Problems with a German seller
Hello everyone, I hope you can help me. I should say that in my career on Ebay I have only bought from sellers of all nationalities, and only this German seller is giving me problems.
Here’s the situation. On September 25 I bought a vintage Swatch from this German seller worth €180 plus €12 shipping, paid with Paypal.
He tells me that I’ll have to wait a few days for shipment because he is leaving for a business trip and won’t be back until Saturday.
To my surprise, the next day the item shows as shipped with DHL, complete with tracking that doesn’t work. I’m about to write to him to warn him about the mix-up, but he beats me to it, saying that he went to ship the item at the Ebay store, but the shipment shows no tracking because, he writes, he bought the label through Ebay, whose shipping does not include tracking. He sent me a screenshot of the receipt, assuring me that the package would arrive and, according to him, he even went to check on the package, where they supposedly told him it is “on the way”. What I’m wondering is how he can be so sure of this when there is no tracking and so we don’t know where the package is. He also assured me that if the package does not arrive he will refund me, but that all the shipments he has made to Italy have arrived safely.
I tried asking him why the package shows as shipped to me on September 26 with DHL, but his English is pretty poor and he probably didn’t understand.
Do you think what he’s telling me is plausible?
Thanks a lot
hanamichi197
OP2 years agoPardon me, I thought this was the most appropriate section. Since I've never had any problems with transactions (I've been lucky) I'm not sure where to post. Can you tell me where to post in case I have other issues? Thanks!
vonbalden
·2 years agoYou can choose between selling on ebay, buying on ebay, shipping and payments, and even about ebay coffee or even collecting. You’re spoiled for choice depending on the question. But also about user support, of course. Where Mario has already replied to you about it. See you later.
hanamichi197
OP2 years agoThanks again, you were super kind 😊
hanamichi197
OP2 years agoThanks guys, the package arrived this morning! Thanks so much from the bottom of my heart for the help!!!
vonbalden
·2 years agoAngel of ice, a clarification. If you want further answers from those who provided them yesterday and not only, you do not need to post in the 'user support' section. Why ? Warum ? Why ? This section, which seems the most suitable at first glance, requires registration by users who have provided useful answers. But not everyone is interested in registering, since there is a big lottery, a wait, maybe a jury, which makes the whole thing a model of practicality. Only for this section. Naturally you can get solid answers from the other experienced users who reply in every section, but...not from me, nor from Heavenwelkin. And neither from some others who, like us, have not been formatted on user support. That is why I am replying here on behalf of all the ebayers and interested users.
Best regards.
heavenwelkin
·2 years agoGood morning vonbalden
That said, I’ve never submitted a request to eBay to be granted access to that board, and honestly I don’t know how many have done so without getting access.
I know about the user sika700, who asked for it and got it, but I know nothing about other users.
When I arrived on the forum in 2021, this section was already locked and had been granted to a dozen users.
It seems to me that there is a close link between the users who have reached 5000 posts and those who were then enabled for the user support BOARD, and some users if I remember correctly had explicitly expressed their wish not to be enabled.
Many users, in trying to contact eBay, come directly here to the forum rather than going through official support.
On the forum, by the way, everything is much simpler because you just need to log in and ask the question; you don’t have to go through the series of menus and submenus that often don’t exactly correspond / pertain to the requests we want to make to support.
And then Google sends you directly to the forum, so many people pass through here first.
And I believe that, since it is still a delicate section, a sort of unofficial offshoot of official support, they want to avoid inexperienced, unprepared users deciding to proclaim themselves eBay experts, maybe giving advice that is not really appropriate, completely misleading, or even forbidden by the rules or by law.
It’s one thing for a user to decide to join a discussion forum of their own free will, knowingly, well aware of what they are doing, to take part in discussions.
It’s another thing if the user ends up on the forum by pure chance, maybe from Google, because they simply need help and need an answer, not a whole series of answers (maybe different ones) or discussions they have no interest in taking part in (for example in a debate.)
