Blocked countries

Hello I’m trying to block brazil but it doesn’t show up on excluded location list and brazilian buyer was still able to bid and win 14 items

It’s blocked on both garage sale and ebay
Screen Shot 2023-01-11 at 11.59.42 AM

Am I missing something on garage sale end?

My GS list is left blank. It is populated by ebay in the business policies page. Changes to the list is made there

Blocking countries do not actually block someone from those countries from attempting to buy your items.

Buyers simply use a reshipping service located in the U.S. to repackage your items and send them to the buyer.

Even though the eBay account of these buyers says they are located in another country, eBay allows them to purchase your items because their shipping address is a U.S. one. These often have addresses near airports terminals or industrial parks.

In other cases, such as buyer located in Canada, they buyer will have items shipped to an associate just across the border in the U.S.

You will need to add specific language to your Terms of Service that states that you:

a. Do not sell to buyers physically located outside the U.S.

b. Do not ship to reshipping services.

c. You do not ship to 3rd party addresses on behalf of the buyer - i.e., such as buyer claiming they want a item sent as a gift to a 3rd party or a buyer located in Canada having an item shipped to someone in the U.S. to bypass your eBay settings.

d. If you want to be more specific about the U.S. then you may also want to add U.S. Protectorates.

If you include this language in your listing then you can have the item cancelled due to the buyer’s address. You also can have eBay remove any negative feedback the buyer leaves. Because the buyer violated your terms of service there is no sales contract. The buyer and eBay cannot force you to complete a sales contract that does not exist.

If you do not include these terms in your listing then you will have a much harder time cancelling the transaction or having the feedback removed due to eBay’s deception. Most people think this setting actually blocks people located in other countries from buying when it only blocks shipping addresses, which eBay allows to be bypassed because they are only interested in making their commission off the sale and not your welfare.

I’ve had all feedbacks removed by such buyers because this was included in my TOS.

Had these buyers been located in the U.S. I would have sued them in small claims court and turned the matter over to a debt collection if they failed to pay the default judgement. If they failed to pay the debt collection agency their credit rating would be impacted, thus impacting their ability to get a loan and a job in the future as many employers look at credit ratings to determine if you are a higher risk for theft.

These “blocked” areas are even more abbreviated on my listings. If you look at your screen shot as well as my screenshot it says South America, which would include Brazil.

many thanks for the response

Hi,

At least here in Germany you can easily block buyers from all countries you do not ship to with the “Block buyers from countries to which I don’t ship” option:

Screenshot 2023-01-13 at 09.10.34

eBay will indeed block those buyers from bidding/buying.

Thanks,
Paul

Does that really mean what you think it does?

Here is the same setting on the U.S. site:

Screen Shot 2023-01-13 at 10.57.19 AM

Hover your mouse over the small information icon and it says help. It does not say prevent.

This is why you need to add terms to your TOS that specifically spell out who can buy your items and who cannot. This is intentional deception by eBay to bypass a seller’s blocked country list by allowing buyers to use a reshipping service located in the seller’s country. The seller’s intention is to block higher risk transactions from buyers located outside their country regardless of how that item is shipped to that country. If sellers wanted their items shipped outside their country they would join eBay’s latest version of its global shipping program.

This is because eBay is only interest in making its commission off the sale - not the safety of the seller. eBay customer service has specifically told me this is way their site is setup - to allow buyers to bypass the shipping location. Of course eBay customer service is known for habitual lying.

Screen Shot 2023-01-13 at 11.00.44 AM

What would stop someone living in one of the countries you have blocked from using a reshipping service in Germany with a German address that will then reship your item outside of Germany? You might want test this with an actual physical object that you can ship as it appears the only thing you sell on your eBay store, at least the last time I checked, was software licenses.

Assuming it can be blocked it is more likely due to a German consumer protection regulation or law and not eBay. Of course these laws also have negative results - many eBay U.S. sellers are blocking Germany due to recent packaging requirements for shipments to Germany.

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