Well, Ebay has stolen a Norris 2 from me

[D_W]

A question I have to ask, when you guys are shipping things, are you truthful on the customs form?

I have only fibbed on someone's behalf once, but never on a tool. To sound a bit unamerican, if you're in a country using the services, you have to pay the taxes that cover them (I believe that here in the states, though, despite the media loving to go back and forth and pretend that we don't have to have any fiscal responsibility).

If someone doesn't want the me to fill out customs forms, I tell them to get a proxy shipper and I'll ship a box with no receipt in it. The proxy shipper will do what they do, and use a list to attach a value to the item being shipped, and the buyer may lose or win.

 

[D_W]

Well, I think I've gotten a final resolution from Ebay. I got one more email from the UK ebay today (instead of US) informing me that they "followed all of their procedures and the plane has already been liquidated".

I doubt the latter, the former, sure - they're stupid procedures. Confiscate items that customs doesn't confiscate or fine.

So In informed them that I would make a youtube video providing the contact information for all of the large tool sellers who also sell on ebay, boost it out to my subscribers (which will then get it into the youtube recommendation listings for other users when they view it), and describe how to contact the dealers and ask them to cancel a listing so that the item can be bought offline.

It only seems fair. They have been absurd - I notified them of the issue the day they sent me notice of restriction, and requested that they hold an item. I'm not naive about how large groups like this work - you have to get through ten layers of the onion before you could possibly find someone who has the authority to do anything, but still, I made the request in writing immediately.

I'll do what I can to cost them revenue.

 

[G S Haydon]

David, which department did you get help from? Just had a beech handled Record plane seized. Initial calls have failed, I fail to see why I can't have it back!

 

[RogerP]

David, which department did you get help from? Just had a beech handled Record plane seized. Initial calls have failed, I fail to see why I can't have it back!

Was this using the Global Shipping Programme?

 

[bugbear]

, and describe how to contact the dealers and ask them to cancel a listing so that the item can be bought offline.

I assume that would get a seller removed from eBay, it's gotta be outside their T&C's.

BugBear

 

[RogerP]

, and describe how to contact the dealers and ask them to cancel a listing so that the item can be bought offline.

I assume that would get a seller removed from eBay, it's gotta be outside their T&C's.

BugBear

Strictly speaking I'm sure it must be but short of stopping you canceling an auction what can they do? I've cancelled quite few auctions for various reasons over the years without problems. They even give you a check list of 4 reasons to tick.

 

[D_W]

They can't do anything. i just bought an infill from a seller today. No reason to mention who, but I got a better deal because it wasn't on ebay and the seller did just as well.

And since they didn't sell it to me on ebay, they're not going to be sending it through the GSP.

(I wasn't on looking for planes necessarily, but looking for sellers listing "rosewood" planes with GSP enabled and sending them messages warning them not to sell the planes overseas. In several cases, the sellers didn't know they had GSP enabled, but ebay automatically puts GSP on, and if a seller clicks a sale to auto-renew sale, sometimes it adds GSP later. Here are the facts now when they do that:
* ebay knows the GSP will seize any items with rosewood in them
* all of these planes had rosewood in the description or title
* all of them had GSP enabled, and several of the sellers didn't do it on purpose
* if the sale completed, these sellers would pack the planes and they would get seized by the GSP

When this started, I notified customer service that ebay needs to have software filtering that warns a shipping seller that an item with the word rosewood in the title or description will cause an item to get seized. they didn't say anything other than that they'd been following their policies. Now they have their system bouncing people into GSP, and their view is that as long as they give the money back to the buyer and don't charge the seller, nobody cares.

So, from now on, if I see something in the UK that I want, I'll track down the seller off of ebay. Certainly, ebay can suspend accounts, but they only do it when a seller is corresponding with a buyer and they have a paper trail. I contacted the buyer outside of ebay as I'd bought from them in the past, it wasn't hard to track down my email history. Ebay knows its in their best interests to make empty threats but not really do much, because the sellers will just go offline.

After my experience with them, I'm not about the patronize them at this point.

