eBay is no longer a viable place to purchase items internationally.

[recosus-im5cxo2p]

I've been buying and selling here for over 9 years at this point, and I know for most that's just an amateur number.

In that time I've dealt with countless 'tested & working' items turning up dead or not as described.
No matter where there were from though, the situation was dealt with pretty easily. eBay would examine my case and refund me, sometimes I'd have to return things but it was usually no big deal, just drop it off at the local Canada Post building.

Now it seems in recent times the GSP program is revised, out with Pitney Bowes?? And in comes DHL. You'd think this would be a saving grace but its somehow WORSE than PB.
Not only are they STILL downsizing packages and making them susceptible to damage, they are now way slower at handling your item, and the return process is a DISASTER if you're rural based like I am.
It would be great if eBay could examine my address and determine that there is in fact no DHL drop off remotely close to me. But they just auto generate the shipping label and tell you to have DHL come to you- except that DHL does NOT do pickups for an "import shipment" !!

Furthermore there is no longer any case tracking. I've called eBay CS 4 times now, and I'm told my case is being worked on... Ok... Where can I see the updates on this?? It used to be mostly transparent with the buyer and seller, now I'm left in the dark waiting to see what will happen.
The last insult to injury here is the fact that you are no longer refunded duty!! So this whole experience has been time wasting, money wasting, confusing (multiple CS reps telling me different / conflicting / flat out false things) and very frustrating.

I'm at a point now where if I continue to get no updates on this I will just open up a charge back with my credit card issuer and see if I can get some of my money back that way.

Surely I'm not the only one having a heck of a time dealing with GSP returns? Must be nice for those who live near a DHL drop off point, but for the rest of us who don't, not so fun. I'll definetly be dropping eBay for ANY international shopping from here on out.

[pjcdn2005]

If you are refunded for an EIS purchase and you pay duty at the time of purchase, you should be refunded everything that you paid to eBay, including the duty.

If you paid duty when the item was delivered/picked up and you return the item, you have to claim duty directly through Canada customs.

[femmefan1946]

The GSP has been dropped by eBay USA with the new contract going to eBay International Shipping . The GSP program still exists in the UK.

EIS chooses from a number of "final mile" shippers. DHL is one of them, but not the only one. TheGSP did the same since neither program has its own trucks.

... there is in fact no DHL drop off remotely close to me. But they just auto generate the shipping label and tell you to have DHL come to you- except that DHL does NOT do pickups for an "import shipment" !!

This puzzles me.

When you make a Not As Described Claim, the seller should be supplying a Return Shipping Label, not eIS. Even when eBay supplies the label, usually that is Canada Post*.
Are you consistently getting DHL labels? Was the shipment larger than Canada Post usually handles?

I've called eBay CS 4 times now, and I'm told my case is being worked on... Ok... Where can I see the updates on this??

Called? As in on the phone?

Never call eBay. They can call you but the social media Chats are much better.

The phone reps have a terrible reputation for getting you off the phone as soon as possible even if that means giving you the advice you want to hear instead of the advice you need to have.

Here are your options for contacting Ebay Customer Service. Please be aware that for social media CS, you send them a Private Message and briefly explain what your problem or issue is. Feel free to leave your Name, address, phone number and/or your email address in this message. It is private and secure and it may help to speed up the response for you.


https://www.facebook.com/ebay— Message button in upper right on landing page.
#204760888466
https://www.instagram.com/ebayforsellers/


https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/How-do-I-contact-Customer-Support/m-p/32016431#M1783851 -> Automated Assistant, type AGENT -> enter. You will then get more options.


The social media Chat accounts are covered by trained eBay employees with some authority. The call ins are handled by a subcontracted call centre in Utah or the Philippines.
And you get a transcript so you can compare what you heard with what you were told.
 

The last insult to injury here is the fact that you are no longer refunded duty!!

This is a puzzle.

EIS and GSP usually had a system for items damaged in transit (their responsibility) which refunded the buyer without any return being required.

These Claims were considered Seller responsibility? Usually damaged shipments would be refused by eIS and not sent on to the buyer, who would be refunded in full.

Were these Claims or how were trying to get refunded?

With GSP it was complicated because the import fees were technically paid by GSP not by the buyer. But as you say the GSP would be refunding EXCEPT if the problem was deemed the seller's fault.

Someone more knowlegeable than me will have to speak to this point.

Not only are they STILL downsizing packages and making them susceptible to damage,

This is a truly stupid urban legend.

