]

It is an interesting point of view - if on the political side.   Good question, does buying from a Communist country help supporting the Communist regime ?  I for one am entirely against the embargo on Cuba, it only makes cuban people suffer and their regime hasn't changed at all because of these privations.  On the other side, remember that most our items are manufactured in China.  And this is endorsed by the Amercan government as well, because they sign the economic treaties with China.   But it's a good discussion non the less - although only slightly off topic

[oragex]

The thing is, as I explained the delivery delay is over 60 days, so because they wait over 60 days for their item, the buyers no longer have the possibility to leave a negative feedback for a missing item - consequently, the 99.5% feedback does not include the items that were never received this way, and their feedback remains good

I start to believe that this issues with items not being posted from China, happens mostly with Canadian buyers.  This is because our Customs Agency has been delaying the item delivery for years, and the Canadian buyers were leaving negative feedback, until the China sellers decided no longer to ship the items to Canada and to extend the deliver timeline so as to protect themselves from negative feedback. 

[femmefan1946]

@oragex 

start to believe that this issues...happens mostly with Canadian buyers. 

No.

 We see the same complaints on dotCOM. I don't visit the European boards often, but the problem is based not on the postal system, but on sketchey sellers.

This is because our Customs Agency has been delaying the item delivery for years...

This was true for some years for two reasons.

Fentanyl- This horrible drug was legal and poorly controlled in China. CBSA was cooperating with the Mounties to find shipments, which were coming in as small, untracked packages.  The same kind eBay sellers of cheap "free" shipping items were using.

UPU- the Universal Postal Union has a tiered system of charges for "developed" and "undeveloped" countries.  The UPU is the reason you can mail a Christmas card to your granny in Sweden and use a Canadian stamp. 

When China very suddenly threw off much of their "communist" ideology and re-entered the world market as a cheap labour source for Western manufacturers , as a side effect many smaller businesses started shipping directly to consumers using the very friendly UPU rates.

Canada Post, along with USPS, Royal Mail, European postal systems etc. were annoyed since this cost them a lot of money, and basically put all small, untracked, surface shipments on low priority for processing. They went on strike if you like.

In 2016, China Post finally agreed to move to "developed" rates and those have been rising over the past few years. There is another convention in 2020 and rates may rise again.

None of the postal systems lost anything on this, because they were losing money on delivery, and because Chinese imports were not paying duty (too cheap) and cutting into the Western economy (cheap goods, lost jobs).

the 99.5% feedback does not include the items that were never received this way,

This is true but eBay does not use feedback to assess selling accounts. That is the job of the Resolution Centre. 

If a seller refunds promptly in a Dispute he doesn't get a Strike, which is very painful for a seller (and something US sellers seem unable to understand).  So his account remains clean-- at least as far as customer service goes.

Sellers do get some sort of black mark when any Dispute is opened, no matter how it is resolved. I'm unclear on this because most of the information I've seen comes from volcanicly angry posts by US sellers.

The Feedback is best used by reading what the negs and neutrals actually say.

A pattern of complaint about slow delivery, poor quality, poor communication, or fake products, is more important that the actual percentages-- which work on ratios.

[femmefan1946]

start to believe that this issues...happens mostly with Canadian buyers. 

No.

 We see the same complaints on dotCOM. I don't visit the European boards often, but the problem is based not on the postal system, but on sketchey sellers.

This is because our Customs Agency has been delaying the item delivery for years...

[oragex]

Just wanted to add to the post above, I see the way Chinese sellers deal with the situations this way:  they ship out only, let's say 6 items out of 10.  Of those 4 items that were never shipped, the buyer will wait over 60 days - because the shipping delays are always one or two seeks past 60 days.  Past 60 days, the "More actions' menu at the right of each item on the Purchase page history, not longer displays the option "I didn't receive the item".  So out of those 4 buyers who didn't receive the item, 3 will give up and consider it a lost, and the fourth buyer will search longer on Ebay and will find the Resolution Center page and will get a refund.  So out of 10 orders, the Chinese seller will have shipped out 6, offered a refund for one, and got the money for 3 items without even posting them.   This is an excellent deal, the seller just made 30% more profit this way, and his feedback is untouched, same for his reputation.  I hope I don't give anyone ideas with this post, but I think this is how they go these days.  I quite sure China market is quite wild, and they won't hesitate doing more or less moral tricks to improve their profits.

