China counterfeit welders

Question

Hi folks. Iâ€™m a small seller and am looking for a welder for personal use. I see $4000 miller welders (USA brand) selling from China for $275! Doesnâ€™t eBay monitor any of these thieves? Both ones I looked at have no fb and opened accounts one month ago. I wish there were some way to warn potential buyers bc theyâ€™re buying them. Any suggestions? Thanks and good luck with sales! Kasey

gosimus · Answer

@misplaced_texan < I see $4000 miller welders (USA brand) selling from China for $275 > My Dad was a welder. He used Lincoln welding machines on his truck all his life, except the time he bought a Miller welding machine. It didn't take long for him to regret his mistake. This was very long ago, and I can't remember any details of what he said exactly, but the essence of his dissatisfaction was that the thing sucked. He replaced it with a Lincoln as soon as he was able to do so.

misplaced_texan · Answer

That was a great reply, thank you. I didnâ€™t think about eBay not being able to monitor all of these. The whole thing just ticks me off bc sellers like myself who work hard to achieve positive fb and even harder, perhaps, to protect it have to work much harder. Idk, I guess as long as there is greed there will always be scammers and unscrupulous sellers. Oh wellâ€”thanks again for the thoughtful answers!

eburtonlab · Answer

Scammers can put up listings much faster than eBay can take them down.

The problem is that unscrupulous or uninformed sellers can list genuine items and then deliver counterfeit items (or nothing at all).

It is not always possible to look at a listing and know in advance exactly what, if anything, the seller intends to deliver. For one thing, a scammer can simply copy a listing from a genuine seller, using a genuine photo of a genuine item.

Except for a few specific categories of items that go through authentication, eBay never sees what the seller ships or the what the buyer receives, so there is nothing for eBay to check unless someone complains about what was received by invoking eBay's money back guarantee.

Sellers are responsible for the descriptions they provide, and buyers should not assume that eBay screens the listings in advance.

As long as counterfeits and scams exist and there are folks trying to sell them, buyers will still have to be on the lookout for them, and avoid deals that are obviously too-good-to-be-true, whether they are being sold by accounts registered overseas or by domestic sellers wittingly or unwittingly buying counterfeits from overseas to sell here.

Buyers that doubt their ability to distinguish a genuine article from a counterfeit one should only consider purchasing from trustworthy sellers that have an established reputation for delivering exactly what was described, and should avoid deals that are too-good-to-be-true, or deals that are offered by inexperienced sellers that might disappear soon after the transaction is made, or else be prepared to get items authenticated by trusted sources within thirty days to be able to take advantage of eBay's money back guarantee.