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Do not sell to mainland China
 

I was banned from ebay and reddit and I'm glad that finally, I found a place that I can tell people what I've experienced.

I've been doing a lot of international shipping with no problem at all but before this happened, I've never shipped anything to mainland China. Considering the relatively low shipping cost and distance for shipping to mainland China, I didn't exclude it from the country list for international shipping. In fact, I didn't expect there to be people from mainland China who buy (my stuff) on ebay too.

So, it was an auction with a starting bid just about my cost of buying a limited product which elsewhere is selling at a far higher price. I was surprised to see it was a guy from mainland China who placed the only bid at the last minute. Then, of course, I shipped the parcel and provided the tracking number ASAP, but god knows shipping just from Hong Kong to mainland China is ridiculously slow? After 3 weeks, the buyer asked about shipping. I told him I've already done everything I can ASAP, please be patient. Then that guy just opened a case and ebay asked me to refund him. Of course, I refused to do that because the product is already shipped, he WILL get it, how could I refund him? 2 weeks later, it's successfully delivered and the guy left me positive feedback, but ebay says I'm dangerous and suspended my account.

In short, the postal service in mainland China is terrible and the buyer, as well as ebay, thought that I'm the postman. If things do not arrive on time, it's my problem. I really regret it. I'd rather have it unsold if I've excluded mainland China from the list. I'm not even earning from it.

Thanks a lot for reading and I hope it'll be useful for those who do international shipping.

Re: Do not sell to mainland China
 

thank you for sharing you story

Re: Do not sell to mainland China
 

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

Re: Do not sell to mainland China
 

Ebay is good at : accepting everything, easy peazy sales
Ebay is bad at : risk management. They can perfectly allow very shady schemes, and kick out very honest sellers without any remorse, as decisions are made by either bots or philipino guys that also do not investigate anything but just rely on their retarded automated risk evaluation system or their own understanding of problem, which is usually ban - noone fines them for too much bans, but fines them for allowing shady sellers.

Re: Do not sell to mainland China
 

this is an old story. and there is a clear solution:

never EVER leave cases on ebay open for extended periods of time. any case must be solved within several days. if you sell expensive items use carriers that deliver fast , like UPS or DHL and add tracking to ebay case

Re: Do not sell to mainland China
 

So if someone wants to get item for free, seller needs to gift it save the account? Does not look legit at all for many sellers :(

Re: Do not sell to mainland China
 

it is a proven fact that with expensive items you need to have verifiable tracking and you should escalate the case for ebay review if the item arrived and the buyer claims it has not

but if you do not escalate and the buyer does not escalate and you just leave it open you are looking at an indefinite restriction or suspension

Re: Do not sell to mainland China
 

Never had suspensions on cases that were left open for months. Maybe was lucky.

Re: Do not sell to mainland China
 

there has to be more in this case,Ebay does not suspend a seller just because of one incident of late delivery.
EBay has a policy,if your tracking shows recent movement,Ebay will extend the deadline.
A seller took pictures of used commercial kitchen equipment from a local store and sold it on Ebay to a restaurant out of state.
There were some delays with the trucker,and the buyer filed INR and got his money back on Sunday,
Then on Monday the equipment arrived so he ended up getting a freebie.
The seller cried foul ,but Ebay would have extended the deadline if there is movement in the tracking,but there is none.
The seller should have contacted the trucking co and ask the trucker not to deliver the machine over the weekend or Monday morning,but seller claimed it was weekend ,but if she knows the trade,long distance hauling is 24/7,she should be able to contact the trucking co either on Sunday or Mondya morning and ask them to withhold delivery.
if she has done so,all she lost would be the shipping fee,at least she would get the machine back.

Re: Do not sell to mainland China
 

why is that? due to cases potentially piling on each other?

Re: Do not sell to mainland China
 

yea, it happens.

maybe keep it local to Hong KOng or North America for now.

Re: Do not sell to mainland China
 

ebay gives you x number of days to respond,past the deadline,Ebay will take cover and resolve the case.
what it means is that Ebay will refund your buyer without asking him to return the item,by not responding,Ebay assumes you dont want the item back