Buyer drop shipping

[dealmaster08]

Someone bought something from me and it’s obvious they are drop-shipping from another platform. He/she has over 100,000 feedback as a buyer.  The address listed on the purchase is for

the person they are drop shipping to. They didn’t message me to ask me to send it somewhere else.  So, I did mail out the item, but I’m not crazy about the whole idea. Mostly In terms of returns which I try to avoid - but I won’t get into that. Anyway tonight I chatted with EBay and was sent to the Seller Protection department.  I explained about the seller obviously drop shipping to a third party. The eBay rep told me that because the buyer is shipping to a 3rd party they aren’t eligible for money back guarantee and they wouldn’t be able to return any items

Is this true or does this rep not know what he’s talking about?  Are you able to enter in any address to ship when you are checking out?

[buyselljack2016]

@dealmaster08 

I can buy something from you, and have it shipped to my cousin in Topeka with his address provided at checkout.

eBay MBG is 100% in effect.

How does your sale differ?

[slippinjimmy]

I love it when people want to sell my stuff and they don't even  ask for a commission.

Are you sure they are a drop shipping and not a buying agent?

[mtgraves7984]

Your job as a seller is to get the item to the address on the order. The buyer is charged with entering the correct 'ship to' address on the order at checkout. The eBay Money Back Guarantee is, in fact, in effect. Good luck.

[ittybitnot]

Is this true or does this rep not know what he’s talking about?

Sounds like perhaps he got 'dropshipper' and 'reshipper' mixed up and read from the wrong page. 

[luckythewinner]

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The eBay rep told me that because the buyer is shipping to a 3rd party

The buyer is not the one shipping to a third party. You are. 

Are you able to enter in any address to ship when you are checking out?

You are able to enter any address when checking out.

Is this true or does this rep not know what he’s talking about?  

Par for the course. The rep told you what you wanted to hear, got you off the phone, and will suffer no conequences when you discover he was wrong. 

[dealmaster08]

Thanks for your reply.  So quick question about this if you know.  For years it's been beaten into sellers don't ship to any address not listed on the order, such has via messages or email.  But what does that even matter, if the buyer can just put any address they want?  I've been selling as a hobby on ebay since 2000 and it used to be you really needed to have your paypal address confirmed or people would refuse to ship to you.  What happened to all that?  How is a scammer telling you via message to ship to a different address any different than a scammer entering in a different address when checking out?

[dealmaster08]

I understand.  To me shipping to your cousin or an alternate address of yours is different than sending to a random customer as a drop-ship situation.  You could probably get me in touch with your cousin if there are any problems and we could work it out together.  In terms of a perfectly smooth transaction there is no issue, I got my money, the end customer gets the item they want and my buyer makes a little profit.   The area that concerns me is returns, particularly for the kinds of products I sell.  I know that with the MBG to some extent it is beyond my control, but at least with a regular buyer I have the opportunity to discuss it with them, find a potential resolution, etc.  I highly doubt this will happen with a drop shipper.  Tell me I'm wrong.  They will likely do absolutely anything to force me to take a return in any circumstance, even with my no return policy.

[dealmaster08]

I guess I have no way of knowing but for the item I sold (video game related) I doubt it.

[dealmaster08]

I feel like my job with the seller is also to ensure good customer service and try to reasonably work out any issues that arise with my customer.  I feel like the drop-shipping buyer with very little skin in the customer service game (on the Ebay platform in this transaction) kind of gets in the way of that.

[vintage-car-magazines]

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@dealmaster08 wrote:

Thanks for your reply.  So quick question about this if you know.  For years it's been beaten into sellers don't ship to any address not listed on the order, such has via messages or email.  But what does that even matter, if the buyer can just put any address they want?  I've been selling as a hobby on ebay since 2000 and it used to be you really needed to have your paypal address confirmed or people would refuse to ship to you.  What happened to all that?  How is a scammer telling you via message to ship to a different address any different than a scammer entering in a different address when checking out?

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The difference is having it arrive at the address that's on the sale. Otherwise, you have a sales record saying to ship it to X and no record that you did or that it arrived at X. When that happens, the buyer can claim they never received at and you'll lose the case.

The advice still holds....ship to the address on the order so you're protected.

The buyer being able to choose the ship to address is one of the beautiful things about online shopping as a buyer. Instead of having everything sent to me and then me paying a second shipping to sent the package to family in another state, I can just have it shipped there directly. As long as that's the address on the order.

If my family finds a problem, I, as the buyer deals with the seller. In your instance, if it is a drop ship situation, the recipient would deal with the person they bought from....your buyer.

In most cases there's no issue if someone uses your for drop shipping. The only real risk I'm aware of is scammers using stolen credit cards in a triangulation scheme. Those are usually higher value items.

[bbravo65]

@luckythewinner 

...I love part of your reply (quote) "...the rep told you what you wanted to hear, got you off the phone, and will suffer no consequences when you discover he was wrong...", this happens not only on eBay but almost everywhere when calling Customer Service to express an issue...

[ittybitnot]

....have your paypal address confirmed or people would refuse to ship to you.  What happened to all that?  How is a scammer telling you via message to ship to a different address any different than a scammer entering in a different address when checking out?

@dealmaster08 

Years ago it was proclaimed that for EBAY sales via the Pal were all considered to be a "confirmed address".  It may have been a result of sellers not accepting the sales that were deemed 'ineligible' or 'partially eligible' as the case may be.  

It was not too long ago that ebay would honor seller protection for INR claims if there was a record of an address change after the fact visible in eBay messages.  That was discontinued as well since it became apparent that some of these "messages" were not even from the buyer of record, but rather from scammers instead.  Changing the address, even at the request of the real "buyer" often resulted in claims of 'item not received' as well.  

You are supposed to ship to the address provided with the order.  Even that has had some issues when a buyer bypasses the ebay dispute method and goes directly to the Pal or their c.card for redress.