why can't ebay do anything about fake item locations???

[marklyn]

3 of the last 5 auctions I won stated they were in US locations, some less than 100 miles from me. This is why I bid on them in the first place.

3 of the 5 started their shipment to me days after I paid and from a location, usually on the East Coast (I'm in Tx).

I know these are Chinese based sellers but you can't tell that when you're bidding since they represent themselves as being in the US.

Why the heck can't ebay stop this???

More and more I'm starting to depend on Mercari.com, letitgo.com, etc.  At least the Chinese haven't found those auction sites yet.

[eburtonlab]

@marklyn 

One way to deal with such sellers 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 where 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 US-registered 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.

When faced with a long list of search results that you want to narrow down to sellers that can ship quickly, using the "Guaranteed Delivery" filter will often help; very few sellers that ship from overseas qualify.

[eburtonlab]

One way to deal with such sellers 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 where 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 US-registered 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.

When faced with a long list of search results that you want to narrow down to sellers that can ship quickly, using the "Guaranteed Delivery" filter will often help; very few sellers that ship from overseas qualify.

[ed8108]

EBay can do !

 Yes, manny eBay users will need to contact eBay & request that ebay do more to encourage & promote honesty 

[mudshark61369]

@marklyn,

In addition to what @eburtonlab wrote:  When looking at a seller's feedback profile page, click on the numbers of non positive feedback the seller has received. Doing that displays only those comments. You want to look for slow or non-delivery issues, as well as items being shipped from China.

Another indication of items coming from China is very low priced items being shipped for Free or a much lower cost than a domestic seller would pay. China's govt. subsidizes international shipping, and the sellers also benefit from paying the lowest cost for shipping once an item reaches the U.S. due to a U.N. postal treaty which rates China's economy as being equal to that of Botswana's. 

[marklyn]

I have done all of these things suggested, still, they slip by.  Besides, what are my fees  going toward, can't eBay devise some type of vetting process on their own and do a much better job of preventing this?  Sometimes I am suspicious but, like someone said, you just never know for certain.  My only retaliation is to leave negative feedback, which apparently other buyers don't do in regard to overseas sellers posing as local/US sellers.  I wish ebay had some type of followup questions to prompt the buyer as to whether or not they believe their sale was from a location outside of the US... if enough buyers indicated this then ebay could be flagged as to investigate or take action.  I seriously doubt they will since ebay is too greedy to put much effort into stopping this until they are hemorrhaging too many buyers, like me.

[poppop545]

EBay could control this if they wanted to. They do not. You can buy from who ever you want. They know this. As far as if enough buyers gripe about this, EBay will do something is rediculous. As long as you are buying, they don't care. If you are not buying, well that is why there are millions more sellers than buyers. 

EBay will not do anything that harms EBay for the benefit of the sellers. The sellers pay the bills on EBay. Therefore, if the seller won"t pay because the buyer couldn't figure out the correct way to solve the problem, they will deny the buyer with some minutia that may or may not apply. Once that happens, all avenues close for the buyer automatically. If the buyer DOES find the way to press the issue, THEN EBay MAY  tag the seller. If they can't they MIGHT pay the buyer with a "courtesy" payment. Regardless, EBay doesn't pay ANY payouts. Either the buyer pays the price, the seller pays the price, or the members pay the price. All EBay has to do here is make it a requirement that all listings state the shipping origin. 3 strikes and the seller is out. Nothing fancy. But they will not, because they don"t care as long as buyers are buying so the sellers can pay EBay.

[atikovi]

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@marklyn wrote:

Besides, what are my fees  going toward, can't eBay devise some type of vetting process on their own and do a much better job of preventing this? 

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Buyers don't pay any eBay fees.

[marklyn]

The fees I'm speaking of are my selling fees... even though I'm a buyer in this situation, I do sell too so I am paying eBay money to build what I'd like to be a reputable auction environment, or so I'd hope.

[canarykim_usa]

If I'm suspicious, I'll message the seller before I bid or before I "Buy it Now" and ask specifically where the item is being shipped from. At least that way, you'll know AND if the location ends up being misrepresented, at least you'll have it in writing.

