Ban on Irish bidding on Ebay.uk

recipio

:mad: Hi all ,
have you noticed that Ebay.uk now bans Irish residents from bidding if the seller specifies 'UK only' delivery ? A big red notice pops up saying 'this item cannot be sent to Ireland'
Now, I used to contact the seller before bidding to confirm they would send to Ireland bit this route is closed off. I contacted Ebay who suggested asking the seller to change his/her destination on the ad. Not very helpful.
They don't seem to have considered that many of us have family in the UK to which goods can be sent or that most UK sellers use the UK only destination by default. I find that 90% of sellers are happy to send to Ireland when reassured that the postage would be paid.
Any thoughts of this. ?

Judgement Day

There's not much that you can do aside from contact the seller by whatever means. I find that most will post to Ireland but there are a few that believe that civilization ends north of the Watford Gap - it probably does.

What about the NI sellers who advertise will post to UK only - there are plenty of them. :rolleyes:

recipio

I agree.I often wonder why some people put 'not available to Ireland' in the ad. Possibly stung by a bad deal in the past. ?
However its a crazy situation where you have a willing buyer and seller but Ebay now blocks bidding. Can they not see that this will decimate their trade from Ireland.?

jor el

recipio wrote: »

However its a crazy situation where you have a willing buyer and seller but Ebay now blocks bidding.

The only sales being blocked are those listed by UK sellers that stipulate that they won't ship to Ireland. That's not a willing seller, that's a seller that won't ship outside their own country. In the past it was still possible to bid on such auctions, but now eBay are making it so that a seller that has decided not to ship internationally will not get outside bids that they don't want.

If a seller wants to ship to Ireland, then they need to set their auction up properly in the first place.

the groutch

tbh I think it's buyers from other countries (Italy, Spain, etc) who put people offer posting outside the UK, and unfortunately us Irish are effectively bunched in with them.

demixed

There is a reason they don't want to post here, we are up there near the top of pile for online retail fraud in Europe.

the groutch

[CAN OF WORMS] I'd be interested in knowing what % of those involved in such frauds are foreign nationals/immigrants.[/CAN OF WORMS]

GarIT

the groutch wrote: »

tbh I think it's buyers from other countries (Italy, Spain, etc) who put people offer posting outside the UK, and unfortunately us Irish are effectively bunched in with them.

What would make you think that? Just blame it all on the foreigners. Those Italians and Spanish are too tanned, they must be up to something, is it? Read the below post while you get a chance.

demixed wrote: »

There is a reason they don't want to post here, we are up there near the top of pile for online retail fraud in Europe.

the groutch wrote: »

[CAN OF WORMS] I'd be interested in knowing what % of those involved in such frauds are foreign nationals/immigrants.[/CAN OF WORMS]

Very few I'd imagine.

PaulieBoy

GarIT wrote: »

What would make you think that? Just blame it all on the foreigners. Those Italians and Spanish are too tanned, they must be up to something, is it? Read the below post while you get a chance.





Very few I'd imagine.

And what makes you think that ??? Where's your evidence to back that up ???

GarIT

PaulieBoy wrote: »

And what makes you think that ??? Where's your evidence to back that up ???

I don't have any evidence as such but I wouldn't be so quick to just blame it on the foreigners. Other then refugees and Europeans most of the immigrants in Ireland have to be working to be allowed stay here, I would assume a working person is less likely to try to or have the time to pull off online scams. Also to pull off an online scam you would need a decent level of English and computer skills which a lot of immigrants would lack one of if not both.

PaulieBoy

GarIT wrote: »

I don't have any evidence as such but I wouldn't be so quick to just blame it on the foreigners. Other then refugees and Europeans most of the immigrants in Ireland have to be working to be allowed stay here, I would assume a working person is less likely to try to or have the time to pull off online scams. Also to pull off an online scam you would need a decent level of English and computer skills which a lot of immigrants would lack one of if not both.

