eBay

sembonda_0 · ‎08-15-2018

Hi all,

I got an item which is the complete opposite of what it was described to be. Women item, instead of men, gold instead of sliver colour, 18 mm instead of 20 mm Daniel Wellington watch band. Anyhow, I feel scammed but want to fix this calmly.

Thing is I'm based out of Ukraine and have ordered the item through a local forwarding company that has a permanent address in the US. I have no way of returning it through the same channel. What can I do?

sembonda_0 · ‎08-16-2018

Thanks for everybody's input. I now understand that there's no hope in fighting this, as I took a risk I wasn't at all aware of... Essentially everybody in the supply chain has delegated the responsibility to me, starting with the seller who made a (hopefully honest) mistake and all the way down to our local mailing service who told me they take no responsibility for whatever they're getting from the seller (their job is only doing the shipping part and I can totally relate to it). My stance on this is still that the seller is the only entity who should bear responsibility for this, but quite often ethics and legalities don't go together... Hope eBay will expand their delivery and MBG coverage to Ukraine someday, but until that day I'll have to bid farewell to this platform.

P.S. I've explored the option of sending the item back to the seller, but it doesn't make any financial sense, the delivery alone would cost much more than the item.

sembonda_0 · ‎08-16-2018

Thanks for your input. I don't think that's an adequate analogy, as my agent hasn't ran offer with the money. To put this in perspective - they basically took your "$100" without checking them out and gave them to me, but when I opened the mail it wasn't $100, but 100-whatever-useless-currency-you-can-come-up-with. In this scenario - you have cheated me using my trusted agent. My agent hasn't ran off anywhere, they just delivered what you gave them to me.

Btw, feedback on this platform is a completely different animal - I have a strange feeling (and read a lot of articles about this) that it's overloaded with fake, bogus accounts. I have a few ideas on how they do this, just so that people don't start claiming "not possible": a) send it to their own employees/agents who buy it with the seller's own money and then return the item (either personally or through eBay to not create tracable shady activity); b) sell to their own network cheap stuff and get fake positive reviews, so that the cost vs positive promotion they get is beneficial to them.

findersltd · ‎08-16-2018

I'm sorry this happened to you.

EBay does cover the Ukraine with the MBG but not when you use a freight forwarding company.

I don't believe a seller with over a 1000 positive would intentionally try to scam you, it could be an honest mistake.

Did you try contacting the forwarding company? If your freight forwarding company has a DE address you may want to check the reviews in the United States for that company. Most have horrible reviews. They do open the packages and repack them in smaller boxes to save on space. They, also, have a reputation for switching items. (I'm not saying this happened in your case) They do repack using poor quality wrapping, etc. I cringe when I see a freight forwarding company has DE as the address. I sent a beautiful piece of crystal through one and they repacked it with mailing envelopes and put it in a box too small. Naturally it arrived broken.

You may want to in the future use a seller that ships directly to your country or uses the Global Shipping Program through EBay. In both cases you would be covered by EBays MBG and the seller would be responsible for return shipping from your country on a SNAD.

I hope you do get some resolution for your problem.

sembonda_0 · ‎08-21-2018

Thanks for your message. No, their forwarding facility is based in East Hanover, New Jersey. Here's the US site of their forwarding business - https://npshopping.com/uk/

I'm trying to dispute throught PayPal, they seem to be more empathatic to the predicament I'm in... Looking forward to their say on this.