eBay

ambros_51 · ‎06-17-2022

i have an item listed on e bay canada that clearly states that i ship international world wide , and yet i received several messages from a buyer in FRANCE attempting to purchase and he says he keeps getting blocked by e bay saying that i do not ship over seas , i checked and re checked my listing to make sure that the worldwide shipping is activated and also it states countries that i ship to .

can anybody shed some light on this issue ? or is the buyer confused and does not know what he is doing ? or is it some kind of scam .

femmefan1946 · ‎06-17-2022

I checked the first item in your list (also the highest priced because that is my basic Search) and it will ship to France and the cost of shipping shows up.

Which item is he fussing about?

The price may be upsetting him. Your Tube Amplifier is heavy, fragile and valuable and he may not understand that packing and tracked international shipping is expensive.

He may be fishing for a discount.

He may be trying to take the deal off eBay for honest reasons, or as the beginning step in a scam.

He may be Blocked because you have dealt with him before (perhaps a previous ID, a Block ignores the actual name and Blocks the account) or because he has previous Unpaid Item Strikes.

What is the item and what is it's value?

femmefan1946 · ‎06-17-2022

A couple of your items you are willing to ship to France but you do not have Calculated Shipping set up.

The buyer has to contact you for price.

This may be what he is trying to learn, although he should do it before he purchases, not after.

pjcdn2005 · ‎06-17-2022

You do have a few items that have shipping just to the US and Canada. If it is one of those items you need to add shipping to France on the listing. One way to check is to click on your listing as if you were a buyer and in the shipping/payments tab, change the country to France and see what it says.

ambros_51 · ‎06-20-2022

The buyer in france has now purchased the item and paid. Since i use CANADA POST for all my shipping and CANADA POST will not provide a shipping label if a receiver phone number is not provided .
I requested The buyer to provide his/her phone number but no reply . After several requests still no reply .
I am now suspecious of this person and i am considering cancelling the sale.
The sale amount is $129.00 and the shipping is $159.00 . I think i smell a RAT ! why is this person now all of a sudden refusing to answer and provide a phone number.
What do you E BAYERS think ?

ricarmic · ‎06-20-2022

If the buyer's number is not in eBay, the Canada Post "rules" are that you can put your own phone number in instead. I do this all the time. (I think in the past others have suggested 000 000 0000).

If you've looked at the buyer's feedback received and left that might give clues.

This will be tracked so you're really only exposed to INADs.

pjcdn2005 · ‎06-20-2022

The phone number is usually on eBay. Go to to sellers hub /orders waiting to be shipped, click on the arrow next to the item and then on order details. The phone number is usually there but as ricarmic said, you can use your phone number if there is not one. Many buyers do not look at their messages regularly do that on itself is not suspicious.

femmefan1946 · ‎06-20-2022

The reason customers buy online is that they can't find the item locally.

While it would be best to ask beforehand what shipping will be, not everyone thinks of that, particularly those who do not ship internationally themselves.
Most people underestimate the cost of tracked international shipping.

Are you asking for the phone number in English or in French? Google Translate or Babelfish are your friends here.

If the customer has paid, and I don't imagine you would be buying a $159 shipping label if he hadn't, just put in your own phone number. If you have it you might also add the customer's email address?

And congratulations, you now know that your item is worth nearly $300 in France-- or at least to one Frenchman.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎06-21-2022

@pjcdn2005 wrote:
The phone number is usually on eBay. Go to to sellers hub /orders waiting to be shipped, click on the arrow next to the item and then on order details. The phone number is usually there but as ricarmic said, you can use your phone number if there is not one. Many buyers do not look at their messages regularly do that on itself is not suspicious.

@ambros_51

Many buyers leave that field blank either intentionally or accidentally. The phone number/valid email is a longstanding requirement for courier shipments. It is also now noted in the CP/USPS guidelines. Yes...You can include your own phone number but that does very little to help Intl customs if there is an issue with clearing a shipment. It is noted specifically as a requirement on many of the International postal websites. The new go to is a cell number if getting in touch with the buyer is needed. Unfortunately something eBay has chosen to consider non-important because of their paranoia with sellers and buyers directly communicating. (If sellers or buyers have spam blockers in many cases eBay mail gets filtered out. If a request for info was missed by the buyer, the parcel could potentially be returned to the seller at the sellers expense. There is a place with the CP/Shippo customs form to choose either RTS or dispose...really depends on value at sellers discretion.)

-Lotz

ambros_51 · ‎06-21-2022

Just as i suspected about not suplying a phone number by a buyer on an international sale. That puts me the seller at risk of losing the item plus the shipping cost. I just did not trust the buyer so i cancelled the sale and refunded the buyer.
Before he purchased there was several e mails back and forth between us. Then he made the purchase and afterwards i asked for a phone number for the shipping label and my requests were ignored . I requested 3 times and no reply!
So i decided that something fishy is going on and i canceld the sale and gave a full refund.
Now i am wondering if i should put this person on my block list.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎06-21-2022

@ambros_51 wrote:
Just as i suspected about not suplying a phone number by a buyer on an international sale. That puts me the seller at risk of losing the item plus the shipping cost. I just did not trust the buyer so i cancelled the sale and refunded the buyer.
Before he purchased there was several e mails back and forth between us. Then he made the purchase and afterwards i asked for a phone number for the shipping label and my requests were ignored . I requested 3 times and no reply!
So i decided that something fishy is going on and i canceld the sale and gave a full refund.
Now i am wondering if i should put this person on my block list.