You make a lot of assumptions, yet your very quick to jump on others for making their assumptions.

recipio

jor el wrote: »

The only sales being blocked are those listed by UK sellers that stipulate that they won't ship to Ireland. That's not a willing seller, that's a seller that won't ship outside their own country. In the past it was still possible to bid on such auctions, but now eBay are making it so that a seller that has decided not to ship internationally will not get outside bids that they don't want.

If a seller wants to ship to Ireland, then they need to set their auction up properly in the first place.

Well, if you live in the UK I'm guessing your'e going to view posting to Ireland less hassle than posting internationally.
I have bought plenty of items from UK sellers just by asking them if they will post. Now I ( and you ) can't even bid.
The ideal would be to offer sellers a 'UK and Ireland only' choice.
There is EU statute somewhere prohibiting any law that prevents the free passage of goods within EU countries. I'll take it up with my MEP.

GarIT

PaulieBoy wrote: »

You make a lot of assumptions, yet your very quick to jump on others for making their assumptions.

I'm not jumping on someone for making an assumption, I'm saying its wrong to blame a foreigner without any reason.

Another reason for my thinking is that if a foreigner commits one crime they would be sent back after because it would void their visa.

Silverfish

I thought it was a change in the Ebay.co.uk settings, the countries are defaulted to the one the seller is located in, that's what I was told anyway

I did contact a few sellers in the UK, who either changed their settings so I could buy from them, or just sold to me separately and privately (wouldn't recommend this course of action unless it's a reputable company)

jor el

the groutch wrote: »

[CAN OF WORMS] I'd be interested in knowing what % of those involved in such frauds are foreign nationals/immigrants.[/CAN OF WORMS]

This line of posting ends right here. Anyone continues on this vain will be banned without further warning. Thinly veiled racism such as this has no place on this forum.

recipio wrote: »

Well, if you live in the UK I'm guessing your'e going to view posting to Ireland less hassle than posting internationally.

If you're a seller in the UK, posting to Ireland is posting internationally. It's no different to posting to France, except we speak the same language.

recipio wrote: »

There is EU statute somewhere prohibiting any law that prevents the free passage of goods within EU countries. I'll take it up with my MEP.

That would be a waste of time. There's no law being set, or statute being broken here. All sellers are free to chose which countries they will sell to, and eBay are simply enforcing that choice now, which they didn't do before. It is the sellers that need to change how they set up the auctions in the first place.

keyboardcook

The new rules on posting to Ireland happened just over 18 months ago.

Remember a time when you could view listings for "Ireland & UK"?

I see many issues above that cause anger etc etc., but eBay did make decisions based on above issues (which I won't mention in case I get banned) to completely compartmentalise all countries.

We are more aware of it here because of the size of our population. If I wnt to search on eBay now, I go to the .co.uk site and make a request for the seller to post to Ireland.

They still are unaware that the lisiting is now longer part of the .ie!!

HOWEVER: the larger upshot of this is for eBay iteslf. It is a dying company. It never worked in Asia, it is more or less dead in France, and the .co.uk market in getting smaller. Just look yourselves at listings you used to visit a year ago and see up to twenty pages of result. Go se what there is now!!

The percentages eBay and PayPal charge are criminal. You end up paying up to 15 % of sale price between listing, payment and currency conversion fees.

A joke.

So to answer the OP question.

Don't worry about it. eBay is a Behemoth set to die.

How do I know? All advertiding sites have a hay day. But then they try to get smarter!!

I guess the key for them is trying to get better rather than let the status quo survive.

Look at other failure: buyandsell, adverts (gone pear shaped since the arguments left the building- that is why we all watched it), gumtree, benduunne.....

I also see the racial comment here, but I reckon they are very valid, and not necessarily pointed at anyone in particular, but rather pointed at how policies are formed in these companies that we choose to on.

That's my pennies worth.

