Buying problems on ebay encountered by people outside USA
I am from South Africa. I saw an ad for an item that I am interested in, thus I joined ebay to purchase the item.
My old ebay subscription was forgotten by ebay, but registering again was easy enough.
Then my pain started. I clicked on the Buy button, but was greeted by a message:
"Unfortunately, this seller won't ship this item to South Africa. You can:
- Update your shipping address and try again.
- Or find similar items from another seller."
I tried another seller offering the same item, with the same result. Upon contacting the seller, he confirmed:
"I have this item in their “eBay international shipping†program. Please check with them why they will not let you purchase." I was under the impression "international shipping"would include South Africa. After all, the country is not in
I tried to buy the item again, but the block remains.
It is impossible to contact ebay. Their robot that handles enquiries lacks AI. It only knows a few topics, none of which are applicable to my problem. And they don't appear to be interested in buyer problems. There is no way to send a message to a helpdesk with your query, only the dumb robot.
Any suggestions to solve my problem.
A further note: The Buy as a guest option described in https://www.ebay.com/help/buying/paying-items/buying-guest?id=4035 does not appear to be available any more. I tried to buy using this feature, but ebay insists that I use a subscribed ID.
tobaccocardyahoo
·2 years agoAny of the exclusions listed in the link posted by @jonnyx could apply plus any import restrictions there may be placed by South African customs.
jonnyx
·2 years agoIt looks like South Africa is not on the country list
https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/shipping-items/setting-shipping-options/ebay-international-shipping-program?id=5348#section6
maven8138
OP2 years agoThank you for the info, but it rather applies to the seller; I cannot change anything on my side. It is a problem as sellers seem to struggle with the setup and eventually loose interest in the transaction after initially expressing their willingness to ship to South Africa in correspondence with them.
This happened to all the sellers I tried to buy from on ebay. I forwarded the answers that I received to them, but they did not get the changes required, thus I asked them to cancel the orders. I have another one that will go the same way soon.
Myself, I am about to cancel ebauy as I haven't been able to buy one item on ebay up to now.