Having a "valid or any phone number" may not be a mandatory required field by eBay. In theory it should be. Just like address formats per country can vary. The same thing is basically in play for PO boxes. For CP/USPS not an issue to ship to. For couriers or anyone purchasing something through GSP it is. Unfortunately something a transaction does not catch until it's too late in the game and the sale has technically been paid for.

Used to be that you needed a legal name attached to the address. I've had orders recently without either a full last name or just a single letter. (Santa c/o North Pole would be an exception 🙂 ) In the past when the majority of everything had to pass through both eBay and Paypal there was 2nd layer of verification. Now. Not so much. (As a side note, in the future you can try doing a reverse lookup for a phone number connected to your customer. Something will display majority of the time with a bit of research.)

-Lotz

flipistics · ‎06-21-2022

Under the shipping settings, there's an option to always ask the buyers for a phone number. I don't know if it REQUIRES them to provide one in order to buy, but the option is there.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎06-21-2022

@flipistics wrote:
Under the shipping settings, there's an option to always ask the buyers for a phone number. I don't know if it REQUIRES them to provide one in order to buy, but the option is there.

It may be blocking a buyer out but without giving an accurate error message of what is required.

-Lotz

doc_scribe · ‎06-21-2022

@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:
Many buyers leave that field blank either intentionally or accidentally. The phone number/valid email is a longstanding requirement for courier shipments. It is also now noted in the CP/USPS guidelines. Yes...You can include your own phone number but that does very little to help Intl customs if there is an issue with clearing a shipment. It is noted specifically as a requirement on many of the International postal websites.

Even when a Buyer's phone number is available, I've always used my own phone number on all Canada Post and Customs forms. Basically, as a defacto trusted and vetted single point for contact.

I'm going back a few years since last discussing this subject with anyone at Canada Post, and I'll admit this is purely anecdotal, but at least 3 postmasters told me that if any issue does arise with delivery (especially damage in transit), Canada Post does not want deal with either the Buyer (a 3rd party) or even EBay (a 2nd party), only with the Seller (i.e. the purchaser of the label, packager of the item, and hand-off point for CP, therefore the logical 1st Party).

Of course in recent years, this issue has become muddied by the myriad intermediary shipping services Sellers now use, but ask yourself "Who is ultimately responsible for the safe, timely delivery of any item?". That buck always stops with us anyway, so I actually still prefer to be the sole phone contact on all forms.

lotzofuniquegoodies · ‎06-21-2022

@doc_scribe wrote:
@lotzofuniquegoodies wrote:
Many buyers leave that field blank either intentionally or accidentally. The phone number/valid email is a longstanding requirement for courier shipments. It is also now noted in the CP/USPS guidelines. Yes...You can include your own phone number but that does very little to help Intl customs if there is an issue with clearing a shipment. It is noted specifically as a requirement on many of the International postal websites.
Even when a Buyer's phone number is available, I've always used my own phone number on all Canada Post and Customs forms. Basically, as a defacto trusted and vetted single point for contact.

I'm going back a few years since last discussing this subject with anyone at Canada Post, and I'll admit this is purely anecdotal, but at least 3 postmasters told me that if any issue does arise with delivery (especially damage in transit), Canada Post does not want deal with either the Buyer (a 3rd party) or even EBay (a 2nd party), only with the Seller (i.e. the purchaser of the label, packager of the item, and hand-off point for CP, therefore the logical 1st Party).

Of course in recent years, this issue has become muddied by the myriad intermediary shipping services Sellers now use, but ask yourself "Who is ultimately responsible for the safe, timely delivery of any item?". That buck always stops with us anyway, so I actually still prefer to be the sole phone contact on all forms.

I've always included both numbers based on my 25 years plus of shipping Internationally by courier and over 15 years with eBay when items could not be delayed. When the VAT situation began with eBay collecting in advance it was noted with Royal Mail and a few other EU countries postal services that a phone number(cell) was required. Passed this on to Ebay but it fell on deaf ears. In some cases buyers were being required to prove that VAT had been collected in advance before goods would be released. If they couldn't they would be re-billed and they could deal with the seller/eBay to get credited. In one case I was required to forward a PDF of the original docs to the buyer for the parcel to be released.

What happens when additional parties get involved. I have ALWAYS use the bonus form with CP/Shippo for customs to declare that VAT was collected previously to speed up the release process.

On the flipside for damage claims it is very difficult to coordinate an inspection without having a buyers actual contact info. Info that is known to automagically go poof in the night at eBay's discretion. Why it is always good to keep a hard copy of the documents for every shipment sent. And why I will always use CP/Shippo vs eBay Labels for total control of the process. (In many cases it's really not economical to have goods returned to sender to get something inspected.)

-Lotz