Cheating By Ebay Users -How Bad Is It ?

91stang: what exactly are the difficulties in posting material from the US to the UK? From things I've sent the other way, it involves copying out the address from the Paypal e-mail and scribbling for twenty seconds on a customs form. As far as I know, UK and US addresses are in pretty much the same format. For countries with more complex (to someone in England), but quite logical address systems, eg Japan, a minute's googling will explain all.

Its even worse buying from GSP USA sellers when you are trying to order on .com from Australia. The price of one small stamp or stampless letter / cover I have seen postage quoted as between $25 & $52. To me this just puts me off buying from any GSP ebay seller.

Postage hikes are in recent years really bad, Aus post tracked is expensive, I had to spend $29 to get a $20 item tracked to Russia. If not then face the risk of the item not showing. They have a $14 so called tracked envelope to but they don't scan it from this end and two went missing in america. But other than that at least 99% of snail mail gets to buyers and quickly. Generally good packing helps and one thing to help is to put something inside with the stamps identifying them as ebay items. I have received so many lately with no plastic protector, no cardboard stifner and no info inside the envelope that the item was purchased on ebay.

Any seller of stamp or cover singles or sets that uses GSP is doing it wrong (bulky collections/lots is a different matter). GSP is cost prohibitive for small light items.




Very few lots I receive as a buyer have information within the envelope identifying the source of the merchandise. I've never found it a problem.

I always include a short, hand-written "thank you" note with my items (plus the odd freebie if anything appropriate is to hand). I wouldn't go near GSP - for the odd, higher value item, I do track-and-signed, but the rate of postal losses, which is probably around 1 in 300, doesn't make an expensive ebay system very attractive.

I won't buy from any GSP seller, because shipping always seems to be crazy. $25++ for shipping an envelope with some stamps in it? I know postage is expense, but it is not that expensive for an envelope. Usually the things I receive from ebay do not have any information included, the packaging varies widely, but I have never had a problem receiving an item. I am also careful to check out the sellers feedback and tend to avoid purchasing if I have any doubts.

ebay uses tracking numbers to get rid of the buyer claim "I never received them" issue. Sellers usually win these cases opened up by the buyer.
On the other hand, overseas shipping rates have gone up, making it harder for the ebay seller. I had finished a sale of 5 pound books to an Argentinian winning bidder, only to find that the international buyer had to cancel the order when the shipping rates were calculated.
Still, stamps, coins, casino chips, etc. are a light item to ship. I've bought stamps from Canada and Pakistan before at reasonable shipping rates.

That would be fine if all sellers did that, but if you do it and your competitor doesn't, you lose the sale.

As this post was talking about GSP sellers this is the worst one I have seen yet with shipping international price of $404!

ebay item number:
201698479142

My screen shows

$404.13 International Priority Shipping to Australia via the Global Shipping Program

The cost of the archive $449 why postage $404? Its a real put off when you see postage like that!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/CHINA-POSTA...AOSwuR5XPzwQ

I've been selling stamps on ebay since 1990s.

I insure everything worth more than $50. Mail insurance is the least expensive way to protect yourself from losses, and it usually doesn't stop buyers from bidding if your material is of good quality. For less valuable lots, I assume the risk, which is relatively high (approx. 2% of sales).

I disagree with the notion that Eastern Europe (with the exception of Ukraine, which is practically in the state of civil war) is one of the riskiest regions. Most persistent cheaters who claim non-delivery of small-value items, in my experience, reside in the United Kingdom, in Germany, and in Latin American countries.

To be fair, I'd like to note that "non-delivery" claims are not necessarily false. In several cases, when expensive items were lost in the mail, I contacted Postal Inspection office, and in at least two cases they confirmed that items in question "disappeared" (have beem stolen by the Postal Service personnel) in their JFK sorting center and in the LA sorting center.

In another case Postal Inspection uncovered a scheme by the Postal Service employee who misdirected stamp dealer's mail from Texas to an accomplice in Utah, where this mail was accumulated as "lost"; I wasn't given any particulars of this case but it is obvious that at least two postal employees were in collusion, and planned to share the proceeds of their crime.

