Restricted item, kept by eBay

swingaloo

denisiw said:

swingaloo said:

denisiw said:

molerat said:

Agree with above.

Which country were you sending it to ?  It looks like it may be a prohibited item for export / import to that location and EBay have messed up allowing it to be sent there so are allowing you to keep the the money for it and refunding the buyer.  Neither of you are any worse off. 

It was going to be sent to the USA.  It's still in the UK, at the Lichfield hub.  It's not an illegal item in the UK!

I was expecting eBay to send the money back to the buyer and send the carburettor back to me.  It's not up to eBay to decide what to do with it, I didn't sell it to eBay, so how can they keep it?

I want to sell the item to the person who wants to use it on his motorbike.  What are eBay going to do with it?   Destroy it?  If that is the case, why?  What right have they got to do that?

Is the person you want to sell it to the same person who was trying to buy it through Ebay?

Yes, is that relevant?  He won the item, I want to sell it to him.

I did it through the eBay GPS, in hindsight that was my mistake.

Yes it is relevant because you want to ship to the USA. You need paperwork from DOT and EPA paperwork to be able to send it. If you hadn't obtained that before trying to send then Ebay would not be able to ship it and neither will you. Look at it this way, if it had got past Ebay and made it to the USA then they would have probably just destroyed it, it certainly would not be sent back to you.

At the end of the day you have tried to send a restricted item and to be honest I think you are lucky that Ebay are willing to both refund the buyer and give you the money back.

MattMattMattUK

You cannot ship a carburettor to the USA (or Australia and probably other countries) without relevant paperwork (as per Swingaloo's post). You wanted to sell the item, you have your money, you have in effect sold it to eBay. The terms you pasted are for general eBay sales, things are more complicated when you sell and ship via GSP. Why are you getting so irrationally angry about this?

denisiw

I asked this same question on the eBay Community Support and got this answer:

Item is restricted due to the possibility of residual petrol causing a fire.

This is common for USA imports of this type.

Item will not be returned to you, it is sent to auction house to recoup losses,

No one knows which auction house.

They obviously didn't read/believe my description where I said that it had never been used; ergo, it's never had fuel in it.  Absolutely ridiculous!

MattMattMattUK

You are restricted from shipping used carbs pretty much anywhere internationally, you are prohibited from shipping new ones to the USA, Australia and potentially others without the correct paperwork and some types are banned outright.

swingaloo

denisiw said:

I asked this same question on the eBay Community Support and got this answer:

Item is restricted due to the possibility of residual petrol causing a fire.

This is common for USA imports of this type.

Item will not be returned to you, it is sent to auction house to recoup losses,

No one knows which auction house.

They obviously didn't read/believe my description where I said that it had never been used; ergo, it's never had fuel in it.  Absolutely ridiculous!

I don't think US Customs will care about your description. It's not allowed, end of. Accept your money back and be glad you got such a good outcome.

Vectis

What a fuss about nothing!

GadgetGuru

I don't see any issue here - just treat it as any other sale considering you have your money. You are 'whole'.
As long as your buyer doesn't have the item and the refund, I would move on. There doesnt seem like much more you can do in this case. 

se2020

If you can't send it through the GSP then you won't have much luck if you sell it outside of eBay and try to post it using any other service. 

You will probably be worst off as it will get confiscated at the destination customs where you won't get a refund or return on it.