No, you're not alone in your frustration.
Just in the last two days I have had to cancel 2 orders from "buyers" in China using a FF in Portland, OR, possibly just one buyer using multiple buyer IDs. The "buyers" ignored the part of the item description where I said absolutely no shipping to any eventual international address (except Canada and Australia), and no shipping to US freight forwarders... The value of the items was such that I was not willing to accept the loss of either one due to the obvious potential of a scam.
I use Stamps.com for my shipping, which passes every address thru the USPS database before accepting it. Both addresses to the FF came back as "ambiguous" and unacceptable in its current form. That's all I needed to use "problem with buyer's address" as the legitimate reason for cancelling the orders.
Note that I said "potential" loss. On certain items, I will take the risk of loss and go ahead and ship to a FF on either coast. Many, but not all, of the items I shipped that way, had no problems. But those were lower-value items that most scammers don't want to waste their time with.
IMHO, it is up to the seller to determine the acceptable risk of loss, and it's certainly NOT a good idea to run the risk with expensive or popular items that scammers worldwide are attracted to like flies to you-know-what. Sellers on eBay are the prime targets because fraudsters around the world (including those in the US!) look upon us as stupid and a vulnerable easy mark.
Harsh? Yes. But true in way too many FF cases. Discretion and common sense has saved my tush in nearly every case.
Cheers, Duffy
