Reporting sellers who lie about seller location?

[golaith45]

Is there a way to report sellers for shipping location not matching listing origin/location?

Im noticing that there are eBay accounts that are listing items as North America or US only, and the item itself is being shipped from another country.

eBay listing: Canada

items ships from: Hong Kong

eBay Listing: Los Angeles, CA

item ships from: India

etc….

does eBay have a way to report these things?

[golaith45]

 part about this is that you cannot find this out until you have purchased the item, and the seller has then shipped the item.

[house*of*paws]

Hi @golaith45 

The listing is supposed to show where the item is shipped from ... and NOT where the seller is located ... since many foreign sellers use a dropshipper in the US to ship their items, which is legitimate.

Buyers can sometimes tell that the Item Location in the listing is wrong by checking the following:

• The seller's location in their feedback profile.
• The Estimated Delivery Date shown in the listing seems too long for US shipping.

If it turns out that the item actually is being shipped from a non-US country ... then you can report the seller to eBay from here:  https://www.ebay.com/help/action?topicid=4022

I personally wouldn't accept an item shipped from another country that was supposed to be shipped from the US.  I would file an 'Item not received' claim from my Purchase History as soon as the estimated delivery date passed.  If eBay wants to delay opening the claim for some reason ... I would then open an 'Item not received' claim from my credit card company.

[eburtonlab]

You can report the individual listing using the "Report item" link in the body of the item description.

Use the options "Listing practices"/"Other listing practices"/"Item location misrepresentation".

If you are involved in a transaction you can report the seller directly:

https://www.ebay.com/help/action?topicId=4850

Probably the best way to deal with sellers that misrepresent item location is to avoid them. The "US only" item location filter selects items that are listed as being in the United States; however, as you have seen, not every seller that lists items in the US ships from the US as they should.

Before ordering you should check the estimated delivery dates -- that is a good indication of how far away items actually ship from. Also, going to a seller's profile page or feedback page will tell you where the seller's account was registered. Although some overseas sellers do use US warehouses to ship their items (and some registered US-sellers may employ overseas drop-shippers), if a seller is registered overseas, that raises the likelihood of an item shipping from outside the US, particularly for multiple quantity commodity items. Checking seller feedback will often reveal if there are problems with long shipping times, canceled orders or other supply chain warning signs.

[golaith45]

Right now it shows UPS is shipping the item to me.

I will have to see about returning it once it arrives.

it’s just disappointing because I can’t trust eBay listings to be correct or safe to purchase from.

its a certain type of unique cell phone I was buying, and I don’t need it to be coming from china because You always hear that knock off scam phones come from china.

[house*of*paws]

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@golaith45 wrote:

Right now it shows UPS is shipping the item to me.

I will have to see about returning it once it arrives.

it’s just disappointing because I can’t trust eBay listings to be correct or safe to purchase from.

its a certain type of unique cell phone I was buying, and I don’t need it to be coming from china because You always hear that knock off scam phones come from china.

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@golaith45 
I totally understand.  I personally would only purchase a cell phone from an authorized dealer so that I have the benefit of a manufacturer's warranty.  Most online sellers can't offer that.

[golaith45]

Same here. But this is a slightly older unique phone design that I wanted. It is not too expensive either, so if it lasted 1-2 years that is totally ok with me too.

It is just annoying to have to deal with this, this is not the first time I've encountered a seller like this.

I reported the seller to eBay.

It seems like this problem is getting worse.

[mr_lincoln]

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@golaith45 wrote:

Right now it shows UPS is shipping the item to me.

I will have to see about returning it once it arrives.

it’s just disappointing because I can’t trust eBay listings to be correct or safe to purchase from.

its a certain type of unique cell phone I was buying, and I don’t need it to be coming from china because You always hear that knock off scam phones come from china.

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HI @golaith45 

eBay falls woefully short in vetting these Sellers who are taking advantage of the system and taking search result spots from US Sellers who have their items here in the States ... to me it is a major failing of eBay's, sadly it does NOT "enhance the Buying experience" (eBay credo).  We see this complaint on a regular basis here and the frequency seems to be increasing.

[golaith45]

Wow, That is sad to hear. Hopefully eBay starts enforcing these things.

I got some advice from a different online forum platform and they said to file a INAD claim for item origin being inaccurate once the item arrives. See what ebay says to do about a return & refund process. I plan to do that.

Overall I have 2 worries about a device from china:

1) It could be knock off hardware, or swapped hardware, cheap reproduction or scam. (I've encountered this before on ebay).

2) It could have malware/virus hidden in its OS. (I've encountered this before, but not on ebay).

Somehow I have to make sure the phone is ok if I did want to keep it.

[mr_lincoln]

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@golaith45 wrote:

Wow, That is sad to hear. Hopefully eBay starts enforcing these things.

I got some advice from a different online forum platform and they said to file a INAD claim for item origin being inaccurate once the item arrives. See what ebay says to do about a return & refund process. I plan to do that.

Overall I have 2 worries about a device from china:

1) It could be knock off hardware, or swapped hardware, cheap reproduction or scam. (I've encountered this before on ebay).

2) It could have malware/virus hidden in its OS. (I've encountered this before, but not on ebay).

Somehow I have to make sure the phone is ok if I did want to keep it.

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@golaith45 

I am sure those are legitimate concerns ... we buy our phones directly from our service provider, they have a warranty and local support and we get to physically hold the phones and get a demo at the local sales store.  

[house*of*paws]

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@golaith45 wrote:

Same here. But this is a slightly older unique phone design that I wanted. It is not too expensive either, so if it lasted 1-2 years that is totally ok with me too.

It is just annoying to have to deal with this, this is not the first time I've encountered a seller like this.

I reported the seller to eBay.

It seems like this problem is getting worse.

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@golaith45 

I just wanted to point that that the problem isn't only on eBay.  I've experienced it on Amazon as well.  I had purchased some expensive, Italian-made, counter stools on Amazon that were supposed to be delivered the next day.  They ended up being shipped from China ... took a month to arrive and turned out to be horrible fakes.

Getting refunded was probably the worst experience I've had buying items online.  I received numerous emails  ... as well as several 2:00am phone calls ... from the seller who tried to convince me to 'close the claim'  before I was refunded.