 

[D_W]

David, which department did you get help from? Just had a beech handled Record plane seized. Initial calls have failed, I fail to see why I can't have it back!

I'll tell you what they'll say, but the emails are below. they will say that the terms of their program allow them to seize something they suspect will be a problem, it doesn't have to be a problem, but you won't get it back - it's their discretion and "the seller agreed to it and should have read the terms". I sent both PB and Ebay emails notifying them that I was going to put up a video showing buyers how to get items without going through them, but so far they haven't suspended my account. Kind of curious if this is such a big deal (and their effective date that they communicate is "all purchases after 1/2/2017") why are we only seeing it recently?

I'm still boiling. They cost me a $300 (with shipping) Norris 2 with fine original wood. Something I can never seem to find.

I'm waiting for the USDA to get back to me in the US. I suspect they'll tell me that they expect everyone to fill out paperwork (what else are they going to put in writing), but in responses to my question so far, they have discussed "buying materials covered by cites". I don't think they have the flexibility to answer questions about items that aren't materials, but old finished products, so I'll get the safe answer from them.

On the ground, though, I've never had any issues with customs, and I have another one coming my way via international courier to confirm that. Now I'm on the customs, fish and wildlife and USDA radar as someone who imports things with rosewood bits in them, too, so if they were ever going to start taking my stuff, now's the time. (of course, there's nothing that I buy that truly violates the intention of CITES, and I avoid stuff with animal parts or new wood like the plague).

[email protected] (pitney bowes, the group that is actually doing the confiscating)
[email protected]
[email protected] (ebay UK customer service)
[email protected] (ebay general customer service)

I never could get to anyone useful. They're all idiots with no authority, and they start with pointless generic answers first and only give you better information after a lot of digging.

 

[D_W]

By the way, for everyone, don't ship anything through the GSP that has any wood on it. Their terms allow them to seize anything and you have right to get any of it back. If you shipped pine and the reviewer didn't know what it was, they can seize it by stating that they aren't sure and won't take the risk. There is no review process and you can't get the item back or get them to check.

They will tell you that you should've read the program terms, even if they take something they shouldn't. Brown beech is definitely off limits, there's no reason to suspect they'll know that it's not rosewood.

 

[D_W]

Well, I did get the stock answer that "items can be seized at the port of entry in the US if they don't have paperwork".

I guess I shouldn't have expected anything different - nobody in their right mind at the government would tell you "we look the other way when we know that it's something that predates cites and is little".

Hopefully, my last plane here gets through and then I think I'm done bringing in wooden stuff from the UK. I guess it's only a matter of time until someone has a sharpening stone seized because it's in a box made of wood.

 

[D_W]

I should have been clearer-that stock answer came from the United States department of agriculture.

 

[lurcher]

its all a big con mate ive had a collection of record planes all with rosewood handles 7 , 6 5,1/2 5, 4.1/2 4, 3 all with stay set cap irons to well i got email to say the buyer was refunded and i could keep the money from the sale .
but what happens to all these tools i just had a stanley no 4 stopped no mention of rosewood in the discription maybe i should sell you 1 with plastic handles and see if you get it . yet we can only hope that who gets them nos how to use them.

 

[D_W]

If they're being honest and these things are just getting sold at "liquidation" sales, how long are they going to eat losses. If you sell planes quickly, you take less money usually.

I don't for a second believe they could sell my norris 2 that quickly unless they have an outlet, like a dealer in the US who is buying the planes for less than market price.

 

[marcros]

perhaps I should sell you a beat up old stanley, described as a "found in granddads shed. might be norris but i know nothing about planes. handle looks like rosewood" for the bargain price of $500, shipped through GSP and see whether that gets through!

 

[D_W]

I have no idea about the legality of that, but I'd like to see someone stick it to ebay by doing that.

I got a new user agreement notice from them. I guess they don't like sellers selling to people outside of ebay if they have something listed, so if they catch you arranging anything with someone outside of ebay, they are now claiming the right to charge you final value fees on an item even if you don't actually successfully arrange a sale.

