A new (French) Ebay problem?

[Steve]

I've encountered a problem on Ebay that I've never had before and wondered if anyone else has had a similar issue and knows how to resolve it.

I've been trying to purchase an HMV hornless machine from French Ebay. No, that is not the problem ...I really do want the hornless machine as it is the Style 6 which must be fairly rare as I've only ever seen one for sale before. If anyone has one for sale, my problem can happily go away, thank you!

No, the issue is that I have been in regular contact with the vendor over the past few days and we agreed a fair price and he gave me a shipping quote. So far so good. However, after many technical problems - the seller didn't offer overseas shipping on his listing or quote any shipping costs whatsoever - we agreed that he would send me an offer that I would accept to include the shipping price as I couldn't use the Buy It Now option as Ebay sent me a red flag stating that the seller does not ship to my country. I asked the seller to revise his listing which he said was "very complicated". I'm not sure how much selling experience he has but his feedback is good as a buyer and he seems amiable enough but possibly not very tech savvy? I found out that I could submit an offer for the Buy It Now price even though I couldn't actually use the Buy It Now.

We agreed that to include the shipping cost he should counter my offer with a price above the B.I.N. price and he duly followed through. I accepted his offer and got the standard Ebay message to "Pay Now" but it will still not allow me to pay as I keep getting the same message stating the seller does not ship to my country! If a buyer and a seller agree formally by way of bids / offers and acceptance of offers, then surely Ebay has a locked transaction to help expedite so why does it continue to refuse to allow me to pay? The seller has replaced the listing afresh and even added the option that bidders can contact for shipping quotes, but even though I have now "bought" it, the system stubbornly refuses to allow me to pay. I've even tried the standard request to ask what I owe to the seller to allow him to send an Ebay invoice confirming the shipping is zero (as it is included in the agreed price) but he said that when he spoke to Ebay they advised him the problem was that I wanted it to be shipped to a personal address! Well, I don't want it sent to Birmingham Airport so what do they expect?!

In the end I've had to give it up after 3 long days, about 46 messages and a constant return to Google Translate. It's pretty frustrating to say the least. I've asked a member here in France if he could intervene as a middle man for onward shipping but haven't received a response.

I now have a red notification on my Ebay stating I need to pay and it will not go away. I refuse to cancel the transaction because none of the reasons in Ebay's drop down menu apply to me and I still would like to complete the transaction.

Any advice would be very much welcomed. Thanks!

[jamiegramo]

Can you send him the money through Paypal to his email address? Assuming you can get that . He can manually mark the ebay transaction as ‘payment received’ and if he can’t then it’s no problem. If you don’t receive the item you can always claim the money back if it isn’t sent friends and family.

[Steve]

Can you send him the money through Paypal to his email address? Assuming you can get that . He can manually mark the ebay transaction as ‘payment received’ and if he can’t then it’s no problem. If you don’t receive the item you can always claim the money back if it isn’t sent friends and family.

Many thanks, Jamie.

That idea had occurred to me so I have, as a last resort, asked if he'd consider this, to which I'm still waiting a response. I believe he's got tired of thinking about it now although I'm sure the problem lies with his Ebay account. It is a risk but PayPal could help if there's a problem.

I'm still trying to understand why Ebay refuses to let me send him the money for a "sale" agreed.

[Inigo]

The shipping is going to be made through eBay, or independently from them?
If it is independent, you could momentarily change your address to a french address, to grumble down the red flag and close the transaction, given the seller sends the item to your actual address in the UK.

[Steve]

The shipping is going to be made through eBay, or independently from them?
If it is independent, you could momentarily change your address to a french address, to grumble down the red flag and close the transaction, given the seller sends the item to your actual address in the UK.

The seller has now responded and is going to send a payment request from his PayPal account. The shipping will be independent. I will request that he confirms on his Ebay account that the item is paid.

