[Ebay] Out of Country Buyer

[Akroyer]

Quick question form vets here. I have a bidder from China.. I specifically excluded everything but Canada and the US. And yet, he somehow still manages to get a bid on.

The first time I missed a section for exclusions, I cancelled his bid and closed that hole. But I see now he has somehow managed to bid again.

I am not shipping outside of North America, so I presume I can do a second chance offer after close, and just refund him since there is another bidder involved, assuming Bidder #2 doesn't win.

[Bruticus]

Bidders can get around territorial restrictions by just creating another shipping address within the area that you are permitting. I have relatives that live in the US and I have bought a couple of US Only items and shipped it to them, even though my Paypal is Canadian.

My 2 cents on the dilemma... I would just cancel his bid again before the auction ends. It's not fair to the other bidder that a dude who is not eligible to buy jacks up the price of the auction beyond the good buyer's max. Some people would refer to that as shady if you notice ahead of time and do nothing about it... Been on the buyer's side of this exact scenario and it did not leave a good taste in my mouth because there is a lot of "bid-jacking" going on with eBay (when a buddy jacks up your bid price and if he/she wins it, you just offer it to the next highest person.) That's not a feeling you want to give people who buy from you.

[Akroyer]

Ok, I'll go and cancel his bid again. And hopefully he'll stay gone until it closes.

[Akroyer]

Ok, got him cancelled again. And this time I managed to block him. Hopefully he won't be back again.

Thanks for the advice.

[justprime]

Originally Posted by Bruticus

Bidders can get around territorial restrictions by just creating another shipping address within the area that you are permitting. I have relatives that live in the US and I have bought a couple of US Only items and shipped it to them, even though my Paypal is Canadian.

My 2 cents on the dilemma... I would just cancel his bid again before the auction ends. It's not fair to the other bidder that a dude who is not eligible to buy jacks up the price of the auction beyond the good buyer's max. Some people would refer to that as shady if you notice ahead of time and do nothing about it... Been on the buyer's side of this exact scenario and it did not leave a good taste in my mouth because there is a lot of "bid-jacking" going on with eBay (when a buddy jacks up your bid price and if he/she wins it, you just offer it to the next highest person.) That's not a feeling you want to give people who buy from you.

Us old farts know it as the term" shilling a bid" and theres a hell of a lot of it going on on Ebay and they seem to turm a blind eye towards repeat (blatant) offenders so much for a safe trading haven that they claim to have

[Akroyer]

Well, so far I can say having had one sale of a ccg collection and just getting steamrolled by Ebay / paypal fees I'm less than impressed. And now trying to stop this guy from circumventing the controls is annoying.

But I guess even with the fees I got those cards out of the house and some money in my pocket. But damn, I wonder how some people make any money on lower cost items if it all gets eaten up by the fees.

[Akroyer]

Well as a fun (sarcasm) update my item sold to the lone bidder that was left. And guess what, he was from China. I got the paypal info this morning. All the info is Chinese except for the mailing address in Souhthern Los Angeles. And the address is unconfirmed by paypal.

So, it goes without saying that I am having to cancel this transaction and refund it. And start my Ebay claim to refund my seller fees. I am NOT shipping to an unconfirmed address just in case it is a scam.

What a pain, now I know why people hate to sell on Ebay =(

[UltraPrimal]

Yeah, that is exactly why I never sell on eBay anymore.

[canprime]

I'm sorry, but did either bidder actually contact you before hand?

I had an auction a couple weeks ago, where a Chinese bidder asked me to allow him to bid and ship to NJ because I won't ship overseas. I allowed it and it was fine. I also had a bidder from Singapore basically tell me he would use another account in the US to win an item I was selling if I didn't allow him to bid. Thankfully in the end he didn't win so it didn't matter.

So it can be pretty tricky, but I find that feedback and communication can make all the difference. If they don't communicate, then yeah block and hope for the best.

[Akroyer]

Only communication was asking me to combine shipping if he bought two items.

But that all would be irrelevant to me since his Paypal account is not confirmed. I am not taking any chances mailing to an address that isn't confirmed to the Paypal account.