I no longer sell anything on ebay, and probably won't buy much of anything there given their attitude and how hard it was to get simple answers in this case. I wish I could do something to encourage tool sellers to set up a separate site. We don't need all of the features of ebay, we just need a way to connect with folks and have some buyer protection (which we can get just by using paypal).

 

[G S Haydon]

Just to add further to this one. Just had a further two planes held, I'm expecting a refund shortly. From a value point of view it is still worthwhile to sell via GSP on the basis you get refunded and so does the buyer. I'd of preferred to of sold the items here but that was not an option, case in point, #5 Stanley sold for £50.00 + post, would of let it go for £20.00. Record router plane with only one cutter sold for £52.00 + post, would of let it go for £15.00.

From a heritage point of view GSP is a bad thing! After my current stint I should be largely done with ebay for tools.

 

[D_W]

These tools are going somewhere. They mentioned liquidation, and it would be nice to know who was liquidating.

I didn't get the sense that Ebay was happy with PB, but they also didn't break kayfabe and said they had to adhere to the policies of their contractor (which I reminded them that they can threaten to get a new contractor - you don't have to hide behind the "we have a contract with them and have to abide by it" when it's hurting your business, that's absurd. Contractors are generally receptive to mid-contract revisions if they think it will help them keep their contract).

But that's what they chose to do. They suck. Now they're suddenly concerned that people are arranging too many deals outside of ebay, but their response is to threaten sellers (which just means people will arrange the deals off of ebay outside of their paper trails) rather than to realize that their business model is becoming undesirable due to the amount that they and paypal now take in combination ( 15% on foreign sales).

As you say, Graham, if the difference is between 50 quid and 20, then you tolerate their games. In my case, they're no longer a good option, and I've told them to stuff it (via email back and forth). I'm not delusional enough to think that the rank and file CS people on email care if I tell them that. I figured I might get a time out when I said I was going to make public videos instructing people how to purchase items on ebay and contact sellers who are selling large volumes on ebay, and how to avoid the GS program, but they had no reaction at all. I have two non-paying bidders items to settle, and then I'm out.

It would be useful to have an email list of the sellers who are on ebay selling tools for people to contact them without going through ebay. In the case of most of the people I deal with, I already have their direct contact information, and used to buy off of ebay, anyway, despite the fact that I could've stiffed ebay. I've gone the latter route now. Even if I didn't have the contact information, many of the sellers who have a business have their contact information right in the listings, anyway, as a business seller. What is ebay going to do, charge the final value fee at the outset to all sellers to make sure they can collect? They have created the problem.

Still waiting for the spiers infill panel that I ordered, but it is one of the last that I don't have something of in terms of the major makers and not dealing through ebay saved me 15% on the price of it. If this blossoms into the customs on the US being tipped off and starting to seize these planes, which they *could* technically do, even though it's contrary to the actual directives of cites, that'll really suck. It just puts the ball in the court of the dealers to mark things up because they will be the only folks who have the time to do the paperwork for the planes as a group. If it gets there, I will contact my congressman and senator and request assistance.

Now that the cites list includes just about every rosewood there is (regardless of age, at least in terms of need to do paperwork), it's getting out of control. WE have a bad player or five in malaysia or whatever shipping illegal logs, and we're left losing stuff that should never be on the radar to begin with.

 

[D_W]

I am going to contact the USDA and customs and find out if I can work with someone to help create a streamlined paperwork system for low value items. It's needed.

 

[D_W]

Well, the last plane that I ordered came through parcelforce to the US with no issue. A very nice original spiers panel plane that someone had listed on ebay. Except there was no reason for ebay to get a slice of it given their recent behavior, so they didn't.

USDA comments about what they *could* technically do (seize the plane for no papers) aside, this one came through with no issue.

I'm done buying planes for a long while, I'm out of space. I'll be interested in finding out if anyone else has trouble shipping *outside* of the ebay GSP. Would still like to find the pig who got my norris No 2, but that's far enough in the past.

I did get an email from UK customs, too, but they said (which I know now but didn't at the time my plane was seized) that they're not involved in this process and can't help because of it. Of course, we know now that it happens before anything ever gets to customs in the first place.