Is there a way to report a seller for some sort of review?

[tg-il]

I found a seller with 1 feedback, selling it says "Member since: Oct-11-18 in China" and he has 307 items listed for sale.

The member page says "Member since: Oct-11-18 in China" but his listings say "Item Location: Pomona, California, United States"

Something seems very weird about having an account for all of a week, having 1 feedback and 307 items listed for sale.

Is there a way, as a member, we could do some sort of reporting to maybe just have someone at eBay review this seller and make sure he's not attempting to do some sort of scam?

[joem4stuff]

There's nothing wrong with being a new seller. Nothing wrong with a Chinese seller having items for sale that are located in the US. Nothing wrong with a new seller having only 1 review; better than 0.

If the seller has done nothing wrong, why do you want to report him? There is no way ebay could possibly investigate every suspicision, especially when there has been no wrong doing. There are tons of complaints about real, seemingly, wrong doing that are not investigated.

[pburn · Accepted solution]

Just wanted to add that "new account" does not necessarily mean "new seller."

I'm currently a buyer only. If I decided to start selling, I would open a brand new account to keep my buying and selling activity separate.

[goodluckselling]

Nothing to report.  You are over thinking and looking for a problem that is not there yet and or may never be there?

• eBay allows drop shipping (hense the two different locations)
• they could be using a fullfilment center to fill orders
• They could have family located in CA that is handling shipment for them
• If a buyer buys from the listing
• they will get an estimated date of delivery based on the item location not the sellers location,
• which can cause INR request to be opened which
• will cause the seller rating and service metric ratings to get very high which
• will result in higher FVF's and or
• restrictions and even possible suspensions.

I think all these things in place already will take care of any long term issues with sellers on eBay.

Good Luck Selling!

[reallynicestamps]

Change 'China' to 'Germany' or 'Canada' or 'Puerto Rico'.

The 'location' in a listing is the location of the goods not the location of the seller.

A lot of Canadian sellers drive their shipments over the border to take advantage of your incredibly low USPS postal rates and cheap tracking.

Those sellers use the location of the post office they use as the location of the goods, since there will be no duty on the purchase (the seller covered that at the border)  and USPS is faster than Canada Post (especially just now when we are dealing with rotating strikes).

[luckythewinner]

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@tg-il wrote:

I found a seller with 1 feedback, selling it says "Member since: Oct-11-18 in China" and he has 307 items listed for sale.  The member page says "Member since: Oct-11-18 in China" but his listings say "Item Location: Pomona, California, United States" 

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If he really is located in China and the items are being shipped from California, then according to eBay policy he is doing it *exactly* what he is supposed to do. 

That side ...

No, I do not think there is a mechanism whereby eBay will pay someone to check up on a seller who is not violating policy simply because you think he might be up to something. 

[tg-il]

Thanks for all of the helpful posts.

I'm not necessarily suggesting that this is doing anything wrong, but in my mind there were a lot of checkboxes ticked that made me a bit suspicious of buying from him.

You all have some great explanations.

Obviously there is a lot about eBay I don't know.   I guess I don't understand how someone could be in China and ship product out of California.  That's quite a bit different than someone from Canada driving over the border to ship items.  I didn't realize there was nothing wrong with someone being from one country but selling items out of another country.  I personally don't sell much on eBay, so I have no idea how that would work!  I guess maybe the dropship idea is the way they would do that.  However, this doesn't look like a family business.  It's a lot of random different things.  Shower curtains, video game accessories, home decor items, christmas related items, etc.  

I agree with pburn, new account doesn't necessarily mean new seller.  But having 307 items listed so quickly, seems difficult.  Especially since these listings are all very detailed.  But maybe there are programs that users can interface with their own inventory systems to automatically push things to eBay.  

Thanks for all of your feedback.  I don't really understand most of what goodluckselling was talking about, but for now I'll just watch this user for my own curiosity and hope eBay is able to find the bad people and remove them from the system.

[reallynicestamps]

@tg-il

But having 307 items listed so quickly, seems difficult.  Especially since these listings are all very detailed. 

Dropshipping again.

The seller is working from a catalogue which was professionally produced with both pictures and description ready to upload.

He's never seen the product. He just passes your order to his supplier and it is shipped from the warehouse.

If you look around you will probably find a few dozen on every one of those items --perhaps a few hundred-- all listed by different accounts.

But all using the same supplier.
If the supplier runs out, or doesn't ship, or is selling garbage, the seller takes the blame, not the supplier.

There are hundreds of these suppliers advertising for suckers customers all over the intertubes.

[slippinjimmy]

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@tg-il wrote:

I agree with pburn, new account doesn't necessarily mean new seller.  But having 307 items listed so quickly, seems difficult.  Especially since these listings are all very detailed.  But maybe there are programs that users can interface with their own inventory systems to automatically push things to eBay.  

Thanks for all of your feedback.  I don't really understand most of what goodluckselling was talking about, but for now I'll just watch this user for my own curiosity and hope eBay is able to find the bad people and remove them from the system.

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Many sellers in China operate many more than 1 selling id, usually dozens (which is why the listing all tend to look and sound the same). Smart sellers don't wait for their account to go Below Standard, when you get close to that point you switch to another selling id.

As far a listing a large number of items (307 is NOT very many) that's very simple, the software I use for listing can upload about 10,000 listings in an hour. The pre-upload creation can take time but if you are just switching existing listings from one account to another it's easy.