Global Shipping Strikes Again

A lovely message from Global Shipping.

This past week I had these cuffs pilfered by Global shipping.
I didn't realize that the seller was using them because I would have requested a different service.

The seller didn't care because he was already paid.
Liverpool Borough Gaol



I'm sure that they'll reappear being sold by someone else in a couple of months.

Do you have a link to the original sale? I was watching it and seen it was sold.
-Richard Knip-

Ebay and their shipping program pisses me off, so bad! There is no reason that these cuffs should be restricted! When Pitney Bowes, the shipping organizer in the U.S. was approached about this, they just give the run around that led to a dead end. Nothing ever came of it. If you do a lot of purchasing from overseas, maybe look into a mailbox company over there? That way Ebay sees it as shipping to a U.K. address still. I know the mailbox stores are expensive for international shipping tho. Just a thought.
-Richard Knip-

Nice cuff, it would have gone well in my collection. 
See if they re appear on the ebay account BrillBuyUK who have been liquidating confiscated items. 
What I find more annoying than Pitney Bowes are collectors who I have sold cuffs to who refuse to post to Australia. Them's the breaks I guess.

How are they allowed to get away with this /?

I remember watching these and thinking that they wouldn’t make it to the US if I got them. I won a Hiatt Darby key on auction that they stopped the shipment of.

Hi Guys,
I do this.
I tell the seller that my postman is also my wife's minister and that to get a package labelled restraints would be very embarrassing. So I ask them to say antique locks. If they can't do that, then I ask them to send by something other than Global. 

Looks like they have just reappeared on eBay. Seems the seller has made quite a few sales! Let me know if I can help as I am in the UK.

It's not the same seller and they have a few cuffs. At least they have done their own photographs. They are probably another Pitney Bowes clearance centre/contractor. Still offering to post overseas, knowing they will be confiscated again. WTF

Thought I would ask where they got them. Interesting reply!

Wow. So eBay keep themselves at arms length by having Pitney Bowes confiscate anything they see fit and then sell it off as 'undeliverable mail' only to have it reappear on eBay hoping that it is not sold internationally and confiscated again, knowing full well that an item might be restricted by law. Wow.

We should establish our own handcuff-forwarding service. 

I'm willing to assist with mailing anything out of Germany. With Brexit complete now, shipping from the UK to Germany has become a lot more complicated and expensive though. 
It's bizarre how PB just take your property and resell it, just because they feel like it. Global shipping is a disgrace.

Kind regards
Nils

I got the same reply from the seller. I explained to him that I had them confiscated by global shipping.



Global shipping emailed me to let me know that they were confiscating the package and that they would refund my payment and shipping. Then they resell the items at either the combined payment and shipping price or probably more, so when they find their way back to eBay it's always for considerably more than you originally paid for the item. 

I don't know that the new seller is in on it. Was it the same seller for previous PB confiscations or are the new sellers always different people?

ebays GSP is a flat out scam

The previous reseller of confiscated cuffs was brillbuyUK who still have different cuffs for sale including these Chubb Detainers 284423634446
I'd hate to be the seller or buyer who lost a bulk lot of those.

Thanks Paul,
So, if there are different sellers, Global Shipping / Pitney Bowes confiscates (steals) the items and resells them to the highest bidder at a profit, who in turn resells them. 
What a disgusting business practice. If the items were dangerous enough to confiscate, then why aren't they destroying them?

My concern is that if we expose their theft and fraud then they will be forced to destroy them. At the moment for them it is win/win, for us it is lose/lose.

At this point, all we can do is to email our sellers and ask them not to use The Ebay Global shipping program. If they refuse to not use it, i would recommend not buying the item. Unless, as Nils suggested, we were to set up a global network of "safe houses" to have the shipments delivered to. Then the safe houses could ship the cuffs on to us. We would be paying more for shipping, but it usually not very expensive to have an item shipping within the same country it is bought in. Problem is, depending how many people want things shipped and how often, you could be running to the post office almost daily. Im not sure how many of us have the time to devote to that practice. And of course, in the U.S., Paypal transactions are taxed at the end of the year, that could rack up a bill for us, paying for shipping back and forth. I have collectors in several countries that we have set up this type of a system, between us. But, we tend to hold each others purchases until we get enough piled up at our houses, to ship a good sized box to each other. Not something I would want to keep track of, or devote space to, to a lot of people. So, that is something we would all have to consider.
-Richard Knip-

From my point of view this is an occasion to use that weird system to generate lots of money:
1. Seller and buyer agree upon an international test deal of let's say 1000$ for a pair of indian scrap darby handcuffs and to share fees and refund the money in case that the package will arrive safely (as it used to be in former times...)
2. If GPS confiscates that package & refunds the payment, seller and buyer could share roughly 9XX$ revenue (not sure if this is subject to transaction fees or taxation)
3. If that worked, they double up the price and send the next pair of junk darbies.
I wonder how many iterations it will take to bring that system to implode... 

Bjoern

Bjoern70 wrote: ↑

Nov 02, 2021

From my point of view this is an occasion to use that weird system to generate lots of money:
1. Seller and buyer agree upon an international test deal of let's say 1000$ for a pair of indian scrap darby handcuffs and to share fees and refund the money in case that the package will arrive safely (as it used to be in former times...)
2. If GPS confiscates that package & refunds the payment, seller and buyer could share roughly 9XX$ revenue (not sure if this is subject to transaction fees or taxation)
3. If that worked, they double up the price and send the next pair of junk darbies.
I wonder how many iterations it will take to bring that system to implode... 