[john-tropi]

To be strictly accurate, buyers DO pay fees, not directly, but indirectly via the seller.
Think about it.
The seller has to pay an EBay fee. Seller knows what that is and builds that figure in to the price required to purchase the item.
Buyer makes payment to Seller and at that point has reimbursed the Seller's EBay fee to the Seller. Indirectly, the buyer always pays the fees. It's just not very obvious.

[mine_yet-60]

Agree about the Chinese sellers always using fake locations to get items sold on Ebay and nothing gets verified about this or done to change this fact.

But, that Mercari website beware because if you think it's difficult to retrieve your funds back on Ebay, Well it's far worse on Mercari.   They virtually have no customer service.  No one to answer phone lines and after waiting long periods of time, their system hangs up on customer that has waited 30 minutes or more.  

What's even worse the website advertises a form to fill out when you have a dispute. Only no form exists on the website.  Then Mercari has nerve to say if you leave a negative you can't start a dispute.  Only there's no way to leave a dispute!

Two times purchased on Mercari website and two times broken junk sent.  So buying on line these days is very risky.  Because of more and more criminals taking advantage of these websites.  Because the websites earn the money no matter what and they don't want to help buyers recover their money back.  Product got sold and the website made their money protecting the sellers.

If they really wanted to have happy users on both ends (sellers & buyers).  The websites would create a disciplinary action program and block seller accounts for huge amount of negatives ( and stop removing negatives like Ebay does all the time).   Example:  If a seller averages 100 sales a month but starts to get even 10 negatives in a month then their discipline from selling for two weeks .  Until they behave and ship goods on time or don't send junk.  Or another option is they pay a higher percentage for end of auction fee's if they're getting  too many negatives in a month. Adjust their monthly billed invoice accordingly.  Once it starts effecting their pocket book may be they'll think twice about robbing all others on these websites. 

I for one have had enough with online shopping every where and intend to lay low for a long, long time. To NOT give my dough to any of the rampant crooks I encounter all the time now all over the net.  But, partially on auction websites.  Also this getting rid of being able to know any thing about our seller like their location, address, email, or phone # absolutely sucks! If I'm robbed, you bet I'm going to call and hunt yeah down and that should be every buyers right to recover their own funds and know who they gave their money to.   It's still a buyer beware website and always will be.   I guess when using auction websites like Ebay.   One of the first things a PayPal Rep told me years ago when I encounter my first huge loss on Ebay was:  Never bid more then your willing to loss.  I try to never bid on any thing more then $75-$100.  Plus always use a credit card and not a PayPal credit card.  Because Ebay owns PayPal and they totally work together not to give refunds!

[kcbguitars]

Same thing happened to me on my last two eBay purchases.

Filtering the results to US Locations AND looking up the seller profile to see what country they're listed in, after placing the order (most recently for an item located 4.5 hours away from where I am), it was the same scam.....

• USPS has a tracking number, but for 2 weeks, no status
• Then, once if finally gets a status, it bounces around for over another week between USPS locations

I confronted the seller who, despite being supposedly located in Kentucky, just made excuses and stalled in broken English.  

After almost 3 weeks, I filed a refund request for not receiving the item.  eBay said it would review the request after a few more days passed.  The day before the deadline, the item finally arrived.

While I can't prove it, I'm willing to bet this was another fake US location scam that uses a US location for items to be shipped from within the USA, when it was actually shipped from China (accounting for the majority of time in shipping and the unknown status for over 2 weeks), then finally shipped from the fake US location to me.

eBay can and should fix this!

I avoid Amazon because I don't like the company, the owner, etc. and I try to use eBay to support smaller US sellers, but the way that shipping locations, and now apparently the sellers profile location can be falsified, it's no better.

Very, VERY frustrating!

[cmobilio2012]

So all these Chinese scammers selling items at unrealistic prices have to pay upfront a fee, they keep changing their scam names open up new scams take your money never ship with a tracking number that is bogus. Then we wait till the end of the ship date to get our money back. How does the seller get his money upfront or after delivery? Case in point this is real? I very much doubt it.Reported it too as fraud.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/100W-CO2-Laser-Engraving-Cutting-Machine-900x600mm-Engraver-Cutter-USB-Disk...