Rip Off E/Bay - join the boycott

[DNic]

Hi, I have just bought an item of of E/Bay on Sept 10th, with the seller only allowing shipping overseas via this Rip Off ''Global Shipping Program''.

The impression is that it is a fast safe service.

However the item cost $100 to ship & I now been advised I will not receive it until early Dec.

I have many times shipped to the US for a similar size & heavier weight item for just $65 & it gets there in 10 to 15 days.

I also can order & have ordered items from Ali Express that cost a fraction of that price & often I get them in 3 to 4 weeks.

I have now started advised sellers of item I am interested in, That I will not make a bid if they do not offer other postal options.
Please join the campaign & insist to not use Global shipping. Remember the power is in the consumer.

For comparison, on the same day I ordered a cart from the UK which was sent via 1st class mail. It arrived in 10 days!!

Cheers

 

[wrenchone]

I always look at the shipping price, and don't buy an item if the shipping price is extortionate. It's a sneaky way of pumping up the price of an item.

 

[leadbelly]

Gotta disagree, with ebay you know how much you're going to pay, just read carefully for pete's sake, and you're insured that it is what it claims to be. Aliexpress is shopping roulette, maybe it'll get there eventually, maybe it'll be as described. Also they recently changed the rules for Ali, you must return to get refund, and at least for the item I wanted to return, procedure was literally impossible to follow.

 

[wrenchone]

Well I also screen my searches with "nearest first", which generally puts the China vendors at the bottom where they belong. I always use the cart first and often have dumped an item from my cart because of something fishy, like a huge shipping price.

 

[kodabmx]

I agree totally. eBay's Global Shipping Program is just a cash grab for Pitney Bowes and I avoid sellers who use it. 99% of the time, the cost to post from USA to Canada for a couple of tubes might be 20$ by USPS and I don't pay duty/tax because it came through the mail. Not always, mind you. But 99% of the time someone in the USA mails me tubes, by post, I don't pay anywhere near what the GSP costs. Just do a search for "global shipping program is a scam" and see how many others agree with this. I'll help.

Funny, most of the time, I want to specifically exclude USA and get results from China (because nobody should pay 30USD for 100 6/32 screws) but they don't have an option for that.
The only thing I ever buy through eBay these days is NOS Soviet tubes from people in Ukraine mostly. Everything else I go with either Amazon or Ali nowadays.
The other thing that angers me about the GSP is they charge duty and tax on USA and Canadian made goods even though we have free trade.

Also Re: Ali. If you don't receive the item within 75 days, you get your money back without fail. I've never had to open a claim about defective or counterfeit goods though. Also, most sellers offer many types of shipping. If you pay the extra dollar or whatever, you get it in a fraction of the time.

 

[jjasniew]

Great. I'll never sell that single EMIT R tweeter now.

 

[kodabmx]

LOL why not?

Just choose not to use GSP. Last I checked, it wasn't mandatory.

 

[leadbelly]

LOL why not?

Just choose not to use GSP. Last I checked, it wasn't mandatory.

You pretty much negated your long rant with your own reply.
As for Ali, thanks for that great description of how it worked last year and before. Wait until you have a real dispute now; we'll see.

 

[ximikas]

Ali changed their rules , even if you don't confirm reception of item, after 90 days if I'm correct is marked as confirmed delivered. There's note about this when you make order.

 

[nigelwright7557]

I just bought some BAT85's off ebay.
Soldered them in, power up pcb and blew up the PIC micro.
The BAT85's turned out to be zener diodes !
Same seller sent double ended BNC plugs instead a PCB BNC socket !
Then they lost a batch of LM317's.
Time to buy elsewhere.

 

[pcan]

I have bought trough GSP dozens of times, from USA and UK, for business purposes as well as for my personal use. I understand the convenience for the sellers, because they avoid the international shipping burden. At the buyer side, it is almost always not the best choice. The only exception are some items from USA, because GSP may be cheaper than USPS. But even in this circumstance, it is more expensive than budget reshippers and it does have the same drawback: they refuse or are slow to forward items that have a weight/volume ratio unsuited for aerial shipping. GSP "disposed of" (and reimbursed) on two occasions a shipment of vacuum tubes from USA, and on another occasion they removed the double box from a delicate item, to shrink the package. They don't forward the customs paperwork, therefore it is not possible to get a tax deduction when shipping to a business. This is the reason why I arrange the reshipment from USA or Canada myself when the item does have high value. As plus side, GSP price is set in advance and customs fees are included.

 

[Lee Knatta]

Ebay GSP makes shopping international expensive and was the beginning of the end for me buying much on ebay years ago. I agree that GSP is just a cash grab for Pitney Bowes with very little value for the customer, but high cost. They also lost me as seller when they insisted private sellers need to transact money trough ebay exclusively and ebay enforcing the conditions for commercial sellers on private sellers with all ridiculous fees and punishments associated.

 

[johnratts]

It's a pity that in the case of ebay, nothing will help. But I completely agree.

 

[Bigun]

I don't buy nearly as much from eBay anymore due to shipping costs. And I have a bunch of interesting items that I'll likely not use and could put for Sale but due to shipping costs and the time and effort required I'll put most of my left-overs into the e-waste bin. The days of low cost shipping are gone and eBay is no longer very useful with the single exception of buying from China where shipping is not expensive in many cases as long as you are not in a hurry.

 

[jan.didden]

I also had a few cases where I wanted to put up something that eBay thought was a high value item ($ 400) and told me I first had to build up a record as a good seller before I could post it.

Jan

 

[Bigun]

we can't help you if you have a dodgy reputation 🤣

 

[Trajan]

So the shipping has gone up from some unknown date years ago at $65 for a most likely dissimilar item, to $100 now and I need to join the boycott cause over that? As someone who sells and actually understands shipping costs overseas, I just don’t buy it. Inflation is the reason with some greed, but it is mostly the former. The era of cheap nationally subsidized shipping is ending.

 

[jan.didden]

What happened to good honest capitalism anyway? We used to boycott by buying from the competition.
Or stop buying/using the service.
It isn't as if eBay provides a life-critical product.

Jan

 

[tomchr]

Time to buy elsewhere.

Ya think?! I've never understood why people would buy components on ePay anyway. Except for possibly mechanical components. Last I checked Digikey only charged $8 in shipping on orders below $100. "Free" shipping on orders over $100. And I put that in quotes because there's no such thing as free shipping.

Tom

 

[Bigun]

I'm a big fan and user of Digikey myself. However, I looked up illuminated square push button switches and Digikey has choices at around 10x the cost of similar described product on eBay (from China) and since I'll want a few dozen switches the choice is clear.