GST did occasionally open a package to confirm that the contents were what was claimed. Even CBSA does this from time to time.

But any possible savings on dimensions would be eaten up by the labour cost for unpacking, finding smaller packaging, keeping extra packing on hand, and repacking the shipment.  For a large item, it might need two workers to be pulled off the line.
The minimum wage in Illinois is $14.00 USD.

To be fair, I did have one shipment repacked , a book some 50cm x30cmx2cm. But there was a letter on eBay letterhead packed in the box saying that it had been repacked (but not why it was an obvious form letter) and the box was huge- some 60x30x5cm- much larger than the book. And filled with crumpled newspaper which added to the weight but did nothing for the security of the paperback book.

If the packaging for your purchase was not adequate, that would be the seller's packaging not eIS/GSP.

I'll definetly be dropping eBay for ANY international shopping from here on out.

There's a lot to be said for Buying Canadian.

In that time I've dealt with countless 'tested & working' items turning up dead or not as described.

And buying locally where you can be sure of what you are getting before you pay.

*EBay has some sort of deal with Canada Post. For example, we can buy TrackedPacket USA labels at less than half the counter price.

[marnotom!]

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@femmefan1946 wrote:

When you make a Not As Described Claim, the seller should be supplying a Return Shipping Label, not eIS. Even when eBay supplies the label, usually that is Canada Post*.

@femmefan1946, one of the aspects of eIS that makes it so attractive to sellers is that eIS deals with returns, not the seller.

[leaky-bucket-labs]

hey I love to wait a month to get destroyed junk then wait another month to get my money back and do the leg work and take time out of my day to repackage the junk and drive to staples and send it back.

hey can you waste more of my time ebay?

drop shipping junk is the new thing I guess.

All these sellers selling damaged previously returned junk from their brick and mortar store or who knows where and blaming it on the shipping company and taking ebay for a ride too. ya thats awesome.

You got sellers laundering their damaged junk. quite the system you got there ebay. Hey look, the whole summer went by and I still need the part I got burned for with your great system oh but I got my money back. how about the summer you wasted? you gonna replace that too?

[marnotom!]

Okay, @recosus-im5cxo2p, if you're still following your Answer Centre thread, I've had a moment to sort through your post and find the questions you posted to it and figure out that the "case" you're referring to is the conversations you've had with eBay Customer Service on the phone about your return issues.

As @femmefan1946 has suggested, going the route of the phone reps really isn't the best way to go about this as many of them don't appear to be well-trained (if trained at all) in dealing with issues with eBay International Shipping from the buyer's perspective.  Going with the online chat options on the site or through Facebook or X / Twitter seems to be the better way to go, especially if you're looking for something like a case number.  I'm wondering if a case really was created for your situation, to be honest.

As for your question about whether you're the only one having issues with returns of items handled by eBay International Shipping, well, the Answer Centre and general discussion boards only reflect the experiences of those who post to them, so there may be others in a similar boat as yours, but they haven't posted about it.

The thing with eIS it's very much a work in progress and I suspect that it's had to change course(s) with its plans as shortly after it was starting to get rolled out, fuel prices jumped considerably (thank you, Vladimir Putin) and a lot of cost-cutting measures had to be implemented to ensure eBay's forecast losses on the program remained manageable.  The addition of DHL to the eIS fold for Canada appears to be a pretty recent development and I suspect the suits in San Jose didn't give rural and remote locations in Canada much thought when working out a returns system.  That said, I used to live in a remote location on Vancouver Island that DHL didn't serve, period.  I would imagine in a situation like this, I'd be looking for somebody going "to town" in the near future and ask them to drop the package off for me at the DHL agent there.  Is this not an option for you?

eBay may no longer be a viable option for you for buying items from outside of the country, but the fact is, international B2C sales in general have becoming a lot more complicated and expensive over the past ten years.  My wife buys a lot from overseas from sources other than eBay and from my perspective, the days of somebody sticking a customs form on a parcel and handing it over to the post office are long gone.  Most of these shipments aren't handled through the postal system and are forwarded/consolidated in a manner similar to what the GSP did nine years ago and what eIS does now.

From what I can see, you do some selling, too.  Are you keeping up with what sellers selling to the EU are facing in the near future?  See this discussion board thread:

https://community.ebay.ca/t5/Seller-Central/EU-General-Product-Safety-Regulations-GPSR-Total-Nightma...

[marnotom!]

What sort of case are you needing updates on and why?