Ebay: Ordering from China - no postage??

[Deggsey]

I'm ordering an item from China and it has the postage as Free. No other charges are mentioned in the description, but I saw an identical item from a different seller, in a different area, with the same price, with the postage as £17.99, and with a similar expected delivery date. I know China's a big place, but to have a variance of that much is a little fishy. The item is only going for £1.00 anyway, and so the seller is just going to take care of the delivery charges out of their own pocket, at a loss to the item value???

As I said, this is looking fishy. Could this be a scam of some sort? The item description doesn't mention any delivery charge, so I'd be okay if some charges come out of nowhere, I'll just refuse to pay. And I'd be paying by paypal, and that's pretty safe and reliable, right? What do you guys think?

[TheJavaWalkie]

Don't trust it! Paypal is safe.. .but there are some crafty hackers out there. It's most likely a sick scam.

Cheers!
~TheJavaWalkie

[Ed G]

Well make sure it's a trusted seller and you should be fine.I will tell you this My uncle bought batteries several times on ebay that came from China with free shipping.The cost of the batteries was $1.We can't figure out how they do that.I bought a flashlight on Amazon that came from China for $3.37 with free shipping.So it's done all the time.Note if the item is shipped from China it will take 3 to 4 weeks to get to the USA.

[Roddy]

China compensates their sellers for postage. All the same have you ever heard of the "slow boat from China"? Expect it to take a long time to get your package. And that's if your customs department doesn't decide it's a knock off and they decide to destroy it.

[Mana Superman]

I would encourage you to be very suspicous of what you buy on eBay. Not everyone is trustworthy of what they're selling. Furthermore, if you do get something shipped from China, it can take up to four-six weeks for the package to arrive. It happened to me. I didn't get the tracking number and though it was a scam. However, after four weeks, I got the package.