I have seen that this issue has been discussed many times in various forums, but honestly it's the first time I've dealt with it personally. How the heck is it that Ebay allows foreign (To the USA) sellers run auctions where the seller is disguised in the auction as being in the USA?
As a consumer, or at least as it used to be in this country, I have enjoyed certain protections from false advertising that seem to have disappeared. In my case, and as the title says, the auction shows the item being in the USA, Oregon specifically. Well, when I check on shipping the item is shown as being in the possession of the shipper in New Jersey! The reason that irritates me the most is that I generally don't buy from people in New York, New Jersey, or Florida. My reasons are mine, and the item's location, as well as the seller's location is a material fact to me. It is my right to shy away buying from states where I have had my few bad buying experiences. But I need to have the truth up front.
As a general rule I do my item searches to stay with sellers that are in North America. It's nice that this is a search parameter. While it is possible that I didn't do that on this item, it would be unusual. So either this item, that I did purchase, showed up under a search that should have only included North American sellers it was an oversight on my part. It's not hard to do considering Ebay conveniently places non-North American sellers right below the North American sellers separated by a small line of demarcation. Hey Ebay, when I search North America only, that's all I want to see! I don't want to reconsider, thank you.
There are so many things that Ebay covers up, pushes off feedback pages, etc., that end up hiding material information from buyers that it's getting ridiculous to deal with sellers over Ebay. For one, Ebay should show negative and neutral feedback beyond one year. Sometimes that's where a buyer might find information that's important, actually instrumental/material, in their making a purchase decision. A beyond the first 5 pages check of the feedback of this particular seller's feedback shows that more than a year ago a buyer had an issue with this seller and noted that they were surprised that the seller was located in the Russian Federation. I too was surprised when I just verified this. And I can tell you that no matter how this transaction turns out, I'm hoping what I see as source obfuscation ends up the only dinger, that I would not buy what I bought from a seller in the Russian Federation in order to save $15 on an item.
I have now learned that regardless of what shows up on the actual auction page for the sellers', and/or items', locations, I must go beyond their feedback to see where they are actually located. Real truth in advertising would show this on the main auction page. Or maybe have an asterisk that points to a footnote about the actual location if different than shown elsewhere on the page?
Anything would be better than what it is. Fingers crossed that seller is as good as their recent feedback numbers show. Time will tell.
