ebay international shipping is putting CN as country of origin for all items

[maximus7001]

ebay international shipping is putting CN as country of origin for all items now. Every item so far has had CN as country of origin. All of the items were made in usa and clearly stated in the auctions.

For the small value items it doesnt trigger tax or duty however over $40 it is causing duty and it is not really due as the items are made in usa. We are totally ok with paying gst and pst.

Tried making ebay aware of this and they say that the seller put that on the customs form and that I am mistaken... They will not budge on this.

Now why would a seller have anything to do with a customs form for an item he is shipping domestically? As far as the seller knows there in just a bunch of usa customers at this strange address in glendale heights, IL.

This is the fault of ebay, not any sellers fault.

[mrdutch1001]

The eIS program is set up such that the workers at the USA HuB work with whatever customs information that is provided by the eBay seller...If the seller does not provide adequate, correct information, eIS has no control over that...

[marnotom!]

My understanding is that country of origin or manufacturer is normally entered in the “Item Specifics” section of the listing by the seller and that’s the information that eIS uses when creating customs documentation. Are the sellers you’ve been dealing with filling out that information correctly?

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

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@marnotom! wrote:

My understanding is that country of origin or manufacturer is normally entered in the “Item Specifics” section of the listing by the seller and that’s the information that eIS uses when creating customs documentation. Are the sellers you’ve been dealing with filling out that information correctly?

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@maximus7001 

@marnotom! 

I just confirmed with one of my recent sales. Country of Origin when I created the listing was USA. When I went to fill in HS number it had been updated to Canada as a default. I corrected back to USA. When the label printed it was correctly showing US. For the longest time on the Canadian side it was defaulting to CA/Province when it printed.  This was just fixed by eBay very recently after being reported numerous times. However this is taking place on the US side..... filling in by default or incorrectly guessing, both would be problematic. The country or origin signifies the duty rate in play. Because there is no actual invoice that get included with eIS next to impossible for a buyer to appeal even if they wanted to. 

-Lotz

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

@marnotom! 

This is most likely where eBay's confusion lies.

The country of origin for goods is the country where the goods were mainly manufactured, produced, or grown. It's also known as the "economic nationality" of the goods. 

The country of origin is important for a number of reasons, including:

• Customs

  The country of origin is a factor in determining customs tariff treatment, along with the value and tariff classification of the goods. 

  NOT where they are being shipped from. Why on the Canadian label when it printed why it was incorrectly porting Canada/Province.

[marnotom!]

@lotzofuniquegoodies

Since sellers using eIS do not have to fill out customs forms, what you’re seeing with eBay Labels would not affect them. The process of creating customs documentation is done at the eIS hub and it likely isn’t done with eBay Labels.

We’ll have to wait for @maximus7001 to get back to us about what they’re seeing for Item Specifics in the listings from which they’ve purchased.

[maximus7001]

The most recent item that this happened to is ebay item# 273789945055

We have spoken to the seller and they are disgusted that ebay has misrepresented their made to order item that was made in Michigan USA.

The seller had no idea the item was destined for Canada. A USA seller shipping to IL, USA (the hub) has no reason to have to fill out a customs form.

Ebay claims that I am an idiot and am mistaken. Ebay made the error out of stupidity and they need to pay us back for the duty wrongly charged to us due to their error, not the sellers or ours.

[marnotom!]

That's weird.  When I look up the item, the shipping choices available to me are UPS Standard and eBay International Shipping with taxes and duties paid at Checkout.  There are no duty charges showing up at Checkout.

Just to make sure I'm on the same page as you on this, @maximus7001, you paid duty and taxes on delivery for the fuel lines?

(Also checked the listing's revision history and I don't see any indication that the seller made any changes to the Item Specifics after selling a set of the fuel lines to you.)

[marnotom!]

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@maximus7001 wrote:

The seller had no idea the item was destined for Canada. A USA seller shipping to IL, USA (the hub) has no reason to have to fill out a customs form.

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No, the seller doesn't have a reason to fill out a customs form in this instance, but one of the program rules for sellers using eIS is that they're supposed to include an invoice inside the package.  (This is in response to a poit @lotzofuniquegoodies made in their post.)  I would think that a printout of the electronic version that eBay provides would be sufficient for pursuing a refund of duty through CBSA, however.

By the way @maximus7001, have you been speaking with eBay customer service on this or using the online chat options through Facebook, X, etc?  The general opinion on these boards is that online chat is the better option if you want reasonably-trained eBay staff to handle concerns like this.