China dropshippers claiming product ships from canada

[driverdamon]

I've recently made some purchases and 4 out of the last 6 sellers lied about where the product is located. 3 were in China and 1 was dropshipped from Amazon 3000km from where item location claimed. When I try to contact eBay it's thousand click maze that takes me in a circle. Then tells me to go to a computer to get a number....I gave up my computer ages ago. So I get no contact number? Is item location faking ok to eBay? It seems like it because to report it is such a run around that who wouldn't just say "aww f it, I'm not using eBay anymore". I may aswell just go straight to Amazon cause that's where the item came from anyways! The beginning of the end for eBay. Amazon will crush you if your products come from there anyways eBay.smh.

[retroman_studios]

When Amazon delivered your item did it have a note saying a gift, from (your name) to you? If so that seller is abusing Prime and if you report it to Amazon the Prime account associated with that purchase will be suspended.

If the item didn't have the note about the gift, the seller is using FBA, which is a warehouse and logistics service Amazon uses. The seller likely sells on Amazon and eBay. There shouldn't be too much of a price difference between Amazon and eBay. In fact, since I no longer have a Prime account, it's cheaper for me to buy certain items from FBA sellers on eBay as they have no minimum purchase for free shipping, whereas Amazon's limit is usually $35 which forces you to buy more or pay for shipping.

As for the other sellers, report them. You can report them from the eBay app. Just open your purchase history and go to the item, there should be a link to report a seller.

[reallynicestamps]

Sellers are required to use the location of the item, not their own location when listing.

Some sellers, knowingly or not, don't do that.

Your best bet as a buyer is to look at the delivery time.

If it is over 20 days, the purchase is not coming from North America.

As noted, those incorrect locations can be reported to eBay.

Since you are finding a lot of these, here is the link for Reporting them.

https://www.ebay.ca/pages/help/policies/item-location.html

If you are only working with a phone, you can access a computer at most public libraries. Internet cafes have pretty much disappeared. You may also be able to use one at work or school during your breaks.

[mnflyer2000]

I was duped by these drop shippers too, and ebay does not care even slightly.   Now i have to return an item to china that was listed as being in Calgary

[pjcdn2005]

You can also report them from the listing itself.  About half way down on the right side of the listing page there is a link for ‘report listing’.  Click on:

-listing practices

-other listing practices 

-item location misrepresentation

[femmefan1946]

@mnflyer2000 

Perhaps not.

Who is telling you to return it?

Did you open a formal eBay Dispute? The Resolution Centre is at the bottom of this page.

Was your Dispute "Not As Described"? If so, the SELLER pays for return postage, either by sending you a Return Shipping Label, with tracking, or enough money via Paypal's  Send Money service for return shipping with tracking.

The tracking is very important (and expensive) because only if you can PROVE the item is back in the seller's hands, will you be refunded.

When buying items from overseas, it is worth considering the cost of return shipping in case the purchase goes bad. 

Most will be just fine, and most Chinese sellers are honest.

You get what you pay for. (So no, you won't get a diamond ring for a penny, but you will get a ring that was very carefully described to be not a diamond.)

In future, don't buy from sellers with less than a 98% rating and if the seller is overseas less than a 99% rating.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

I believe what is causing the majority of the uproar in these situations is buyers finding out AFTER the fact that a seller's products were really overseas ONLY when their items arrive.  I've spotted numerous sellers that state Canada/CA with no city attached but then when you dig deeper and see the delivery time it takes much longer than it realistically should. Putting in claims for these sellers that are miss-leading buyers does not seem to be doing anything about the problem.

-Lotz

PS. Then once it arrives almost impossible to get a hold of these sellers or then a return does not make sense because the shipping is so high.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

The other major concern with this "bait and switch" tactic is it moves items higher up in search results when buyers for the most part use Search Closest. Going to Highest priced first does not always work if there is a large number of items to scroll through. 

-Lotz

[tyler@ebay]

---

@mnflyer2000 wrote:

I was duped by these drop shippers too, and ebay does not care even slightly.   Now i have to return an item to china that was listed as being in Calgary

---

Hi @mnflyer2000 - I'm sorry that your recent purchases haven't gone as smoothly as we'd all prefer. 