In other words, loss in the mail and theft in the mail are no less a problem than false "non-delivery" claims. The fact that ebay invariably takes the side of the buyer... doesn't help. In my opinion, restoring the negative feedback for buyers would be fair and would solve many problems.

TVOROG--Thanks, guess the 2% lost is the same for all sellers. Agree the old system of negative feedback would help in cutting the false claims down .

P.S. Misdelivery by the Postal Service is another problem. Just yesterday, my neighbor (bless her heart) handed to me an anvelope delivered to her but addressed to me, containing a valuable classic stamp. I wonder, how many stamps that I haven't received and wrote off as "lost in the mail," were delivered to other people who didn't bother to put envelopes back in the mail?

P.P.S. Not that Eastern Europe is much better than the UK when it comes to ebay cheating. I remember at least one case of "non-delivery" cheating in each of Romania, Greece, Czech Republic, and Poland. But, on the average, Brits are definitely the most neurotic, cantankerous, and dishonest ebay buyers I encounter.

Not to mention that British customs often delays philatelic mail for several weeks, and sometimes insists that the receiver should pay some ridiculous fees to recover their letter from these social predators. The only other country where customs officers abuse phliatelists in this way is Latvia. I haven't ever sent anything to Belarus but I was told their customs could "impound" (steal) anything they fancy.

As far as I know, UK customs are not "social predators" holding collectors to ransom, but simply officials who enforce Customs & Excise rules applying to non-EU countries. If duty in some form is payable, it will ordinarily be paid by the buyer when collecting his or her item from the local sorting office. That, at least, has been my past experience.

In the last 3 years I have shipped approximately 4000 ebay items with 3200 domestic and 800 overseas. I have lost $11 to shipping loss in this period.

I think ebay has done a very good job of reducing the impact of Items Not Received. A few years ago ebay must have realized this was a big threat to their business with sellers not shipping and buyers claiming items weren't received. Their response was to work with USPS and roll out the ebay shipping label system. While this system doesn't work perfectly it goes a long way towards solving most phony "Did Not Receive" claims. The shipping label system helped with domestic shipments but a glaring problem was the inability to Insure items sent overseas. ebay's answer to this was the "Shipsaver" application.

Shipsaver allows me to easily and cheaply insure 1st Class packages
both domestic and International. My current shipping rules are to insure domestic shipments over $200 and International shipments over $50. The only domestic item I've lost in the last 3 years is the $11 item I shipped to one of my best customers during the Christmas season. Tracking showed it stuck in Tampa and it never moved. Internationally about 8 items were lost and all of these were reimbursed by Shipsaver. Insuring via Shipsaver is very easy to do from within ebay a $50 items costs about $1. They allow lost item claims Domestically after 30 days and there is a 45 day waiting period for International but once the claim is filed I receive reimbursement within 3 or 4 days.

Germany is clearly the biggest problem for me with many items getting stuck in customs sometimes for as much as 50 days, some are claimed some are returned and some disappear.

GeoffHa:
What you call "rules" and "duties," I call "social predation." Depends on the point of view: whenever it comes to the bureaucracy, you are either a predator or a prey.

KRelyea:
Yes, insuring international packages worth over $50 usually solves the problem.
Within the USA non-delivery is rare. Canada can be a problem, though, I've lost a very expensive registered letter sent to a good customer in Canada. And it was definitely a Postal Service fault, because my customer (a wealthy man) did NOT claim his money back, he just complained that he didn't receive an extremely rare set of Germanias with separately-printed vignettes and frames...

Indeed, I had to ask for refunds a couple times from German sellers when the items disappeared after hitting the NYC sorting center. They were shipped via registered mail, which is like a big neon STEAL ME sign for postal thieves. It wasn't the seller's fault - I could see that they mailed it and that it made I to NYC - but it wasn't my fault, either. Having issued my share of refunds due to claims of non-receipt, I didn't hesitate to ask for a refund in those cases. I'm not about to pay for something I didn't get. I've never had a problem with regular, non-registered mail getting to me from Germany, the problem is mostly just registered mail.