Weird Note message attached to about not including invoice or showing price

[ride_with_givi]

This is 4th time I have had a Note message attached to a sale, all from different ebay id's but with exact same request. 

The message reads : Hello, how are you? I hope you're doing well!!! Could you please REMOVE IN-VOICE EBAY and HIDE THE PRICE? It's a GIFT.God bless you!

Has anyone else seen this?  What did you do? 

I am afraid the purchases are coming from hacked accounts or are using stolen payment types.

Ebay customer service has not responded to my question about this.

Should I continue to send the product and hope we don't get hit with chargebacks at a later time??

[caldreamer]

No problem...we had a customer (reseller) who did this all the time.    They would buy electronic items from us and have them sent to his customer (that is the reason he didn't want prices included).  As long as you ship to address shown on EBAY order you won't have any problems.   

[a_c_green]

Most likely they're using you as an unintentional dropshipper: they've sold the item themselves (presumably for more money) and are now buying yours to send to their buyer. By leaving out the "invoice" (actually a packing slip), they're hoping that their buyer will not notice that the item is coming from you instead of them.

This is retail arbitrage by your buyer, not actually dropshipping, but I would ship as usual (and you can include a "gift" packing slip that omits the price paid) to the name and address received with the payment.

Given that someone is managing to sell your items for you at higher prices than what you are charging, you might want to consider raising your prices. Have you tried Googling that item to see what it's selling for elsewhere?

[rosszonebricks]

---

@caldreamer wrote:

No problem...we had a customer (reseller) who did this all the time.    They would buy electronic items from us and have them sent to his customer (that is the reason he didn't want prices included).  As long as you ship to address shown on EBAY order you won't have any problems.   

---

 This tells me the OP might have room to actually *raise* prices.  If someone is advertising YOUR products as their own, they must have marked them up enough for them to make a profit.   So if you sell something for $50, perhaps they are actually charging their customer $100.   So skip that middle man and make the $100 yourself? 🙂

If all the messages are *exactly* the same, word-for-word and all, that would definitely give more weight to it's someone just buying your products and using you to fulfill the orders.   

As already stated, as long as they aren't asking to ship to a different address, I'd probably ship them still.  I would NOT however, just ship the bare item only.  I'd send a packing slip that shows the buyer's address, my address, and the item, minus the price, as requested.  Why?  If the label gets damaged in transit, the can open the package to see where the item is going, or at least who to ship it back to.

[gloryglorygifts]

It could be something perfectly okay, like someone wanting to send a gift or, most likely, they are using you to drop ship items for them. Sometimes I'll ask if they want a note included if it is a gift as we offer that service. Most likely, tho, it is someone that is using you to drop ship from either this site or another. I had one last year that used 4 different id's on here. It's not weird at all and happens all the time. Just DO NOT change any addresses to ship to if they ask. They have to change it in order to have any buyer protections under ebay. Returns and refunds will be handled just as any other is. Chargebacks will go through the normal channels too. If you start to cancel orders because you are suspicious, it will affect your account and be counted as a defect. My advice? If you think it's a drop ship, include the packing slip and mail it to the address provided by ebay and don't worry about it. Just don't be surprised if you start to get lots of returns. That's how I caught my guy last year.  Good luck to you! 

[gloryglorygifts]

That's not a always an ethical answer - to just raise your prices. I had someone that was selling my items last year. Mine were marked up 100%. They marked up their prices 500% over mine. That is disgusting to take advantage of consumers like that. I AM SURE that if this person is using the OP to drop ship, their prices are really jacked up and consumers are being cheated. An increase to be truly competitive? Sure. But not one to rip people off. 

You're right. The OP does need to do their homework and be competitive. 

[ride_with_givi]

I understand everything that has been said above, but the strange thing is each of the purchases with the exact same message (and they are exactly the same, with the capitals and misspelled wording)  has come from 4 different ebay customer id's!   If it was the same customer asking for this over and over it would make more sense. 

We regularly do drop shipping for our vendors through our phone and email sales, but this doesn't seem the same. 

Maybe I am over thinking it as B2C sales can be different B2B sales.  Thanks for the comments.

[albertabrightalberta]

@ride_with_givi 

From my experience, I've found that buyers who do that are using you as their dropshipper. 

All is good until a transaction goes sideways and you're on the hook. 

[itsjustasprain]

---

@albertabrightalberta wrote:

All is good until a transaction goes sideways and you're on the hook. 

---

In what way?

[dbfolks166mt]

     As others mentioned possibly really a gift or they are in fact using you as a drop shipper. Are the buyer accounts established or are they possibly buying off guest accounts? The other possibility is they are shipping the items to a freight forwarder and wanting you to hide the price to avoid customs/duty fees. What is the buyers registered address/country? Are the items shipping to different addresses or all to the same? 

     Lots of possibilities but need some more information to narrow it down a bit. 

[a_c_green]

---

@dbfolks166mt wrote:

The other possibility is they are shipping the items to a freight forwarder and wanting you to hide the price to avoid customs/duty fees.

---

Agreed, although I would think most any freight forwarder would know how to look up the item's selling price, since the buyer has to open an account with them for forwarding purposes, and would presumably have to share a proof of purchase with them in order to get the Customs forms completed.

Also keep in mind that a lot of sellers (possibly even a majority) don't ship with a packing slip anyway, so the freight forwarder must already have a solution in place for completing the Customs forms (even if that solution is simply requiring the buyer to fib on his own paperwork, so that the forwarder can claim to have no role in any blame-worthy investigations later).

[coloradosports]

I primarily sell sports cards and this happens maybe 1-2 a month ... usually to hide how much they paid to someone else in the house who may open their mail!😂