[rohitbagai]

Originally Posted by GTO

I shop on Ebay USA extensively, and have a pretty strong feedback score there. Its convenient, cheap and the only location to find rare items.

Sadly, I dont really think ebay India will ever have me as a customer.

Hey can we buy directly from eBay USA and ask seller to ship item to India (obviously if they agree to ship worldwide)? If yes what custom duties do I need to pay for gadgets like cellphone or digital camera or plasma TV?

[GTO]

Rohit

1. You will have to have a good credit rating on Ebay (also known as member feedback). If you dont, sellers will be wary of shipping goods. I have messaged countless sellers on Ebay, and 99% have shipped me good to Bombay.

2. To avoid customs, ask them to not include an invoice with the price and simply write "$0 value - Gift item".

[Mr.Bangalore]

well i have bought Sony cd player and speakers from ebay india, it was a gud deal, but be aware of the options of Warranty and also the shipping insurance that is there. please do online money transfer so that it would be in the records of ebay and you can claim it back if anything goes wrong.

[prabuddhadg]

I have traded on Ebay and I must say it is not foolproof. There have been instances where everything went off perfectly. I have even made slightly big purchases with no hassles. Like a camera (Fuji S5600) for 15000, but its safest if you buy COD. Then you get to see the item and then pay. The point is that Ebay is of little help once you are in trouble.

Once I bid for a Chinese made Pen drive mp3 player. Seller was in Bombay. It was supposed to be 512mb and I won the bid. I paid through the Ebay gateway and waited for the item. This was I guess in October 05. Ebay mailed me that the seller was out of touch on the phone and so they were unable to send him the DD. So I had to wait.

After a couple of weeks, the seller mailed me (after umpteen mails from me) that Ebay was not sending him the money, how could he send me the item? I would send a fresh mail to the seller and to Ebay almost every day.

After about a month, the seller confirmed that he had received the money. Soon the item was delivered to me. But as I had feared, this turned out to be a 256mb player that was by some trick software made to look like a larger capacity memory (while waiting for Ebay to resolve the issue I had done some searching on the net and found a "club" of people who had been duped into buying Chinese made pen drives). When I connected it to my PC, it showed 512 mb the first time. But when I tried saving files to it, anything beyond 250 odd mb seemed to corrupt all the files in the drive and I had to reformat the pendrive memory.
So, I immediately complained to both the seller and Ebay, but the seller refused and Ebay said they had to investigate the matter. That was in December or January 06. Its August 06 now and Ebay is still investigating. The seller has been disqualified from selling on Ebay, but I am stuck with the 256mb player.
So, if you ask me, COD is the only safe bet on Ebay. Do not trust their machinery for safety.

[Revvhead]

Hiya Guys,
This was mailed to me from an aunt of mine.
I thought the response from Ebay was pathetic.
i have bough stuff when it was Bazee, but i guess this will make me more wary in the future

Anyone has any similar experiences or suggestions

ps. i deleted her name from the bottom ( she has signed it) as i havent checed with her if its ok to post her name on a public forum

Cheerio, read on


-------------------------
This could happen to you on E BAY
On September 26th 2007, I was still a naïve and starry-eyed buyer. Through my son who is a member, I bought a Nokia 9500 (item No 320160760358) on the E Bay site for Rupees 17000/- (Approx $ 425 at the current rate of exchange.) This mobile phone was advertised as brand new and with a national warranty. The seller was Messrs Skyways, but that's really immaterial because it was the E Bay banner that I trusted, so the purchase was made.

When the keys started sticking after just a few days I took the phone to the nearest Nokia Service Centre. Surprise! Surprise! I received a copy of their report that declared (in black and white no less) that the phone was an old one and had in fact been repaired on 20th April 2006! Quite put out, I faxed off the Nokia report to E Bay and we began a lengthy and finally fruitless, claim process.