I want to clarify that if the listing indicated that the item was located in Calgary you are in absolutely no way required to return it to a different country unless a seller provides a means for you to return it there. As @femmefan1946 mentions, I highly recommend opening a return in the resolution center. This provides the seller 3 days to resolve the situation with you. If they do not, you can ask us to step in and we will assist you. 

For items that do not match the description a seller is required to provide a return label to their location of choice (you are not required to pay for the label). If they fail to do so and we are asked to step in we will make sure that you get taken care of. 

I realize you may not be in a position to contact by phone, so we have other ways you can work with Customer Support! Facebook and Twitter are both relatively quick to respond and provide a great service. Thanks!

[mnflyer2000]

The problem was fixed swiftly and professionally by ebay customer service after i asked them to step in and call me back.  Thats the way to go.

[glenntech]

The item location misrepresentation is causing me additional problems because daily I scan through all new listings in several specific categories. Recently these categories have been flooded with many of these sellers who each seem to post tons of items. While I browse I have the item location: Canada only set.

Even automatically skipping the items that are really cheap and usually have free shipping it takes forever to scroll through pages and pages of them. I wish there was a way to exclude sellers that are registered in China unless I specifically want to do business with them.

[femmefan1946]

@glenntech 

item location: Canada only set....skipping the items that are really cheap

That's a start.

Now switch to Searching by Highest Price +Shipping first.

And then drill down to your price point.

This eliminates all the really cheap garbage, the misdescribed items, most of the replicas/counterfeits, that you have to slog through to find the genuine products.

You eliminate dozens of items you can't afford rather than the slog through muddy waters.

[driverdamon · Accepted solution]

So.... Shouldn't eBay being slogging through the Bs posts...not the customers. It shouldn't be a scam em if you can sales tactic site. I've resorted to buying off of AliExpress now anyways. If most of the stuff on eBay is coming from China anyways then I just cut out a couple middlemen.

[what-sales-direct]

If an item that is bigger than 2cm and you're in Canada shipping, you need to ship with tracking that typically cost over 12$ Most items listed for 15-20$ that surpasses 2cm are being sent from chana dropshippers or from FBA fulfilment as shipping cost is closer to 6$ for shipping.

But most dropshippers that claim to be in Canada will use faster expedition such as E-packet, that can be as fast as 15 days.

Buying from china is not bad, as most items are not even available from Canadian sellers as shipping is too expensive. Hope this helps!

[glenntech]

If I was searching for a specific item by keywords then switching to sort by: Price + shipping - highest first would help. Since I am browsing everything listed since the last time I was looking I really need to leave the sorting set to newly listed. I lose the newly listed sorting if I switch to price.

I have bought a few things from China but it was usually a conscious choice. I then know that I will have to deal with the wait time and the possible duty at the border.

Listings that have the seller registered in China but the item location is specified as Canada are not always fraudulent. There has been at least once that the item did ship quickly from within Canada. This means that I cannot report listings with the location discrepancy unless I actually buy something and can prove that the item came from China instead. It would be nice if EBAY could scan listings themselves and send an email to the China-based vendors that have lots of listings claiming that the item is in Canada reminding them of their obligations and outlining the penalties if the location is fraudulent. I'm sure that at least some of the sellers might refrain from lying.

Ultimately in my situation (daily scanning of all new listings in certain categories - Canada only) it is not going to work until all vendors are forced to be honest about the item's location. As it is I don't have the time to slog through all the bogus listings and have given up on many of the categories that I was scanning. I am going to be bidding and buying many fewer items on EBAY now.

[femmefan1946]

Look over to the left.

There is a Location option in that Search list of refinements , which allows you to choose Canada Only or North America.

As mentioned above, not all sellers will be accurate about location, some are lying, some are dimwits, but it helps.

[lotzofuniquegoodies]

In some categories clicking on Canada can reliably bring up China first, 2nd, third.....

-Lotz

[wz2-41]

I notice that a product that actually comes from Canada will often give the name of the city and province.

If it comes from China it will usually say Canada, Canada.

[mrdutch1001]

you have responded to a thread from 2019 and may or may not be applicable to the ways of today's world.. Often it is best to start a new thread to address current issue/problem that can be discussed with current/relevant information.

[mrdutch1001]

 @kh-phdan

ZOMBIE THREAD FROM 2019!