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Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

Hi, I sell electronics made in China, and I recently received an order for a name brand product (not 100% sure if real) from someone with Customs and Boarder Protection in there name (ie. Customs and Boarder Protection c/o HISNAME) I looked up the address and a Customs Office is listed at this location. I purchased a shipping label, but I got cold feet and decided not to send it out today.

I live in the US, and am worried that this person might do something to jeopardize my business. I have perfect feedback on this account , and would rather not get in trouble from eBay or the law.

What would you do in my situation?

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

message the buyer and ask him "hey dude are u a sn*tch?":humble:

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

This happend with me before, but the customer was a lawyer not a customs officer. I was also selling brand product and was 100% sure it would be a mistake sending this item to him. I looked my customer up and he was a lawyer specializing in banking law, I was afraid that if he discovers the item is not authentic he would pursue me legally as if he was scammed.

I printed a label through Ebay, marked as shipped (no tracking info btw) and waited for him to get back to me few days later claiming he had not received his item and then refunded him.

Don't ship, mark as shipped and refund at a later date.

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

Customs would stop your inventory on the way into USA not try to go pursue you after the fact by buying from your store.

If you do ship, maybe avoid using the address you receive inventory at as the return address on the parcel?

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

Trademark your brand to establish its authenticity.

:surrender:

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

Haha, yeah. Trademarking another company's brand is always easy.

OP isn't selling anything authentic and is afraid of the legal implications of shipping foo-foo's to a customs official..

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

Now, now, the OP is not 100% sure they are countefeit. :rolleyes:

It's just the rest of us that are 100% sure. :d

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

You've been paid, send it or face the consequences. Or send it AND face the consequences.

You've already made the choice to sell ⊗⊗⊗⊗ stuff, now suddenly you're getting cold feet? The time for cold feet was before you started doing this.

On the other hand, consider this, he's in a customs office. He/she could be a clerk in the IT division, or a guy who drives a forklift, or a janitor, how could you know WHAT he does?

Maybe when they see it's a counterfeit they'll flag you in the computer for your next big imported shipment and seize it, you'll lose all your money and product and then they'll have enough of a dollar value to mount a real serious jail time worthy case against you. :)

Now THERE'S something to think about on those sleepless nights when your conscience is bothering you for selling knock-offs as brand name products, don't you think? :)

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

Welcome to the forums - all the best as you master stealth :thumb:

1. Stop selling things that you are UNSURE of their authenticity.
2. Your decision to ship or not - could consider a refund and giving a reason why you can't ship or not (There are reasons available but you need to think them out)
3. You want further advice? Get legal assistance

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

Here is the solution to your problem:

1. Don't ship, but mark as shipped (Don't buy shipping label with tracking). He will come back later and say he didn't receive his item > you issue a refund and that's it.

2. Modify your listing and make it 100% clear that you're selling a generic item and state in the article's description that the item you're selling is generic and was not made by the original company. I would also recommend that you remove any brand names from your listing's title.

3. If the size of your inventory of this item is not big, sleep on it for a while and deactivate that listing (set the number of available stock to 0). Do this only if you have a gut feeling that the listing will bring you trouble if kept up for now.

4. Call up the customs office and ask to talk to the person who purchased the item from you (ask specifically for his/her name - call from a burner phone or a phone booth). Maybe it's just another rival seller who made the purchase and used this ⊗⊗⊗⊗ name to scare you off.

5. Consider all what happend as a wake up call and take necessary measures to avoid future problems.


I don't think the customs office made this purchase as a part of ongoing investigation, customs usually open your coming packages and confiscate it when needed. It's either a rival seller or a normal person who happens to be working for the customs and decided to buy from you.


Anyway, best of luck and don't forget to come back and tell how did it go.

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

Ship out the item but change your return address on the package (even make up one that doesn't exist).
That way nobody 'unwanted' can get your info.

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

When these agencies do test purchase they don't use official address, they use normal residential address they not that stupid to given you their real address

I would not worry at more likely genuine customers, I get loads of orders from police station addrss, courts, even eBay staff they are human aswell and buy same way as us

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

Buy the item locally and ship it to him. Everyone happy and your off the list.

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

That may be the BEST idea so far. Gets you completely off the hook.

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

Who the hell would sell counterfeit items on a non-stealth account? Major risk!

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

3/4 of eBay... :suspicious:

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

Can only confirm. Many sellers are selling and Chinese sellers are moving heavy weight and getting away with it.

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

Whether it's stealth or not, it's still a major risk...

But you'll be surprised how many lazy people just use their original accounts

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

There is no general rule for Vero items actually. It highly depends on how aggressive the Vero member is when it comes to chasing Ebay listings. Some sellers have been selling ⊗⊗⊗⊗ stuff for years and have not been kicked off Ebay.

And no, big sellers don't have a special treatment as many tend to think. Even if the account is a platinum power seller and 10+ years old, it could be suspended upon receiving 10+ Vero notices in a short time frame.

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

BigBox does get treated differently. They even have set fee much lower then regular sellers.

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

I agree with this. I've trademark and DMCA'd one large vendor at least 12 times in the last month...still selling. I hit them 24 times in 2016. eBay doesn't care when it comes to their big name sellers.

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

Big name sellers get a free ride in many cases.

Remember the reports how the EB CSR's all had a printed sign next to their phone that said 'no touchee Jack Ma'?

Remember Geoffrey the Giraffe a few years back? People were using screen shots to document how lots of negative feedback were wiped out periodically on their account.

big sellers don't have a special treatment as many tend to think.

