Amazon drop shippers buying from us asking us to ship to their customer

[l5vw]

Getting a little tired of Amazon sellers buying our items and having us drop ship to their customers. Most are asking us to ship with no invoice and claiming it is a gift lol ! Seems like there is always some sort of problem.

Anyone else dealing with this ?

Thank you  

[valueaddedresource]

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@outdatedrecreated wrote:

We as sellers are protected from negative feedback from drop shippers, and they are NOT protected with eBay's moneyback guarantee. 

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I suppose if you hit the jackpot of getting a helpful & knowledgeable CS rep and you have some way to document that they are in fact drop shipping this way (not just a suspicion), you may have a snow ball's chance in you know where to get somewhere by arguing this activity violates the spirit or intent of eBay's drop shipping policies, even if it doesn't violate the exact letter of the policy.

Odds of that being anything but a frustrating waste of time are extremely slim though and even if that miracle occurred, the drop shipper could just come back 2 seconds later with a "new" guest checkout account and circumvent your blocked buyer list.

So in reality- nope, nothing you can really do to stop it and no protections against any negative feedback or claims.

[reed-sales]

Last month I got a phone call asking how to return an item we sent to them.  They looked up my address on Google and called me directly.

Turns out they ordered the item on Amazon and their seller bought it from me here.  I had no idea of any of this until I received the phone call.

I suggested they contact the Amazon seller and also pointed out that we do not offer returns and if it was sent back to us, there was nothing I could do to refund them.

So I suggest to OP to ship to the address provided and let the chips fall where they may.

[valueaddedresource]

@reed-sales  - Yikes, that sounds similar to a call I got that ended up being the first bread crumb that lead me down a path to discover a pattern of triangulation fraud/arbitrage "drop shipping" using stolen credit cards and hijacked eBay accounts that was and still is occurring on eBay. 

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selling/Warning-Retail-Arbitrage-Credit-Card-Fraud/m-p/30822324/highli... 

As long as we get our $$ and don't get scammed, I really don't care if people are "drop shipping" from us, but some of them have figured out how to get their "inventory" for "free" this way and it is a serious problem.

[sextons-sweet-deals]

NEVER NEVER NEVER drop / forward ship!

You ship to the buyers address or cancel!

If you ship to another address than the buyers, you are screwed.

This will probably be an issue come Christmas shopping season. 

[myboardid]

sextons-sweet-deals - that is NOT what is happening.  The Amazon seller is having the item shipped directly to his buyer by entering his buyer's address into the eBay purchase.  There is no address changing or forwarding involved.

I have had this happen also.  With me, it is not usually a case of the AZ seller not having any stock and always buying from a cheaper source, it is usually that he has over-sold his stock.  My item might actually be higher priced than the one he sold, but he can't fill the order unless he buys mine.  I have other eBay sellers do this also. 

In addition, I have been known to buy from other sellers if I over-sell, but I avoid breaking eBay's rules by buying with a different userID and having the item shipped to myself.  Then I re-ship to the buyer.   This is truly a waste of postage money, but it keeps the situation eBay-legal.  Also, the seller I buy from has no idea that I am reshipping his item.  It costs me but I have a happy customer. 

[monster-deals]

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@l5vw wrote:

Anyone else dealing with this ?

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I'd love to. 

[yuzuha]

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@dhbookds wrote:

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@l5vw wrote:

Getting a little tired of Amazon sellers buying our items and having us drop ship to their customers. Most are asking us to ship with no invoice and claiming it is a gift lol ! Seems like there is always some sort of problem.

Anyone else dealing with this ?

Thank you  

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Why are you tired of making sales?  Granted, if they are buying from you, your prices may be too cheap........but why turn down sales if you are happy with the price you are selling it for? 

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Yeah, I must admit that I'm absolutely baffled as to why this would bother anyone. If I sell something for my asking price, great! I have money, and the thing is now no longer taking up storage/listing space. Could I have gotten more for it? Maybe, but there aren't enough hours in the day for me to be constantly researching the current going prices for the things I have listed. I'm here to sell stuff. As long as that happens, I'm happy.

[gadgetmans_attic]

with 500 plus sales why compliant are you nuts? You look like a drop shippers,

[mrayb70]

Here is my latest message I received from a "buyer"...quote..... "Hello!

Thank you for selling me your item!

Could you please leave out any packing slips, forms or paperwork? We can view the packing slip digitally and it’s eco-friendly if you don’t include the packing slip in the package. So please leave out any paperwork. 😃

I already updated the eBay address to match the address that the item should go to, so go ahead and ship it to the address provided.

Here's the address again for your reference:                                                                                  the end buyers info here...then the message continues....quote "Also, as a former eBay seller I’ve put together some useful tips for shipping the item in these hard times.
I know you’ve most likely shipped a LOT of items over your career but during these hard times sadly things are changing.

The shipping carriers are being MUCH more brutal with packages due to the influx of packages they have to move around.

To make sure the package arrives safely, keep in mind that the postal carriers might literally throw the packages around which can cause damage. How I’ve kept packages safe is to imagine if the package drops from a 3-6-foot distance will it still be okay? This made it so all of our packages arrived safely and in good shape.

If you ship the item in a box, polybag, bubble mailer or whatever you ship it in, just keep that in mind and the item should arrive safely.

We purchase a LOT of items, the only items we ever return are items that are either broken or don’t work upon arrival. So, if the item you send is in good working condition and arrives safely, you don’t have to worry about us returning the item. 😃

[inhawaii]

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@kensgiftshop wrote:

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@l5vw wrote:

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I package and ship like I always do, I don't do anything different.

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 Me too. 

15vw:  Once they buy it from you, what do you care where it gets shipped to ?

A sale is a sale. 

[jbjbj_7]

Don't worry about it. Just put the weight, click print and ship it however you want. You need to include the invoice in the box in case the package gets lost. Who cares if their customer complains. Not your problem. 

[divwido]

You sell something, which is why you are here, you ship it to the address provided...Where's the downside?

[valueaddedresource]

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@gadgetmans_attic wrote:

with 500 plus sales why compliant are you nuts? You look like a drop shippers,

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@gadgetmans_attic  - if that was directed at me, I'm sorry I don't understand what you are trying to say.

[a_c_green]

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@l5vw wrote:

Getting a little tired of Amazon sellers buying our items and having us drop ship to their customers. Most are asking us to ship with no invoice and claiming it is a gift lol ! Seems like there is always some sort of problem.  

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Pardon a nit, but it's a packing slip, not an invoice (which is a demand for payment). 

What sort of problems are you having? And, for that matter, how do you know that your buyers are actually Amazon sellers? Any buyer is allowed to have their purchase sent to a Ship To: address with someone else's name on it. You just need to ship to the address received with the payment.

[l5vw]

Lots of great discussion here.

True if you ship to the buyers provided address no matter who or where it is you are covered by E-bay seller protection.

True we should just be happy to have made the sale !

We have had issues with returns that get messy when the Amazon buyer thinks they purchased from  the buyer who purchased from us on E-bay ( the Amazon seller) but they have our info as the seller / return address

Also as per Amazon rules:

Examples of drop shipping that is not permitted:

• Purchasing products from another online retailer and having that retailer ship directly to customers, if the shipment does not identify you as the seller of record or if anyone other than you (including the other online retailer) appears on packing slips, invoices, or external packaging; or
• Shipping orders with packing slips, invoices, external packaging, or other information indicating a seller name or contact information other than your own.