E Bay replied that they could not honor the claim since the parcel was received by hand. Now this really surprised me since I thought the Seller should be penalized for this infraction. After all I had already paid for insurance and courier and had not asked for the phone to be hand delivered. Surely if a buyer is unprotected with certain types of delivery then the seller should be required to use acceptable Shipping methods and he should be held accountable if they are not used.

Here, I also have a suggestion for E Bay. If it is a primary requirement in a claim settlement that the item be couriered, please write this in bold letters on your site. And not hidden somewhere in the fine print!

Plus E Bay's stand made no sense because except for my declaration and compounding their very own contention there is absolutely no proof that I had in fact received any phone at all, though I had paid for it in full online. If I wanted to cheat them so badly, why didn’t I go the easier route and say I never received the phone, since no proof of delivery still exists, apart from my own admission?

Experience always makes us wiser and I do hope E Bay also profits from this one, as I have. I never received the warranty despite repeated reminders to the seller and to the best of my knowledge E Bay neglected to follow up on this matter with him. Or with the “legal” bill the seller claimed he had, but was never asked to produce by E Bay, though my son’s mails kept insisting on it, we never received a copy of that either.

My experience during the five months of frustrating correspondence that followed was that I was not protected, by what I had foolishly assumed, was the mighty E Bay’s reputation for integrity. In fact I found their claim process to be farcical, repetitive and time consuming. Because the claim was passed from department to department, I actually lost out on a chance to file with the Consumer Court; a process that has to be done within three months of purchase. Was this their intention? Perhaps. It was truly ironic when the seller also responded that so much time had elapsed he could not possibly compensate me! Ha Ha!

Having persevered since October 2007, it was in the last week of February 2008 that E Bay once again wrote to say that the claim could not be settled because the phone was hand delivered. Huh?

That was the decision given us, but hey fellas at E Bay, I really would like to know what decision you took on the seller. Or did you?

The worst part is that by their eventual indifference E Bay seemed to me to be actually encouraging fraud on their site

If you have a similar story you'd like to share, please do e-mail it to me...who knows? We might even be able to gather enough material for a book. If you are still foolhardy enough to wish to buy on E Bay, please, please do read the fine print first. You could be surprised at how little you, the buyer, are actually protected against fraud.

Please do pass this on to ALL those you care for. You might be saving them a great deal of heartburn and unnecessary stress. You could also c.c. a copy of your mail to E Bay at sgrswebform@ebay.com and let them know that we consumers are just not willing to be pushed around.

xxxxxxxxx

[hydrashok]

What a coincidence! I just read a post on this issue, made by a person (her son I guess) on PaisaPay forums today. There weren't as many details as this, but I did get the idea about what happened.

This is really a shame. eBay's "Buyer Protection" seems to extend only as far as nondelivery of purchased items, in practice.

I also read a lot of scary stories (from a seller's point of view) about eBay's PaisaPay payment system on the forum.

I have bought quite a bit of stuff off eBay and luckily for me, I have not had a similar experience. But then I've never bought priced more than Rs.500.00 to 600.00 off eBay either.

[vivekiny2k]

on the other hand, rediff india reimbursed my money (minus the postage, which they had promised too), after a seller sold a filmsy plastic inline skate after advertising it as aluminium reinforced body.

[normally_crazy]

The only one time I bought stuff off ebay - I got it for free. Why ? Because the courier guy who came to deliver the package went away without collecting the money.

I called up the seller but he did not seem interested - so I did not bother and later I got a email from ebay regarding defaulting of payment. So I emailed ebay the whole story and nothing happened after that.

What did I buy ? A 1 into 4 usb converter for 150 Rs.

[PAVAN KADAM]

E-bay is a good option, but i prefer direct purchases and UPS for safer and tensionless transaction.

For me, Its difficult to bid, wait and buy.

