eBay International Shipping: “Arrived at hub” but eIS now says hub never received it
Summary: senor_velasco recounts an issue with a rare cassette purchase through eBay International Shipping (eIS) where tracking updates and refund scenarios create confusion. The eIS tracking indicated the item arrived at a hub, but conflicting information from eBay specialists suggested either the item never reached the hub or it became unavailable due to restrictions. gurlcat suggests checking alternative tracking sources and explains the potential outcomes when eBay issues refunds. Discussions with other participants about eIS practices highlight common issues with handling lost or misconfirmed items, suggesting that items might be resold by liquidators. The conversation includes speculation about the seller's intentions and the difficulty in resolving the situation.
I bought a rare cassette from a US seller using eBay International Shipping. USPS tracking stopped updating on July 30 and a Missing Mail Search was opened.
On August 28, eBay tracking suddenly showed “Item arrived at hub – Arrived at our international hub.”
I called eBay on September 2 and was told that the parcel had physically arrived at the hub, but because I had already been refunded, it could not be forwarded and would be returned to the seller.
A month later the seller still has not received it.
I contacted eIS again. One specialist referred to the item becoming “unavailable” after a restriction/undelivered event. Another eIS specialist then told me the exact opposite: “I do not see our hub ever received this order” and said USPS lost it before it reached the hub.
So my main question is: Can “Item arrived at hub” in eBay International Shipping tracking be a system-generated status rather than an actual physical inbound scan?
Has anyone, particularly an eIS seller, experienced this before?
albertabrightalberta
·1 week agoWhen a seller uses EIS and a refund is issued, ebay issues the refund making the buyer whole and the seller keeps the money so he is also whole.
With EIS, Ebay doesn't return the item to the seller. They have a couple of sellers who buy the returns and relist the items themselves. If you search for the item, you may find it listed with the same pictures and description as the original listing you purchased.
stuff4divas
·1 week ago@senor_velasco i use eis quite often and every pkg has been delivered to the hub via usps without incident. if u were already refunded, what is the issue?
gurlcat
·1 week agoThey still want the hard-to-find item! I totally get that, and feel really bad whenever something goes wrong with an eIS shipment, and my buyer just gets refunded. It hasn't happened many times, and I know it wasn't my fault, but I know I'd be sad (maybe mad) if I was the buyer it happened.
stuff4divas
·1 week ago · Edited@gurlcat yea, one of the advantages brick and mortar has over online buying
gurlcat
·1 week agoTrue but if something was available at a BAM store, or even somewhere ship-able within your own country, then you wouldn't pay the insane shipping/import costs to buy it from some other country in the first place. So whenever EIS fails for some reason, it was something that somebody really wanted.
senor_velasco
OP1 week agoIt was a very rare, maybe unique collectors item worth a couple of hundred dollars.
gurlcat
·1 week ago · EditedWhat carrier did the seller use to ship the item to the hub -USPS, UPS, or FedEx. Whichever one it was, copy the tracking number and paste it to THEIR website, to see whether THEY reflect that scan. If so (and I very strongly suspect you'll see it there) that will answer your question.
As for what these 3 reps told you .... I can't imagine why the 3rd one said what they said. But I can tell you the 1st one was simply incorrect. Any time an EIS shipment fails for any reason, whether it didn't arrive at the hub by some date, or couldn't be forwarded for customs reasons, or whatever, and eBay refunds the buyer .... they do so out of their OWN revenue, not the seller's. It's like they bought the item from the seller, so they don't return it to them. Instead what they tend to do is sell the item to a third party liquidator (along with thousands of other failed forwards and returns).
So basically the 2nd rep was the closest to telling you the truth. The item became unavailable.
BUT ... maybe not forever. -Try searching for that cassette again. You may just find it on eBay again, and don't be surprised if it even has the same title and photos as when you bought it the first time. There are 2 of these liquidators who re-sell right on eBay. One is called ShipCycle and the other 8ten1944. One of them very likely has the cassette, or will sooner or later, and will list it.
senor_velasco
OP1 week agoThat you for that valuable information. No, the scan doesn’t show up on USPS and no one can tell us the whereabouts of the item. Oddly, the hub scan coincided with the refund. I was refunded by the seller, not by eBay (the postage was refunded by eBay though which I found strange). I have a saved search for this tape so maybe a miracle is going to happen but I actually believe it is lost forever. It was a one-of-a-Kind item, maybe the only one in existence
gurlcat
·1 week agoOkay that is totally weird.
Let me ask you something, did the uniqueness of this cassette just appeal to for some personal reason, or did it also make it valuable ..... as in, maybe more valuable than what the seller sold it to you for? You get where I'm going with this?
I'm picturing maybe the seller realizing too late that he underpriced it, but didn't want to cancel the sale because of hte account strike it would cause, so he just sent 'something' in a package, maybe even did something(?) to make it encounter delays, hoping you would file Item Not Received as soon as possible, so you would just be refunded, with no blame placed on him. Meanwhile he watched tracking every day, and when he saw it actually arrived at the hub, he issued you a refund, because it would be better than whatever happens when a seller sends the wrong item to the EIS hub.
LOL I don't even know what happens then, but what I do know is they don't always open packages for inspection, in fact I think that's probably rare (just think of the insane workforce that would take). They may use an x-ray like the airports, who knows.
Anyway my imagination may just be running wild there. But if you did get a 'steal' price for that cassette, it wouldn't be the first time "seller's remorse" happened, nor the first time a seller avoided a cancellation strike and negative feedback in creative ways.
senor_velasco
OP1 week ago · EditedIt’s actually a quite long story. That tape was sold for a bargain price in a domestic sale in late July. I stumbled upon the finished auction two days late and messaged the seller asking if they could pass on my interest to the buyer. Amazingly, the buyer lists the item a week later and I purchase it with BIN for ten times the price of the original auction (I am fine with that price as I really want the tape - as for its “true” value …who knows…). I am getting my hopes up and waiting eagerly on the tape but the only USPS scan I see is the one where it left the post office of the seller’s hometown. Frankly, I don’t think the seller is to blame here as he effectively lost $500. He has pretty flawless feedback and I have no reason to mistrust him.
gurlcat
·1 week agoA very unusual and unfortunate case all around, for sure. I hope you get joy somehow or at least answers on what really happened. If so, please reply back, if you remember.
senor_velasco
OP1 week agoThanks for all the advice so far. One final question: if they liquidate/sell it off to a third party would that also result in a scan in the item history? Because right now the last scan is the “arrived at hub” scan which would suggest it is still there, unless of course that was a pseudo scan, which then would put the blame on USPS for never having delivered the item to the hub. This is all still very confusing .
gurlcat
·1 week agoNo I don't think that scan would have anything to do with them including the package in a pallet to be sold to a liquidator. But all the details of this make for one big mystery unlike any I've seen before.
To me one of the strangest parts is how the date of that scan was the same as the date that the seller refunded you. I wonder which actually occurred first that day, and if it caused the other, for some reason.
I forgot to ask you a couple things before: when you said "a Missing Mail Search was opened" -by whom?
And did you ever file an Item Not Received case through eBay? Or did the seller just spontaneously refund you, without a case?