Anyone else care to put a higher bid on that!:)

recipio

Interesting post Keyboardcook.
I agree that Ebay are sticking it to us, their sellers fees are just the same as a regular auction when added up. I didn't appreciate that they might be under pressure but that's a failure of their marketing strategy.If I were in charge I'd build in incentives to encourage international business.
The argument that its due to excessive defaulting is suspicious. I presume defaulters are banned so its a self censoring process.?
The actual pop ups blocking bids have only appeared in the past month or so.
I guess this is what happens when an altruistic idea from San Francisco turns into an international business. ?

fasttalkerchat

Make another account. Problem solved.

nlgbbbblth

There are ways around it - assuming the seller is willing to make an exception and post to Ireland.

1) You can ask the seller to add you to their exemption list.
http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/buyer-requirements.html#exemption

2) Alternatively you can change your registered address to a valid UK one, place your bid, and then change it back.

gbee

I usually use www.ebay.eu and all the providers there will ship to Ireland. So that was handy.

Recently I'm finding it defaults to EBay.ie which is useless TBH.

BTW, the default EBAY is for home sales only, you need to change it, not all sellers realise this.

BTW, again, as for shipping you're better off with a Euro Country, UK is last resort.

sandin

One of the reasons is probably the huge increases in delivery charges by Royal Mail.

Some fees have increased by 70%

A standard letter is now 60p (73c). International letters can cost up to £2.21 for just 100g!:eek: (90c sending from here to UK)

Large envelope of 500g will cost £4.82 (about €6) (€4.50 sending it from here to UK)

nlgbbbblth

Our fees are pretty dear too.

3 euro to post a CD outside Ireland.

recipio

Good stuff, thanks.
entering a UK address is probably the way to go assuming the seller agrees to post to Ireland.
I ordered some items from Poland recently and was amazed at the low postage cost.

Yamanoto

nlgbbbblth wrote: »

2) Alternatively you can change your registered address to a valid UK one, place your bid, and then change it back.

This consistently works for me.

hiscan

gbee wrote: »

I usually use www.ebay.eu and all the providers there will ship to Ireland. So that was handy.

Recently I'm finding it defaults to EBay.ie which is useless TBH.

BTW, the default EBAY is for home sales only, you need to change it, not all sellers realise this.

BTW, again, as for shipping you're better off with a Euro Country, UK is last resort.

I have to agree with this.I recently bought an item from a seller in the UK and postage to Ireland was £20.I bought a similar sized and wejghted item from a German seller and he changed his settings and shipped to me for 14 Euro.
I know for a fact that the UK seller wasn't taking the p**s as I have a sister in England who told me that £20 was about right for posting a parcel that size to Ireland from the UK.

christyler

the problem hers seems to be that ebay have updated there listing system, and if you list something from the uk it automatically defaults to uk only.

most sellers haven't even noticed this and just continue to list in the usual way.

then once listed you then cant change the post to locations. i have asked sellers to change the listing to include ireland and they are happy to do so but, ebay have made it imposable for them to do it.

sellers have said just go ahead and bid and we will post to Ireland, but we cant even bid if Ireland is not in the post to locations.

ebay say the way to fix it is to cancel the listing and realist it but include Ireland when you relist, like anyone's going to do that !!!!!!

as far as i can see Ebay have alienated an entire country, whilst not doing there sellers any good either.

Judgement Day

Yes, eBay are rubbish but for the private seller they are still the only game in town.

nlgbbbblth

The "add exemptions" process as outlined in my earlier post should still work - did for me last week.

recipio

My old post revived. ! To be practical, its hard to ask every seller to change the access settings just to allow you to bid.
In practice, only some items get the red pop up banner. I tend to put a small bid in and if thats allowed I ask the seller if he will post to the ROI.
Don't know if you people use an automatic bidder like auctionsniper but be aware it won't bid unless the seller has specified that he will post outside of the UK.