[sgiitk]

ebay is more of a group portal for small vendors (a few big ones also are there). I only go for highly rated vendors. Had a problem once - the courier delivered the packet sans the battery. I complained and got my money back. This was a small new vendor, so I learnt my lesson. Also, for things like mobiles I find the local market cheaper. For cameras I buy from jjmehta.com.

[jaisha8]

I joined ebay only 3-4 days back and orderd some small items as it was my first time and did not want to risk losing money if something went wrong. For all the orders I made online bank transfer payment and received this confirmation mails as well immediately.'Thank you for paying with PaisaPay for ebay order (PaisaPay ID 2933....).

I had ordered the below items in different transactions.(all small items amounting to Rs.1640 in total).
Paisapay ID 29339876497 (Item no.260792949343),
Paisapay ID - 29339948497(Item no. 130530665785),
Paisapay ID - 29340101287 (Item no 170658305614),
Paisapay ID 29340683367 (Item no. 180682158384) &
Paisapay ID - 29345854957 (Item no. 330580616985
I was convinced after that all the transactions went on well and soon I should get these items on my doorstep.
Next day I got a mail from ebay Bid cancellation notice. But I had not gone for any bid and clicked 'Buy now' option to buy straight away.

'ebay Bid Cancellation Notice - Item 330580...
Dear eBay Community Member,
The bid that you entered for the item 330580.... has been cancelled. You can view the reason provided for the cancellation by selecting the (bid history) link from the individual item page.'
And now yesterday I get this below mail regarding suspension of my account and just giving the below reasons.
Notice: eBay Registration Suspension - Breach of User Agreement
Your eBay account has been suspended. eBay took this action after determining that your account was acting inconsistently with the letter or spirit of our policies.
I am a first time used and don't know what breach I have committed. I replied back to them immediately asking the reason for cancellation of my account and what breach I have committed so that I can be careful next time and also requested to reinstate my suspended account again. To that I received a mail today morning that my account will remain suspended as per their ebay policies. Still they did not cite the exact reasons for the cancellation of my account. I have made payments for all the above articles and my bank account shows a debit transaction for these items as well.

In the meanwhile, I got mail from 3 sellers advising that the 'Seller has shipped your order no..... So in that case, would I be recieving the subjected goods as even the courier details are furnished in that mail. Now I dont know how to claim back my money as these orders have been cancelled.
Any valuable advise from the regular users of ebay would be much appreciated as to what action I need to take. Anyway I have decided not to go for any online shopping. Once bitten, always shy.

[sgiitk]

@jaisha8; If it says shipped the chances are you will get them.

My feeling is that some security thing in eBay was triggered by the five purchases on the same day, by a new member. Maybe they thought the id was fraudulent. As for the message I guess it is a standard message.

The maximum I have ordered have been two in a day, and have never had a problem of this kind.

[kaushik_s]

@jaisha8, have you got the shipment tracking id too? In that case it means that your items are truly on the way. But as your money have been credited from your account then I think you should be receiving the items. Just send individual mails to the sellers asking them if they've dispatched your items or not.
About the suspension thing, no idea why they've done like that. Probably as sgiitk said, it might be because a new id and they got worried. But even in that case the fault is with ebay. You can try to contact the ebay customer care and try to explain them your side of the story again. I think they should be able to re-instate your account. I've been purchasing items on ebay for quite some time and till now(touch wood) didn't faced any major problem. Most of the time things went smooth and interactions with sellers were also very cordial.

[Jammy28]

Jaisha8, its unfortunate that your account has been suspended. I guess multiple purchases within short time interval by a new member triggered some risk checks within eBay and has decided to suspend the account. I think you will get the items delivered which were already shipped. Write to them again and explain your case.

[swapnil.rahate]

Ebay is quite safe. Always check the seller feedback score and read feedback reports from other buyers. If possible always buy from the trusted seller or power seller. I have bought a lot of stuff from ebay such as blackberry torch, usb cables, iphone screen guards, ipad leather cover & screen guards and also sold a 1tb hard disk.