Okay, why don't you show us your data to prove this

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

agreed, buy it legit quick and send

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

Let me give the example I based my judgement on. In Sep/2017 Markmonitor reported dozens of listings for iPhone cables. As I was a seller in that category, I documented everyone that was making good selling (saved listing number, usernames...etc). Markmonitor reported most of the sellers and 2 of these were big sellers (500,000+ feedbacks) and their listings got pulled down as everyone else.

Ebay has always suspended big sellers in the past. A few days ago someone here posted about his account from the 90s being suspended even though he had like thousands of listings, but kept getting veroed because of image copyright issues.


I think when you become a seller who's moving weight (200,000+ in sales monthly), you will be assigned an account manager that will help you avoid getting booted by paying attention to all the details one could overlook.

If I have an account manager myself, I don't see how am I going to **** an account up. I mean my sole job would be processing orders.

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

FFS, this obsession with Apple cables.

Even high end sellers get taken down.

There is no golden goose that gives free passage.

Earn the right to sell or be taken down again,again and again.

It is that simple.

:juggle:

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

Hate to say it but I agree with GB. Just let it die.

Ebay's "top seller account manager" program was replaced by concierge in 2016. Concierge does the same thing but that's besides the point.

It's a known fact (to me, at least) that the more revenue an account generates for eBay, the more slack they are given in terms of metrics/suspensions/restrictions. eBay loves huge accounts that know how to handle customer service because they make eBay tons of money without eBay having to step in and help with customers all the time.

Tons of sales + no CS intervention from eBay = a strong account that eBay doesn't want to kick off the site.

You need to focus your time on slowly sourcing a warehouse full of cheap, quick-flip type items. You could make a huge account for yourself in less than 2 years.


BTW "corporate" eBay accounts (can't remember the actual name of them right now- stores like Best Buy, Tiger Direct, etc..) are treated way differently but I don't think that's what we're talking about.

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

http://img.memecdn.com/damn-you-appl..._o_5599279.jpg

:focus: on theories...

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

No offense, but dude let it go. Every other thread has your post about these cables. I don't even know you and fully aware of your situation.

Meditation maybe?

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

If I have an account manager...my sole job would be processing orders.

Seriously?

This clueless comment is the root of most of your problems.

And the cable thing... again... I just want to gag when you bring this up! :(

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

Yeah man.....how about them iphone charging cables, yeah boy.

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

I'm not defending OP's selling practices, but that legitimately is how the Top Seller Account Manager program worked. Only the highest of the high volume sellers were invited in and they all got their own dedicated account manager who looked after their account for them (respond to messages, cases, claims, etc). The idea being that those sellers process such an insane volume, they don't have time to properly maintain their accounts and still get orders out on time.

I talk about it in the past-tense since eBay says the program was replaced by Concierge. I'm sure there are some mega-sellers who were grandfathered in and still have their dedicated account manager. In the current incarnation of the program (Concierge) sellers who are invited get direct access to US-based customer service any time. With concierge eBay employees don't directly manage a seller's account. But a seller in Concierge has a lot of power over things like getting feedback removed or wiping out a few defects to maintain metrics, because the US-based reps bend over backwards to help. It's a totally different ballgame than dealing with the usual Filipino reps.

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

I have had the account manager and then switched to concierge about 18 months ago. Basically it was still same until 'ebay open' in Las Vegas and everyone that went got invited. After that they started inviting just about everyone and the customer service went downhill quick.

With account Manager I was just about able to get any feedback removed and just about every case won in my favor if it was a legit reason. All gone now with crappy concierge service. Only good thing is you can get it done online without having to call in.

This week was first time ever I didn't get a response to my message to concierge . Usually it was handled within hours and was on first name basis. EB ruined another good thing. It was quite a advantage.

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

Concierge service is great which really changed eBay, I am the member for this, it's not actually account manager in uk but it has team of very good reps who really listen to you and always on your side does not matter even if you wrong they will still on your side and ability to do many things, even if the right owner make complaint for removal of item they contact you first as ask to change the listing and even if they do need to end the item they says this will not goes against account,
Most of cases they simply transfer to backend team who actually removal listing called policy expert and you can talk to them directly where normal eBay rep says this team is online!!!

Even of you move from top rated to above standard they put your account back to top rated manually!!!

To be honest can't get batter service then this, I asked them how many eBay account is part of this they said around 700 in uk

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

I have recently found many sellers who have currently ~400 VERO branded items and judging from their listings, there's more than a good chance they're are not authentic items. These sellers also have anywhere between 2k-5k feedbacks. What I don't understand is how these guys are getting away.

So would you guys say that certain categories are more riskier than others? Obviously what they do is wrong, but I would still like some feedback.

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

If I have an account manager...my sole job would be processing orders.


Anyone who is willing to let EB do everything for them and who wants their only function to be 'processing orders' deserves what he/she gets.

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

I agree with that.

Any seller pushing out hundreds or thousands of orders daily should have a full-time staff helping them stay on top of things - not a poorly paid eBay rep.

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

Lol, so the OP did a one and done back on 12/05/17. I think they lost interest in the thread. But its like it thrives on for the shear entertainment.

BTW, do yall think it is ok to sell Apple cables?

:pop2:

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

I think if he sells via the title like "Replacement Charging Cable for Apple" then it should be fine. Nothing wrong with selling generic replacement items. He wouldn't be claiming that it's an Apple cable and he would just use the word Apple for fitment purpose only. I am not a pro, but I doubt there's anything wrong with such titles/listings.

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

Sorry, I was being sarcastic. Sometimes I forget it is hard to pick up on via text.

Re: Need advice, Customs bought an item from me
 

You want feedback so you can do similar sales?

Version 2.0 hah