So I don’t know if this fits the topic all that well and it’s really long but I need to get it out. I had a really frustrating experience with a seller on eBay
I bought a fan club Magikarp from a reputable Japanese seller. They had nothing but hundreds of positive reviews and seemed friendly. Not fluent in English but they were still communicating fine up to and including purchase
Everything was going well until I’m notified by customs to provide proof of payment. A day later the package is held by customs due to a price discrepancy. Looking at the air waybill it turns out the seller had listed the price they got paid in yen after eBay had taken it’s fees instead of the actual price I paid in USD
Cue an extremely stressful few days of back and forth with the seller, once I notified them of a problem it was like a switch flicked, suddenly their English seemed perfect but they seemed to lack basic comprehension. I personally think they didn’t speak English and were using some sort of ai to translate but I could be wrong here
I’m sorry to have to format this like a greentext but there’s too many screenshots of just the same thing back and forth
- I tell seller that they listed the wrong price on the air waybill
- Seller argues that there’s nothing wrong with the price
- Eventually seller admits that they put the wrong amount
- I ask for an updated invoice
- Next day seller sends a screenshot of the bill they paid to FedEx which is entirely in Japanese and still lists the incorrect yen amount
- I ask seller to create a new waybill invoice with the correct amount
- Next Day the seller sends the exact same invoice as was flagged by customs with the same incorrect yen amount
- I ask seller again to please reissue the waybill invoice with the correct amount
- Seller asks me if I can create the invoice ??
- I say no and tell them they can submit a form to reissue an invoice with the updated price
- I tell the seller we now have a customs deadline to get this sorted in a few days
- The next day the seller asks me what the waybill invoice number is, a number I cannot see and have no way of getting ?? (At least as far as I know)
- I ignore this because it says on the website link I sent them how a seller can get the invoice number with the tracking number and I have already told the seller this
- instead I ask the seller to send a message stating the value of the card and what business they were. I wanted to use this as a last resort to hopefully prove the value of the item
- Seller ignores this and asks again what the invoice number is
- I link them the exact page they need to use to update the invoice and also an article explaining how to find the invoice number
- No response
At this point I’m having a terrible time, I’m so over it that I’m willing to just get a refund and send the package back, but I’ve never had this happen before so I’m extremely worried that customs would dispose of the package or that it would be returned and I wouldn’t be eligible for eBay money back guarantee due to the vagueness of whether they cover an under-declared value, the guarantee only mentions over-declared
This got so bad it cumulated in me crying to my partner in complete distress for an hour one night
The next day I called eBay and was able to get confirmation that I would be covered thankfully. Instantly I was able to eat again after over a day of being too anxious to eat
I contacted FedEx customs and got confirmation that they will forward something other than an invoice as evidence of value and that it would remove the deadline, but that it was up to the discretion of the customs officer
I found that one message from the seller admitting the price at the end of the first argument. As well as another message where they admitted they put the wrong amount on the invoice. I sent them to my FedEx customs officer and prayed
A few days later the package was cleared and I was able to pay duties. Only then did the seller contact me saying FedEx never got back to them but that it looks like my package had been cleared anyway. Yeah no thanks to you mate
. His content is so cringe, makes your skin crawl.
