Sent Offers Not Respecting Shipping Restrictions?

[e-arkham]

None of my listings include international shipping.  I purposely avoid shipping international because of the hassle, high cost and high risk of lost packages, and have all my auctions set to exclude everywhere but the United States.  This works fine for me.

However when I sent out offers to watchers, I received a counteroffer from someone located in China.

If they had accepted instead of counteroffering, I would have been stuck between sending something to China against my will -OR- canceling the sale, getting pinged on final value fees, and risking negative feedback.  Neither is acceptable.

Do sent offers ignore your shipping settings and simply go to all watchers, regardless of whether they're actually eligible to buy or not?

If so, this seems like a massive oversight.

[klhmdg]

No you would not. They most likely have a Freight Forwarder with a US address.

There is nothing stopping from someone in another country having items sent to a US address.

[e-arkham]

This person was not listed as having a US address, only as being in China, with a Chinese address.

In the past, buyers with mail forwarders who have bought from me have always had US addresses.  And I'm fine with mail forwarders; it's not my problem since eBay will see completed delivery to the a address of the mail forwarder and my part of the transaction is done.

[duffy4444]

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@e-arkhamwrote:

...If they had accepted instead of counteroffering, I would have been stuck between sending something to China against my will -OR- canceling the sale, getting pinged on final value fees, and risking negative feedback.  Neither is acceptable.

   You're right -  you would have been stuck with a binding sales transaction, or cancel and maybe take a demerit unless you got away with the questionable "Problem with buyer's address" reason for cancelling.

Do sent offers ignore your shipping settings and simply go to all watchers, regardless of whether they're actually eligible to buy or not?.

   My guess is that if you sent a counteroffer, it would be assumed you are now willing to ship to an international buyer that you may have overlooked.

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   @e-arkham:

   When you send offers to watchers, it is up to you to determine the ship-to location of the buyer. The best way to do this is to click on the feedback number of the watcher, which will show you where they are located and how long they have been on eBay. Then you can decide whether or not to send your offer and take a possible international risk. 

    If, as in this case, you mistakenly send an offer to an international buyer and they send a counteroffer, immediately add that buyer's ID to your BBL and don't respond to the counteroffer. That way there is no transaction for which you will be on the hook. As long as there's no meeting of the minds and actual sales transaction, you should be OK.

   One last thing... be on the lookout for international buyers that use a Freight Forwarder's address in the US. Many legitimate buyers use freight forwarders, and many of those sales go thru just fine. But freight forwarding adds another "middleman" possibility for things to eventually go wrong. And they often do go wrong. Depending on the value of the item, I will go ahead and honor ff sales, as long as I am willing to accept the loss of the item in addition to a possible forced buyer refund from a potential international scammer. It does happen - a lot.

   Other sellers may want to chime in on your issue...

Cheers, Duffy

[e-arkham]

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@duffy4444 wrote:

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   @e-arkham:

   When you send offers to watchers, it is up to you to determine the ship-to location of the buyer. The best way to do this is to click on the feedback number of the watcher, which will show you where they are located and how long they have been on eBay. Then you can decide whether or not to send your offer and take a possible international risk. 

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I can't find any option of sending offers to individual watchers.  Only a blue button that says "Send Offer", which takes me to a small popup with the offer price, room for a message, and a confirm.  Nothing more granular that lets me target individual watchers.

This is through the website, not the app (I don't care for the app, it seems clunky).

I guess I just go back to adding the "make offer" option on the auctions itself, but buyers hardly ever seem to use those.

[donsdetour]

Instead of sending offer why not lower the price to what you are willing to take..

How ever gets it first its all good.

[axiombody]

I had a buyer yesterday ask for an offer on an item.  I sent him his offer and then he asked how much to ship to Argentina instead of his California address.  He then accepted the offer I sent and changed his address to Argentina.  I have settings that no one can buy from South America but he was able by changing his address after the offer was sent.  So yes it is possible at least this way.  I had to cancel even though it should have never happened.

[pjcdn2005]

You have all other countries blocked so I’m sure that when the buyer paid, they would have chosen a US address.  They would not be able to pay with an international address so you would not have had to ship to China.   

It’s not possible to choose who you send the offers to so it’s not true that you are supposed to pick and choose.  Until the buyer pays there is no way of knowing where they want the item sent to.