Many thanks for your inspirational "get around" though! The initial problem seems to be his Ebay account setup as someone with little experience sending items overseas. I had no idea how restrictive Ebay could be as I've never encountered this issue before.

[epigramophone]

With the benefit of hindsight, when the seller knew that he was dealing with a UK buyer he should have amended the seller preferences in his profile to include shipping to the UK. It may now be too late to do this, as eBay seems to have tied itself in knots over the shipping issue.
Might the seller be able to cancel the transaction, amend his seller preferences and relist the item at the agreed price as a Buy it Now? Having already obtained a shipping quote he could then include that in the listing.

[Steve]

With the benefit of hindsight, when the seller knew that he was dealing with a UK buyer he should have amended the seller preferences in his profile to include shipping to the UK. It may now be too late to do this, as eBay seems to have tied itself in knots over the shipping issue.
Might the seller be able to cancel the transaction, amend his seller preferences and relist the item at the agreed price as a Buy it Now? Having already obtained a shipping quote he could then include that in the listing.

That would seem the sensible option but he has already tried this once before but failed due to not checking his listing properly and not confirming shipping cost so we were back at square one. Its also difficult to get across what you're saying when relying on Google Translate. Heaven knows, it's hard enough some times in plain English!

It's fast becoming a farcical take on industrial espionage. I'm trying to give him my email now but Ebay won't let me, even under the original listing where I am still technically the purchaser. I've tried to send a photo of my email address scrawled on paper but the AI software robots have detected it.

My latest plan is to get the seller to write to me by post with his email so I can email him! Aha, so how did he get my postal address in UK? Well, I sent him a screenshot of my Ebay invoice showing what the message stated and that window included my address, more by design than accident, although it didn't show an email!

The saga continues......

[Sidewinder]

The message from Ebay was something like

Unfortunately this seller won't ship this item to UK. you can:
-update your shipping address and try again
- please contact the seller to request order total

updating the shipping address to one in France may work though just add confusion. Asking the seller to send an "order total" just sends you into an unsolvable loop.

easiest is for the seller to mark/accept the item as paid and you send the money directly in paypal

[Steve]

The message from Ebay was something like

Unfortunately this seller won't ship this item to UK. you can:
-update your shipping address and try again
- please contact the seller to request order total

updating the shipping address to one in France may work though just add confusion. Asking the seller to send an "order total" just sends you into an unsolvable loop.

easiest is for the seller to mark/accept the item as paid and you send the money directly in paypal

Agreed. It's a slight technical flaw in Ebay but no doubt largely exacerbated when a seller goes in to a tail spin trying to change their account settings / listing to accommodate but ultimately fails. I always thought that a transaction and accepted bid / offer meant there was no confusion and a sale was guaranteed. Obviously I was wrong but having been on Ebay over 21 years now I'm not surprised I'm testing its limits.

We are trying to secure the deal with PayPal as you say but it does involve one or both of us exchanging email addresses which is a big no-no with Ebay. It's real cloak and dagger stuff now!

[Garret]

The message from Ebay was something like

Unfortunately this seller won't ship this item to UK. you can:
-update your shipping address and try again
- please contact the seller to request order total

updating the shipping address to one in France may work though just add confusion. Asking the seller to send an "order total" just sends you into an unsolvable loop.

easiest is for the seller to mark/accept the item as paid and you send the money directly in paypal

Agreed. It's a slight technical flaw in Ebay but no doubt largely exacerbated when a seller goes in to a tail spin trying to change their account settings / listing to accommodate but ultimately fails. I always thought that a transaction and accepted bid / offer meant there was no confusion and a sale was guaranteed. Obviously I was wrong but having been on Ebay over 21 years now I'm not surprised I'm testing its limits.

We are trying to secure the deal with PayPal as you say but it does involve one or both of us exchanging email addresses which is a big no-no with Ebay. It's real cloak and dagger stuff now!

Steve,

If you can't get it sorted out let me know.

Sincerely,

Garret