Freight Forwarder / Reshipper concerns. Any up-to-date advice?

[stokeinabox]

Hi All, A buyer purchased a watch for £1,000. I noticed the buyer is a freight forwarder/reshipper - specifically Shop Airlines Europe B.V on behalf of Sekaimon, which I believe means the watch is to be shipped to Japan after I post it to their UK warehouse.

Some quick Googling has brought up a few complaints about these Sekaimon sales and I was wondering if you can advise. I know eBay rules say sellers are not accountable for items if they are posted onto any further addresses after the original address has recieved it, but this doesn't seem to make a difference in some of the cases I've read about as the seller is unable to PROVE the item has been reshipped.

Do I need to do anything to protect myself? Should I cancel the sale? I am scared of losing my item and the money also as it is a very expensive item.

Thanks in advance.

[aldente28]

Be sure to get signature confirmation, as required by the >$700 price.

Other than that, I think your risks are only slightly higher than going through ebay's global shipping program. Basically, when the addressee signs for the item, you're done with respect to shipping. Freight forwarders are legit and not necessarily an indication of fraud, but I don't have specific knowledge beyond that, so maybe others with more experience will chime in.

[gwzcomps]

You also might check on the boards dedicated to the UK.

https://community.ebay.co.uk/t5/Discussion-Boards/ct-p/13

Best advice is if you aren't willing to lose the money don't ship it.  Shipping forwarders are usually fine, but eBay generally doesn't protect their sellers from scams.

[slippinjimmy]

@stokeinabox 

The Shop Airlines / Sekaimon group are the single largest buyer on eBay. Unlike most forwarders where you deal directly with buyers but they use third party shipper with Flight To they are the buyer acting as an agent for the ultimate customer.

They mostly serve Japanese buyers but also a few other Asian countries such as Korea. You might find some negative reports online but you should not be too concerned as they have more than a MILLION eBay transactions (probably closer to 2 Million now) and have been active since 2007.

Follow the normal procedures (signature delivery for high value sales) and you should be fine. If there is any type of problem you will deal directly with Sekaimon through their local UK office not the actual buyer in Japan.

https://www.sekaimon.com/static/about-shopairlines/

[glasser]

Sold a few items to japan through them in the US and never had an issue. 

[ittybitnot]

I am scared of losing my item and the money also as it is a very expensive item.

Not to sound nasty, but the time to think about that is BEFORE you list it for sale here in the first place. You can be a victim of buyer fraud just as easily if your buyer was "in country".    A freight forwarder address in itself is not indicative of a fraud about to happen.  One that caters to clients in Japan is likely much different than some others.   Freight forwarders have been getting a bad rep of late due the the scammers that are using them.  Those types are here anyway freight forwarder or not.  

[yuzuha]

Nothing to worry about. I've sold to Shop Airlines multiple times and never had a problem with them. They're very professional and they're good buyers.

[voguevintage]

I've never had a problem with Shop Airlines. The thing to keep in mind about forwarders is that forwarding isn't actually covered by eBay protection so even if there's a problem, as a seller you're not on the hook.

The one I would watch out for is SolBox out of Doral, FL. I don't know if it's them or people using them in inappropriate ways but one person (or at least one IP address) will create multiple usernames with ridiculous contact details and addresses that are nothing but random characters for the street address so it can't be delivered and just keep buying items, usually the same over and over.

This happened to me a couple weeks ago. Over the course of a day they bought out my entire stock of one item and since it was different user names I couldn't block them. They then did the same thing to my friend who sells the same item.

They paid each time immediately, but the address was bad so I couldn't ship it. So I had to cancel and refund them all and then got into an argument with PayPal about refunding me the fees since it was clearly fraud.

I spoke to eBay about it and they confirmed it was the same IP address and also agreed it was fraud. They told me not to relist, which meant losing sells, for at least 72 hours while it was investigated because they could just do it more. Absolutely ridiculous. How does that even happen? How can someone with the same IP create multiple accounts one after another without sending up some kind of red flag.

Anyway, after 48 hours I took a chance and relisted and no more problems. I figured out the address was from a forwarder called SolBox in Doral, FL by comparing multiple gibberish addresses to figure out the real one and their Google reviews are a disaster with people accusing them of all kinds of fraud on eBay. The most recent feedback is from an etsy seller who experienced the same thing I did.

[richard1rst]

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@stokeinabox wrote:

Hi All, A buyer purchased a watch for £1,000. I noticed the buyer is a freight forwarder/reshipper - specifically Shop Airlines Europe B.V on behalf of Sekaimon, which I believe means the watch is to be shipped to Japan after I post it to their UK warehouse.

Some quick Googling has brought up a few complaints about these Sekaimon sales and I was wondering if you can advise. I know eBay rules say sellers are not accountable for items if they are posted onto any further addresses after the original address has recieved it, but this doesn't seem to make a difference in some of the cases I've read about as the seller is unable to PROVE the item has been reshipped.

Do I need to do anything to protect myself? Should I cancel the sale? I am scared of losing my item and the money also as it is a very expensive item.

Thanks in advance.

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I absolutely positively agree with everything @slippinjimmy said above.

I have dealt with this buyer for more years than I can remember. As noted, they are not freight forwarders in the conventional sense. They are the actual buyer. Once it gets to them your job is done.

They will ask you to put the eBay ID number on the package. They do that as an internal control so that they know where the package is to go. I have seen some posters on these boards resist the request. DO NOT follow their shortsightedness.

I have NEVER had an issue with them The occasional negative comment(s) you might see is of no concern. Even the best company in the world occasionally runs into a brain dead nitwit.

[ckimodog]

old thread 2020

[kh-stanley1]

Hi everyone,

Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread HERE if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.

Thank you for understanding.