I Can No Longer Afford To Ship Stamps To India Or China

We came home from vacation in Ottawa this evening and I find an e mail from paypal that a guy in Shanghai says he has not received my sending of stamps of 45 days ago...paypal has already "locked" the amount until the dispute is resolved..they will end up taking the money just like they did with the guy from India a few months ago..so I lose the stamps and the shipping cost again. Thats all folks..from now on my e bay listings will include the statement "i can no longer afford to accept bids from India or China."

The problem is that ebay and paypal do nothing about persons like that.
unfortunately they let them re-open accounts under other names, or assumed names.
I agree with you, it is not safe to ship to china or india.
Horamakhet

Not good news at all philb!

I can really feel for your situation!

By banning China and India to me does not go far enough. Lots more countries need the same treatment.

I was looking at my ebay mailing settings and came across a new lot of settings.
It gives me a choice to tick the box for all the ebay,s around the world. So as to give them postage preference which also puts our listings in their ebay as high visibility listings.
It also gives me a setting for all other ebay countries outside of my very limited selected choice so that a buyer from a country I am not happy with has to apply to me for a mailing cost before they can make a bid in our store.

Overseas personal (from me) delivery costs a bit! But all jokes aside I can build a good relationship or already have a good relationship with a buyer from a country I am not happy with and can still treat them as 1st class buyers. It is a good way to sort the wheat from chaff. A win for the sellers!

Very frustrating. Could you use a tracked service?

According to ebay......

Tracking information and Delivery Confirmation also protects you in the event of an ebay dispute and is one of the qualifications for getting an automatic 5-star rating for ship time

BTW. I have had a stamps package go missing in Pakistan.

I NEVER EVER ship stuff to that part of the world. Long story abridged; A few rotten apples (thieves) ruin the whole bunch!

I know I, too have mailed to those places and lost! Never again! This is a real hot button for me!

Sorry to hear about that Phil. Of all the items you have mailed, how many do you know arrive versus those that do not?

Did you include a customs form and if so how did you identify the contents?

As for international tracking, that adds $12.75 to the shipping costs as it's only availible with registered mail. The problem with registered mail is that tracking tends to end once the item leaves the U.S.. Also there's been report after report on the ebay forums that registered mail and tracking will not save the seller from claims that items have not been delivered even when you can see on the USPS website that the item has been delivered. ebay and PayPal doesn't stand behind their own policies and will side with the buyer.

This year, I've been very lucky and the only item I've lost so far was mailed to the neighboring state of Massachusetts. Even the Russian deliveries are making it through. Am I going to ban that state because of one non-delivery? No, as it was a fluke. It probably was chewed up in postal machinery despite the non-machiable surcharge that was paid as part of shipping or it was mis-delivered.

PhilB: Have you checked this buyer's feedback? Trying contacting some of the other recent sellers this buyer has dealt with and see if they have had any of the same problems. Then you can determine if the buyer has been making habit out of claiming items haven't been received or it is just a problem with the postal system.

Sidenote: you might see something called the "Global Shipping Program" recently in any new user update agreement that promises a safer way to send items internationally as the seller would only have to mail the item to a location in Kentucky.....well, that's not true and it's really, really expensive for the buyer. Sellers are still on the hook if a problem arises and buyers especially in Canada hate it as the shipping charges are way too high and custom fees are added even if the item really should not be subjected to them. You'll see international sales drop to near nothing. ebay has been sneaky about the program and have been using the user update to agreement to snare people into the system.

I sell cameras, expensive gears like the Leicas, Contaxes, rare lenses. I lost a Leica sold to a person in China. Tracking is NOT accepted by PayPal. PayPal required Signature upon receipt. How many sellers do that. PayPal does NOT protect the sellers! Just see how many seller indicate that he does not ship to China, Korea, Indonesia, India, etc....

force the buyer to pay insurance and shipping before delivering. This way, you don't lock out the entire market.

You can send registered mail with a return receipt to China, but there really is no guarentee that you'll get it back.

Also, keep in mind that the MAXIMUM indemnity for registered mail is about US $45. By using $12+ registration, you are betting that one out of four parcels will be lost, plus it is a royal pain to collect the indemnity - takes WEEKS.

i discussed this topic with my friend in Canada who purchases Canadian Prisoner of War covers running into the many hundreds of dollars apiece for rare camps...he mentioned that he had more losses with registered mail than with first class and he will not mail a registered letter that might sit over the weekend. He won a gold ribbon this year at Orapex for a 4 frame exhibit on P.O W. mail...i would love to buy his book on the subject..the only pay he received from the publisher was 4 free copies of his book and it sells for over a hundred dollars..so I will have to do without !

Will, I checked on the buyer from Shanghai...his feedback is private..isn't that cute?..paypal will take my money and I will announce that I am joining the legion of people who will no longer ship to China or India !!

Now I understand EBay/PP does not cover even signed/tracked packages, which are the main countries to avoid selling to?

I will remember to tick those on any ebay sales in the future

Thanks
BSW

I am a Canadian living in China and I often find it frustrating that someone has a bad experience with shipping here and suddenly it is the entire country that is at fault and everyone is crooked. I have been using ebay since the 90's and the only problems I ever had was with American buyers and sellers and even that was very few. I certainly didn't lump them all together.

Instead of outright blocking purchasers from China or another country, why not discuss the situation with them first? When I was actively selling on ebay, I would ship everywhere and take all money. Why would I restrict someone from buying a product? I have seen many auctions on ebay go with no bidders and they wouldn't even reply to my request for international shipping. Very frustrating.

Because like you said one person can't speak for the whole country. If you lost a bunch of stuff in a certain region it would simply be a very stupid mistake to just keep doing it. I certainly don't think everyone in China is "crooked" but like the old adage says "one rotten apple..."
You cant keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results.

Oh, I understand the logic. It just gets irritating when someone in the States has Canadian stamps up on ebay, or a Canadian album, and won't ship to Canada. I have run into this many times when I ask to ship to my Canadian address.
Luckily for me, I have not yet had anyone refuse to ship me anything to China. What I find interesting is that when I ship something from China to Canada and it has tracking on it, it leaves China immediately and gets to Canada, where it then sits for days. As well, shipping within China is amazingly cheap and efficient. Many times I have ordered something online and it appears the next day. If they could only run the rest of the country this efficiently...