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Gruntfuggly

Overseas winner when I said UK only!

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First, why does eBay allow people to bid on stuff when it says UK only?

So what do I do - the value of the auction was peanuts - £1.64. I don't want to end up with a dispute for such a stupid amount, so I'm tempted to say no and re-list. Does anybody know the eBay policy for this offhand?

Or should I just send it anyway and charge an appropriate amount for postage to Portugal?

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No idea, but one of the seller's options now is "Block buyers whose primary delivery address is in a location I don't post to"

For future sales, tick that and it'll save you the hassle (My Ebay/Account/Sit Preferences/Buyer Requirements, edit)

I know one of the non-paying bidder options is 'unconfirmed addresses', it might be worth checking the others.

If eBay agree with you, the buyer can't leave feedback

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First, why does eBay allow people to bid on stuff when it says UK only?

So what do I do - the value of the auction was peanuts - £1.64. I don't want to end up with a dispute for such a stupid amount, so I'm tempted to say no and re-list. Does anybody know the eBay policy for this offhand?

Or should I just send it anyway and charge an appropriate amount for postage to Portugal?

give him an actual quote on shipping , if he pays sell , if not re list and file complaint.

on this topic and im not judging anyone, a good number of uk sellers don't want to sell abroad even though eu shipping prices are mostly two to three pounds more than the uk ones. You are just limiting your audience this way, but again its your auctions and you can do it anyway you want.

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give him an actual quote on shipping , if he pays sell , if not re list and file complaint.

on this topic and im not judging anyone, a good number of uk sellers don't want to sell abroad even though eu shipping prices are mostly two to three pounds more than the uk ones.

Unfortunately, it's not always as easy as 'if they pay, ship it' - several EU countries now are being excluded by sellers due to poor local postal services (Italy being a prime example just lately), and with eBay taking the buyer's side in most disputes, it's easier for the seller to stay 'local' where trackable postage is cheap and reliable.

It''s fine to say ship it, but when it doesn't arrive the seller's then out of pocket and facing a negative too.

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You used to be able to cancel bids in circumstances like this. Not sure if you still can but might be worth looking into.

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Unfortunately, it's not always as easy as 'if they pay, ship it' - several EU countries now are being excluded by sellers due to poor local postal services (Italy being a prime example just lately), and with eBay taking the buyer's side in most disputes, it's easier for the seller to stay 'local' where trackable postage is cheap and reliable.

It''s fine to say ship it, but when it doesn't arrive the seller's then out of pocket and facing a negative too.

i know Italy is a problem but why exclude everyone because of one bad example , so theoretically if royal mail starts to become un reliable you will just offer local pick up then ? also in this case if the value is small the risk is less. my opinion only . although i use that local country only attitude to my advantage with austrian sellers sometimes.

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I think in this situation that the only thing you can do is to advise the postage cost . If the buyer deciles then relist . if he's ok with it then you'll have to send it . Your other option once you have contacted him is to offer it to the second highest bidder within the uk . if you clearly stated uk only then you will have no comeback from e bay . PM me the listing and i'll be able to give you a better opinion .

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if you clearly stated uk only then you will have no comeback from e bay . PM me the listing and i'll be able to give you a better opinion .

The listing says 'Post to: United Kingdom' with no carriage charges for any other country

If you change to 'Show all available' then it still only displays UK postal costs.

There's no need to 'clearly state' anything, if the shipping fees don't cover the buyer's country, the buyer should at least ask if he can bid

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The listing says 'Post to: United Kingdom' with no carriage charges for any other country

If you change to 'Show all available' then it still only displays UK postal costs.

There's no need to 'clearly state' anything, if the shipping fees don't cover the buyer's country, the buyer should at least ask if he can bid

fair point . in that case i'd refuse the bid and relist . the bidder should have asked about shipping costs before placing a bid . he has no grounds to give negative feedback .

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fair point . in that case i'd refuse the bid and relist . the bidder should have asked about shipping costs before placing a bid . he has no grounds to give negative feedback .

Agreed, thats what I always do, ask before bidding, most often people do ship even though they say they dont

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Thanks for the feedback guys - I think I'll look into cancelling it and re-listing. It's not worth the risk of a paypal dispute for £1.64!

and thanks for the 'block buyers' tip Twinset - I'll have to find that for next time...

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Thanks for the feedback guys - I think I'll look into cancelling it and re-listing. It's not worth the risk of a paypal dispute for £1.64!

and thanks for the 'block buyers' tip Twinset - I'll have to find that for next time...

btw: what was the item . got me interested :angry:

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btw: what was the item

Everything you could need to find it yourself is contained in this thread, play detective :angry:

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Everything you could need to find it yourself is contained in this thread, play detective :D

found it , not even tamiya related :)

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He's not in UK either :D

Is that mirror glass or just polished plastic sheet?

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Is that mirror glass or just polished plastic sheet?

Neither.. its just an illusion :-)

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:blink:

No it's genuine glass!

BTW, for anybody interested, I contacted the buyer to say I didn't want to sell and had no response. So I then cancelled the auction with the reason "Buyer is from somewhere I don't ship to".

