Ping: Rene Lamontagne

On Wed, 25 Sep 2019 19:54:49 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:

I bought an Ethernet cable tester for $4.99 on Ebay, which came with a
leather case and free shipping from China. It arrived in 2 or 3 days,
I forget now. Obviously, they tossed it onto a plane, not onto a
ship.

Did the Item Location (under the top-side product listing and pricing,
or in the Shipping tab) say it was coming from China (which must still
list a specific city per eBay's policy)?

Yes, it said 'ships from China', or words to that effect. I bought the item
in 2009. My nephew had just ordered one from the same seller. My item
arrived in packaging that appeared to have originated in China. I still use
it and it still works, surprisingly.

If your purchase was within
the last 3 years, you can lookup your old purchases to see the auction
again if it still exists. Get the item number for that auction, and
I'll check if the Item Location looks valid.

Sorry, it was much longer ago than that.

Some foreign sellers have warehouses or maintain an inventory in the
other countries where they sell to get around delays due to customs.
Not all do, so shipping gets delayed by customs. The Item Location
should match from where the item gets shipped. If the seller lied by
saying the item is somewhere specific in China when, in fact, it is
inventoried at, say, City of Industry, California USA (see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_o...ry,_California, see the
Economy section about Chinese business use) then the seller can be
reported for misrepresenting their item. I forget the others, but I've
noticed there are a few other cities that are commonly used by foreign
sellers to maintain an inventory within the USA.

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/l...policy?id=4244

What would have been the basis of a complaint? I ordered an item and it
only took a few days to arrive, versus several weeks. I'm not quite seeing
the issue.

Char Jackson wrote:

On Wed, 25 Sep 2019 19:54:49 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

Char Jackson wrote:

I bought an Ethernet cable tester for $4.99 on Ebay, which came with a
leather case and free shipping from China. It arrived in 2 or 3 days,
I forget now. Obviously, they tossed it onto a plane, not onto a
ship.

Did the Item Location (under the top-side product listing and pricing,
or in the Shipping tab) say it was coming from China (which must still
list a specific city per eBay's policy)?

Yes, it said 'ships from China', or words to that effect. I bought the item
in 2009. My nephew had just ordered one from the same seller. My item
arrived in packaging that appeared to have originated in China. I still use
it and it still works, surprisingly.

If your purchase was within
the last 3 years, you can lookup your old purchases to see the auction
again if it still exists. Get the item number for that auction, and
I'll check if the Item Location looks valid.

Sorry, it was much longer ago than that.

Some foreign sellers have warehouses or maintain an inventory in the
other countries where they sell to get around delays due to customs.
Not all do, so shipping gets delayed by customs. The Item Location
should match from where the item gets shipped. If the seller lied by
saying the item is somewhere specific in China when, in fact, it is
inventoried at, say, City of Industry, California USA (see
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_o...ry,_California, see the
Economy section about Chinese business use) then the seller can be
reported for misrepresenting their item. I forget the others, but I've
noticed there are a few other cities that are commonly used by foreign
sellers to maintain an inventory within the USA.

https://www.ebay.com/help/policies/l...policy?id=4244

What would have been the basis of a complaint? I ordered an item and it
only took a few days to arrive, versus several weeks. I'm not quite seeing
the issue.

The basis would be their auction violated eBay's policy regarding the
declaration for the shipping origination of the item. That you were
pleased with the transaction doesn't obviate the shipping origin was
invalid. With an invalid shipping location, could've well as easily
been it said Austin, TX but actually shipped from Shenzhen, China.
Would've been interested to see if the auction declared the item
location was China but listed something like a 3 to 9 day delivery. I
suppose item location might be interpreted as from where it ships for
storage before it is shipped from there to you, or where was their
primary distribution warehouse (which goes to their other distro points
and eventually to you), or even where the product was manufactured
before the seller ever got it in stock wherever that was. To me, eBay's
policy is from where it shipped when sent to you, not from where it got
shipped to someplace in a chain of places that eventually gets to you.

I'm in the USA and prefer USA-based sellers, so one of the first filters
I apply in a search is "Item Location = US Only". Presumably using eBay
in another region (i.e., with a different TLD, e.g., like ebay.ch for
Switzerland or ebay.cn for China) would specify a different region for
the location filter.