eBay

assortedcollectibles · ‎12-22-2021

Sold a rather expensive, highly collectible doll to a buyer in Italy.. nothing fishy about the account going all the way back to 2005 with lots of activity.. only strangeness is private feedback.. which of course could be to hide the fact that the buyer opens INR cases against sellers since these precious buyers cant get negative feedback, but that is purely speculation.

So anyways.. package gets sent promptly using the only shipping option i have available here on the countryside which is through the national postal service.. everything goes ok, package leaves the country the 23rd of november, no problem.. then after that crickets.

At this point i start doing a little research and come to find that the Italian postal service is notoriously slow.. reading other reviews on trustpilot shows that many are having the same experience as me.. sent in november and still nothing, not even scanned in Italy.

So now i am paranoid that i will lose the $ and be at the mercy of the buyer who was rather quick to open an INR case against me and for sure knows how the Italian postal service (and ebay) operates. I am also sure that this loophole gets exploited extensively. Slow postal service = freebie.

Lesson learned.. i will not be shipping anything more to Italy which gets handled by their national postal service and i suggest nobody else does until ebay starts giving a **bleep** about their sellers and study local conditions and learn from them instead of running everything on auto-pilot. If you have to send to Italy then use DHL, UPS or similar.. unfortunately those type of services are not available for me where i live.

The possible loss of this deal will throw me deep into the hole and take quite some time to recover from.

I really hate the stress of having this hanging over me.. this comes right after another buyer opened a case against me for INR for another rather expensive item, but in that case it was because he had used the wrong adress.. thankfully i got the item returned to me and only lost the shipping cost, but now he wants to rebuy and to be honest i am not sure i want to. I have not had a single payout for over a month thanks to these holds on funds due to things that are outside of my control.. heck i don't think i can even recall the package from Italy to save myself from potential disaster.

slati_2013 · ‎12-22-2021

It all comes down to your buyer. I have sold a couple of time to Italy and one took up to two months to finally reach its destination, the other over a month, and neither buyer ever emailed me. Good buyers will wait patiently. Others, some scammers, will take advantage of the possible slow delivery. Hopefully you have a good buyer here like I suspect most Italian buyers are.

assortedcollectibles · ‎12-22-2021

@southern*sweet*tea wrote:
Someone refresh my memory please, but doesn't Italy ban the importation of toys? If that's the case the doll may never make it to the buyer.

They do, but this falls into another category from what i understand since its a vintage collectible and not a toy.. however the main issue is that the Italian customs use way too long time to handle packages and not update tracking in any way.

wrong66 · ‎12-22-2021

I don't know about toys, but they ban the importation of shoes.

femmefan1946 · ‎12-22-2021

As one seller who has been shipping internationally for years, I don't think you should be concerned.

But I do think that you should be using the Global Shipping Program.

This is a Seller Protection program.

You ship only to the GSP plant in Erlanger KY, after which your responsibility for delivery ends.

If a confused buyer claims non-delivery, you can show tracking to the plant and win the Dispute. The buyer has to take the problem up with the GSP, who are actually very good about settling claims since they have good insurance and no emotional baggage.

Most of the rest of the Money Back Guarantee also ends when the GSP is in play.

However, you are well within your rights to Block sales overseas if you wish.

You may still run into the odd overseas buyer who uses a freight forwarder in the USA for trans-shipment, but the same eBay policies hold for forwarders as for the GSP. Delivery to the forwarder is delivery completed.

femmefan1946 · ‎12-22-2021

It would have helped if you had mentioned that you were shipping from Norway.

Only US and UK sellers can use the Global Shipping Program.

However, as a Canadian seller who ships internationally about half the time* , there is a lot less fraud going on than the Boards may suggest, since people come here when they have a problem and not when they have 99 smooth sales.

*mostly to the USA, which is very definitely a foreign country, even though I can almost see it from my house --Mount Baker anyway.

dryophelia · ‎12-22-2021

@assortedcollectibles

@southern*sweet*tea

Here is a USPS list of things not allowed to be imported into Italy.
It’s one of the most restrictions of any country on the list.

https://pe.usps.com/text/imm/il_008.htm

Note: Toys not made wholly of wood.

Years ago, it was not uncommon for customs agents to help themselves to the banned items that were discovered.
So having a corrupt customs department and a real lack of urgency to deliver any package, I would never ship to Italy.

maddgoo · ‎12-28-2021

Did you use the ebay Global shipping program?

assortedcollectibles · ‎12-30-2021

Thankfully this all had a good ending with the buyer closing the case when he got the item. The Italian customs used about a month to process the package.