Again, only Ebay can help and look into this issue.  I am certain Ebay can improve the buyer's leverage with feedback time limit longer than the shipping time limit, and also by adding on the Purchase history page the option for refund "I didn't receive my item" for up to 3 months after the purchase date.  This is what Aliexpress does with their purchase protection, and it works.

As of now, when I will buy again on Ebay (if I will keep buying), if the item doesn't show up after 55 days, I will automatically leave negative feedback, then ask for a refund.  I will in no way leave positive or no feedback because I get a refund.  The problem here is they didn't even ship the item, so regardless I'm getting a refund, that deserves a negative feedback, in order to inform fellow Ebay buyers.

[electronicsextraordinaire]

I'm noticing that all of my missed packages are shipped from SYBA aka Sunyou aka Malaysia Post.

Other packages from China seem to have no new problems (SpeedPak is great, Winit comes through eventually. Don't think I've had a Yanwen in a while).

[femmefan1946]

For many years/ decades  companies have shipped from "foreign" locations to get the cheapest rates.

We used to get our Christie's Auction catalogue with Maltese postmarks, for example.

Sounds like some Chinese sellers are now using cheaper Malaysian shipping, since their cost for shipping from China is rising.

[cb4caoj]

Visiting the ebay forums for the first time ever to post a topic like this before seeing your port. I have been buying items (usually $1-$3 cheap everyday items) from random sellers in China (20000+ feedback) and have never had a problem other than waiting a long time. I never really put much thought into packages I don't receive as it's easy to forget you spent $1 on something, although going through my purchase history, I do have some outstanding items from several months, even last year. Unfortunately I have nothing else to offer other than this story, but I have noticed your problem as wel.

[oragex]

 I would like to post an update.  I have called Ebay and the representative mentioned they are aware of Chinese sellers taking advantage about the feedback timeline being shorter than the Delivery date.  She mentioned Ebay is working on this and soon will modifify it's policy.  Ideally Ebay must expend the feedback timeline and the "I didn't receive my item" duration past 60 days - to make these stay on the History Purchase page at least as long as the Delivery date of the item.  I recommend everyone with similar problems to contact directly Ebay by phone and make a suggestion/complain on this subject.  Here's how to contact them, be sure to use the button "Let us call you" (it works much faster than calling them)  Go at the bottom of this page   https://www.ebay.com/help/home

[busines-219]

I've been on Ebay only for a year and a half. I have excellent luck getting items from sellers living and selling in the US. Sadly, MOST of the items I've bought from China have been of poor quality--many even arriving broken. Ebay's Resolution Center has reliably taken care of me, but it takes a long time to get through to them and the ongoing effort can be exhausting.

Over the past year, it seems I have a 50:50 chance of NEVER receiving an item sold by a Chinese seller. I'm not trying to bad-mouth Chinese sellers, just sharing my experience. I thought I'd learned my lesson about 6-8 months ago and I started clicking the "Advanced" hyperlink and restricting my searches to "US Only" under "Preferred location." But this hasn't helped because many Chinese sellers ship from US warehouses. So I get the same very low quality products. 

Lately, I've been choosing mid-to-high priced items in the class I'm looking at. Hasn't made a difference.  For example, I searched recently for stainless steel spigots for some dispensers. The price varied by more than 100% up/down for the identical product. And most of these sellers, Chinese or otherwise, have, as others have noted, very high ratings (99%+). Amazon also has a lot of Chinese sellers carrying low-quality goods, but at least I get those products quickly and can return the low-quality ones very easily. Unless it's specialty items, I haven't had luck on Ebay. Way too much work to sift through bad sellers and **bleep**py products with no guaranteed way to get what I want. I've tried following the advice on Ebay Community, but I still get burned too often.