Help Needed In The Next 8 Hours To Buy A Stamp On Ebay!

Hiya people,
I found an ebay auction today that I want to bid on.... and when I tried to bid the system would not let me as the seller had not included New Zealand on their list of places they ship too. I asked the seller to add NZ but he says he can't in the last 12 hours of the auction.

Can someone in either the USA, or Australia or Europe contact me if they can help?? gavinnz@xtra.co.nz

I can pay you via paypal. It's only at $7.50US at the moment and ends 8 hours from now.

Regards
Gavin

Presuming the seller is happy to ship to NZ its easy to change your shipping 'location' to USA? (Go to Shipping and Handling to do this).

I think you should then be able to bid.

When you pay by paypal your NZ address will show for delivery. You can arrange the extra postage required by with the seller and add to your payment.

I have had to do that before. I just made up an American address to bid then changed it back once the bid was successful.

I never knew that trick.
Just did that. Put in a US friends address and the bid went in ok.
I thought the ebay system would have been sophisticated enough to stop me being able to do that!

Thanks guys for the advice, much appreciated.
I will let you know if I win.

Regards
Gavin

I would be leery of that, as the seller may not appreciate that trick and refuse to follow through.

Yes I agree. I did get this reply from the seller when I asked if he could change his settings....

"Thank you for your email. Unfortunately ebay do not allow to change anything if ther less then 12h to end of auctions. We fix this problems on our new listings. Sorry for inconvenience."

So I am sure they will be ok to send them to me here in NZ and if not I CAN use the US address I have put in and have my friend in the US forward it to me. So I am ok either way in THIS case I think.

Regards
Gavin

I just sent a quick message to the seller explaining what I have done so their as no surprises. :)
Regards
Gavin

Before I do this, I always make sure it is okay with the seller. Doesn't make any sense to do it if they have stated they won't ship overseas.

Snap!

They would post to lots of places including Australia so not including New Zealand would be a understandable oversight in this case I think.
Regards
Gavin

Well that went well.
Thanks to your suggestions I managed to buy the stamp lot I wanted with a Irish label in it with "Moto Guzzi" on it for my topical collection.
Then changed my address back.
Got this from the seller before the end of the auction...

"Thank you for your email. We shipping to address from PayPal payment so if you pay with NZ address we will send to NZ. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns you may have."

So he was fine with the idea.

Thanks for the help guys!
Regards
Gavin

Just paid for the item and found a small complication.... if I changed the address back to New Zealand ebay's system would not let me pay, so I had to pay on ebay with the US address as the shipping address and (here is a slight problem) because ebay owns paypal it automatically changed in in paypal ALSO.

So I did pay, BUT I had to send the seller a separate message asking him to please post it to my New Zealand address.

Judging by his good responses I think I will get it sent direct, but it depends on their systems and if they can make those changes. Small sellers would be fine but some bigger seller it might be to much of a pain to do. At the end of the day posting the USA address I supplied is fine, it will just cost the postage over to NZ.

Regards
Gavin

This was what I was after.... terrible scan but it shows the "Moto Guzzi" Italian motorcycle label between the stamps.

Trust me, small sellers find this kind of thing a royal pain in the behind and really hate it when customers want them to do this sort of stuff. They may grit their teeth and do it, but don't be surprised if some of them won't let you bid in future auctions. The little guys have too small a profit margin to put up with this.

ebay and Paypal, when using my Chinese address, insist on changing the province name to Chinese characters. Even though I type it in using English, it automatically converts. I have talked to both PayPal and ebay about this and each company insistes it is the other company that is doing it. I send screen captures of the problem to both and they still insist it is the other. Very frustrating.

Whenever I buy something on ebay, I always send an email with my correct mailing address. So far nobody has ever complained and I think it is a pretty minor inconvenience so I don't really understand why you think smaller sellers find this onerous.

Just to put a full stop on this thread... the stamps arrived here in New Zealand safely, positive feedback has been given and received and all is well in the world! :)

Regards
Gavin