Which is also what often happens when contacting eBay support, where out of three operators contacted you may receive three different answers to the same question.
Whereas the more savvy user, interested in discussions, can post the question by choosing the most appropriate category to take part in discussions that all users can join.
The problem, if anything, is that users who want to interact don’t know that this is a section of the forum where, at the moment, only 3 active forum users reply, and on that eBay should add a slightly different color or some other kind of signage that can make users understand that it’s not possible to interact with all the users who usually take part in the discussions.
In conclusion, personally I’m fine with having access enabled once 5000 posts are reached, just as was proposed at the time to the users who had reached this milestone.
The road is still long for me and who knows whether I’ll still be an eBay seller, a forum regular, or maybe a resident of this planet 🤣😂
Kind regards.
leonardpu_0
·1 year agoPuppi Leonardo Antonio address and via Viterbo 57 Ostuni 72017Italy
hanamichi197
OP2 years agoThanks first of all for your replies! I’ll जवाब to both:
vonbakden: I’m not optimistic either. I had contacted him before buying the item to ask if it worked and all that.
heavenwelkin: thanks a lot for the links, which I’m going to read now. The seller has almost 100% positive feedback, only one negative for unspecified reasons and has sold several items, so he can’t really be clueless. If the item doesn’t arrive, I’d like to sort it out with him directly without bringing eBay into it, but if I see he’s trying to pull a fast one, I’ll take action.
Thanks again!
heavenwelkin
·2 years agoI’ve just read vonbalden’s reply, which I agree with, since it could be another option.
But if you open a dispute now and the seller still hasn’t handed the package over to DHL, what will happen is that he won’t hand it over anymore, so you would eventually lose the watch and still be fully refunded by ebay.
Of course, the seller’s behavior seems rather strange, but we can’t know whether he really had an urgent problem or whether he’s just making excuses because he doesn’t want to cancel the sale directly without a valid reason, perhaps because he has already canceled other sales or because he’s afraid of getting negative feedback.
So he may be making excuses to shift responsibility onto the courier if the package doesn’t arrive.
Hard to say for sure.
You should check whether DHL tracking gets activated or not, because if it isn’t activated it means the seller can then cancel the label he purchased.
Anyway, it’s up to you; you can open an item not received claim as soon as you pass the presumed estimated delivery date shown on ebay.
Best regards.
hanamichi197
OP2 years agoThank you so much! Then I'll wait a bit longer before opening a dispute!
Thanks again for the helpful answers you gave me. Soon I'll have a new question for you!
heavenwelkin
·2 years agoGood evening iceangelforever
The fact that the seller then decided to ship right away instead of after returning from his trip is certainly because eBay requires him to ship within a short time.
Then the non-working tracking could mean that he has printed the shipping label but has not yet taken the package to a drop-off point.
On eBay there are informative pages about this, such as:
https://www.ebay.it/help/buying/shipping-delivery/opzioni-sulla-data-di-consegna-acquirenti?id=4025
or
https://www.ebay.it/help/selling/shipping-items/data-di-consegna-prevista-per-i-venditori?id=4086
On eBay you have 30 days from the expected delivery date to open any claim for item not received.
If he purchased on September 25 and you have tracking on September 26, I don't see anything strange.
The problem is that this seller could decide to hand the package over to a DHL center at his convenience.
Is this seller new or is he an established seller? Have you checked his feedback profile as a seller?
In any case I would tell you to stay calm because you still have time to open a claim for item not received.
If you want, keep us updated on how the matter progresses.
Best regards.
vonbalden
·2 years agoSincerely, when, between a seller and a buyer, right after a purchase, they start
a whole series of preambles, delays, clarifications, and invitations to be patient, in my opinion
the transaction takes a bad turn. It's hard to tell good faith from polite words
that are often pointless and meant only to drag things out. Out of excess caution, you can wait
one more business day, and then ask eBay to intervene for an item not received at destination.
Regards