The buyer then disagrees with this saying that I don't want to sell the item, so eBay close the case and inform me I've lost my final value fees. Just like that. However, the eBay support says I can appeal by pressing the Appeal button in the case details, which funnily enough doesn't appear anyway. Even when I try to contact eBay over the phone the automated thing says I have no cases open or closed in the last few weeks!?!?

So I sent an email to support, and today got this really helpful reply:

"Thank you for writing to us about the recent sale of your game (item 140710682529) to 'ruimorgado'. I'm sorry to hear that they're claiming that you're refusing to sell the item.

We so tell sellers that they should contact the buyer before sending the Cancel Transaction request so the buyer knows to agree to it. When a seller wants to cancel a transaction, we ask the buyer to confirm you've both agreed. We do this to avoid crediting Final Value Fees incorrectly for transactions that were actually successful.

An unfortunate side-effect is that buyers occasionally don't confirm the cancellation, even when they had previously agreed with the seller to do so.

Sadly we can't reopen the case or credit your Final Value Fee now that the buyer has denied the mutual agreement.

I trust you have more success buying and selling on eBay in the future."

So I've ended up going through with the sale and charging him £12 for tracked postage for a £1.64 item. Even then the postage says it doesn't guarantee delivery... sigh.

So the moral is (as Twinset pointed out):

Use the "Block buyers whose primary delivery address is in a location I don't post to"

It's a shame it's buried under several pages...

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So the moral is (as Twinset pointed out):

Use the "Block buyers whose primary delivery address is in a location I don't post to"

It's a shame it's buried under several pages...

Unfortunately, there's ways round that too - I've just sold a 'UK Only' car radio to a guy in Southern Ireland (techincally overseas for courier companies) who's getting it delivered to his mate in UK - problem is, to get to him, his mate's going to have to post it so, by the time the buyer gets it, it's been posted twice but not tested at the original ship-to address :blink:

If it doesn't work when it gets to Ireland, I'm not sure what the score is.

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Another case of ebay washing their hands !

for buyers its perhaps good that in 50:50 situations they tend to side with the buyer.

Here its quite clear the buyer bid on something not available to them - eBay sucks some times !

That said, eBay does allow you to sell to a massive audience that wasn't available to us in the past

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eBay's trying too hard to please buyers now though - the guy in Portugal should never have been allowed to bid on it in the first place - the OP's shipping quite clearly said UK only, so eBay should've informed the buyer during checkout that the sale couldn't go through without shipping charges to Portugal being included in the sale.

The fact that the facility is there to block out-of-area buyers (albeit well hidden) means eBay could opt to do it automatically, but it would appear it's down to the seller to find this out for himself, as and when the need arises - Indeed I only found it out through chance when eBay introduced the buyer restrictions regarding low feedback and repeat buying blocks.

In comparison, Amazon.com have very strict regional restrictions for several product types - they don't even allow you to get as far as checkout if you're in the wrong territory for certain items.

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It's a lot of fuss over a virtually worthless item really - it just annoys me that eBay basically don't give a monkey's about the actual situation. They've got their virtual fingers in their ears singing "nah nah na nah nah - we can't hear you!"...

I wonder when we'll see the first example of this in the RC world...

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Unfortunately, there's ways round that too - I've just sold a 'UK Only' car radio to a guy in Southern Ireland (techincally overseas for courier companies) who's getting it delivered to his mate in UK - problem is, to get to him, his mate's going to have to post it so, by the time the buyer gets it, it's been posted twice but not tested at the original ship-to address :o

If it doesn't work when it gets to Ireland, I'm not sure what the score is.

I sometimes do that as well if an item is hard to find. But my mate always checks the item first before shipping it on

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Just my two cents: I have in the past (and will again) bid on items from sellers overseas who have listed those items as "only ships to: <whatever country they live in>".

Why?

1) Because if I really want something, I'll bid on it if eBay lets me bid. I'll then talk it through with the seller, and just explain they really have nothing to fear.

2) I live in Australia, where we have a world class postal system. (Don't laugh Aussies - for all the flack Australia Post may cop at times, it is world class relative to, well, the rest of the world).

3) Track record: I don't think I've ever had an item go missing that was posted to me, in 13 years of eBaying?

4) My bid only earns the seller mo' money, so I can't feel too sorry for them if they hate me for it.

I wish there was a way (is there already a way?) for you UK and US sellers to exclude all the messed up countries you like (postal-wise), yet NOT exclude the places where it's perfectly safe to post to. Don't you want our money? :)

What's more, with the Australian dollar hitting powerful heights in the past year or so (and only set to grow stronger it seems), Australian bidders now have quite strong purchasing power.

Back in 2000, I remember we were only worth 50c to the US$1. Now, we're stronger than the US$. And prices listed in pounds and euros no longer phase me either. :)

cheers,

H.

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I wish there was a way (is there already a way?) for you UK and US sellers to exclude all the messed up countries you like

There is, but I'm pretty sure the exclusions have to be made with each listing - Not 100% positive about that, but I'd bet a fiver on it

At a listing level, the seller can select Europe then exclude Greece and France (for instance)

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