Power Sellers Unite

snowypa · Joined: 05 Apr 2011 Posts: 2

I have a question, I have been a seller on E-Bay for over 10 years, Currently powerseller, and just barely a top-rated seller thanks to recently been getting beat up in the dsr's by buyers who could care less..
I have an item that just sold, which at 1st all seemed ok. They contacted me the following day questioning why their Paypal payment would not go thru.. I asked them what reason was given by Paypal. They stated that I do not accept payments from Non-U.S. accounts, which is true. I looked into this a little further and found that the buyer has a U.S. address listed on the bidder account, but is registered in Canada! How they got away with this, I don't know.
My seller account, and paypal account are both set up to not ship nor accept payments outside the U.S. This is also stated clearly in my payment details. ( I decided to do this since International shipments cannot be tracked, a requirement for protection by paypal) .
I explained to the buyer the reason why the payment will not go thru, and they actually wanted me to remove that payment block! ( Not an option) I did offer to work with them and accept a U.S. funded M.O. instead. It appears they do not want to do this.
I contacted ebay, and asked how this buyer was able to bid on my listing, and how did they get a U.S. account when registered in another country. The rep. agreed that they should not have been able to do this, however, it is up to me to cancel the transaction.....
Now, finally , here is my question... If I cancel the transaction, and the bidder becomes irate, am I open to a negative feedback and major DSR slams ?? The rep. "promised" me that if a neg. does come about, I can contact C.S. and they will remove the negative feedback, since the buyer was bidding illegally, but couldn't guarentee the removal of damaging DSR's...( She also told me if I cancel the transaction, then there is no transaction for the bidder to place a DSR for !!) That sounded a bit like a crock of b*** to me !
What do you think ?
HELP !!!!! :(

JohnnyMax · Joined: 26 Mar 2010 Posts: 53

Dont believe eBay, even if you cancel the transaction the buyer can leave feedback. You best option is to file for non payment, you can do it after 4 days, they will have another 4 days to make payment, once that happens they get a strike and cannot leave feedback for you. If you think they will figure out a way to pay then do nothing, do not file for non payment, just leave it as an open transaction, if they leave a negative you can have it removed since they never paid. Good luck.

Stockmiser · Joined: 03 Jun 2006 Posts: 1169

The block for non-USA buyers covers primary shipping address, but not paypal account. I don't ship outside of the USA, but I've had a few Canadian buyers with verified US shipping addresses. Was the buyer asking you to ship to Canada?

Another thing you can do in addition to an eventual NPB filing is to file right now against the buyer for "unwelcome and malicious bidding". You can see the details here with filing link:

http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/unwelcome-buying.html

As for having any FB removed, you definitely can - just do the appropriate filings and don't ever depend on a phone conversation.

The only problem I can see for you is the shipping versus paying distinction. Other than the paypal block, I don't see any ebay prohibition about non-US paypal accounts IF the shipping address is in the USA. In fact, it might be something you can't prohibit.

Rediscovered Shooting Tre

My son lives in the US but was in Japan when he signed up for a Pay Pal account. Ever since his pay pal account has shown as being in Japan. Pay Pal will not let me change it. That may be what happened with this person. I have also had several customers in Canada that live near the border have a US shipping address across the border. It can make for all kinds of problems. I hope this turns out ok for you.

snowypa · Joined: 05 Apr 2011 Posts: 2

Thanks for the posts of help. I think I'll just wait and see if they figure out how to pay. If I file an NPB, all they have to do is reply, and then they still can leave a neg...
I don't have much faith in E-Bay removing the neg. feedback or damaging DSR's, I requested before, and nothing is done.. Just a shame that they admitted that this is an illegal practice, and they are aware of it, but again, they do nothing about it!
I also tried to go thru the unwelcome bidding route, but that takes you in circles, and in the end the only claims are if the bidder is already on your blocked bidder list, misusing the buyer protection plan, or misusing the feedback system. ( which then they go on to state, they rarely remove a feedback, please ask the seller to "revise" the feedback.... haha, that's a joke !

doulcefrance · Joined: 12 May 2008 Posts: 129

I am located in Canada. I have been buying on eBay since 2000, from $4000.00 to $5000.00 per year, mostly from USA-based sellers. Not a single one has ever refused to accept my money.
I pay through Paypal, with funds that are in my Paypal account, (I am also a seller under another seller ID), which account is in US $ and located in the USA.
Color me puzzled.

Rediscovered Shooting Tre

When ebay started to track fb and dsr's seperately on international sellers MANY folks (myself included) quit selling internationally. With no way to track items or control arrival times with customs and different postal systems involved the risk was just too high. It is too bad as I always enjoyed the international sales and thought of them as the 51 state but I also had trouble with them and just a couple problems there could cost you your ebay account now.

cohibastore.com · Joined: 14 Sep 2006 Posts: 4908

many canadians near the US border, or with family in the US, have US addresses on their ebay and paypal accounts. and i honestly do not care where they are as long as it get shipped to a USA address

amazon, and ebay to a lesser degree, have lots of middle east and south american buyers who pay for a courier to relay packages from a US address. never bothered me in the least, but the ebay system does not lend itself to more of this type of selling. instead they rely on scumballs like shop america who cannot be trusted.