Bjoern

Click to expand...

That is pretty clever.

This would certainly get eBay to look at this situation and make some changes.
If they continue to make payments to the seller and reimburse the buyer, eventually they will address this.

When I began to investigate this problem when it happened to me, eBay told me that handcuffs are on a banned item list.
I tried to explain that cuffs are restricted from the US to UK but not the reverse.  Leg irons may be a problem as UK treats them differently and apparently no longer use them as they deemed these as too cruel.  Restricted movement of a prisoner does not seem so bad, especially from a country that used to draw and quarter their prisoners.



eBay wasn't able to quote the specifics of the shipping ban for me, but they would only cite that cuffs are banned for export.
The more money this will cost them, the faster they will resolve this.

I am a little confused as to who wins and who loses. The seller of the Liverpool Darbies on eBay sold them for £199. The buyer paid and they were confiscated. I think the buyer was fully reimbursed with his payment? Did the seller get his money back?
The cuffs were then sold to someone as a job lot of confiscated items at what price? Hopefully no one will bid on the newly listed cuffs.

Clever plan that might put you in jail ! And I doubt Joe would allow such plots to be hatched on his site. ⚖
eBay where I am are controlling the payments as a middleman which would nullify your dastardly plan. 

Mark Lyons O--O Cuffs wrote: ↑

Nov 02, 2021

Bjoern70 wrote: ↑

Nov 02, 2021

From my point of view this is an occasion to use that weird system to generate lots of money:
1. Seller and buyer agree upon an international test deal of let's say 1000$ for a pair of indian scrap darby handcuffs and to share fees and refund the money in case that the package will arrive safely (as it used to be in former times...)
2. If GPS confiscates that package & refunds the payment, seller and buyer could share roughly 9XX$ revenue (not sure if this is subject to transaction fees or taxation)
3. If that worked, they double up the price and send the next pair of junk darbies.
I wonder how many iterations it will take to bring that system to implode... 

Bjoern

That is pretty clever.

This would certainly get eBay to look at this situation and make some changes.
If they continue to make payments to the seller and reimburse the buyer, eventually they will address this.

When I began to investigate this problem when it happened to me, eBay told me that handcuffs are on a banned item list.
I tried to explain that cuffs are restricted from the US to UK but not the reverse.  Leg irons may be a problem as UK treats them differently and apparently no longer use them as they deemed these as too cruel.  Restricted movement of a prisoner does not seem so bad, especially from a country that used to draw and quarter their prisoners.



eBay wasn't able to quote the specifics of the shipping ban for me, but they would only cite that cuffs are banned for export.
The more money this will cost them, the faster they will resolve this.

Click to expand...

Highlights f my experience:
Bought cuffs from UK
First it was "they're illegal to import into the US because of ITAR" - sent them all the reference docs to establish that wasn't true.
Then it was they're illegal to export from the EU , pointed them specifically to the exclusions on dimensions - these were 'regular' size handcuffs.
Then it was the ol' 'We just do what Pitney Bowes say runaround'.
"Can you put me in touch with your contact at Pitney Bowes'
'No'
"I've been an ebay member without negative feedback for 10 years, and you are basically going to put a relationship with YOUR vendor, someone YOU pay and should do what YOU say, over my longstanding relationship with you?'
"Sorry"

Can't say how much I'm disappointed with eBay. They don't want to deal with this, blame Pitney Bowes and take no responsibility.

Chris,
I was the original buyer of the cuffs. I paid the seller and then the cuffs were confiscated by Global Shipping. Global Shipping sent me a message via eBay:


They reimbursed my bid and shipping and the original seller has been paid (by me). 
The original seller didn't care one bit because he was already paid and his objective was always to get money for the cuffs, which he did. 

Global Shipping / Pitney Bowes then resells the item at a profit and they go back up for sale but at a much higher price than originally sold for.
It's a scam and I'd be very happy to see it turned around on them as mentioned earlier in this thread.

Okay but what makes them think they will now sell at a higher price, unless eBay tell them that your maximum bid was say £250?

Global Shipping reimburses the original purchaser for their out-of-pocket expense, so they already know what the item and shipping prices were. The shipping reimbursement doesn't cost them anything because they were the ones paid for shipping in the first place.
It is possible that they only confiscate items that they believe they can make a profit on. I'm not too sure how it works or what their thinking is, but whenever a confiscated item is relisted, it's always for more money than it sold for the first time. They could very well end up stuck with an item, that's why I thought that the idea mentioned before about seeing if they confiscate a cheap cuff that sells for more than it's worth was a good idea.

Ebay confiscated cuffs being resold on ebay

As discussed in a previous post, there must be some collusion between Pitney Bowes and the resellers because in the past they had reused the original photos and started bidding at the previous sale price which means PB was also supplying eBay data with the goods. For resellers to claim they are selling lots of undeliverable mail and have no knowledge of the items is plainly a lie.

Looks like the item may have been taken off! No sign of item number 284511124609!

CHRISCUFFS wrote: ↑

Nov 03, 2021

Looks like the item may have been taken off! No sign of item number 284511124609!

Glenn has repurchased them for the new asking price. This particular set of cuffs he was hot after and did not want to lose them again. The guy that was selling them the 2nd time around said he will not ship using ther global shipping program. At least he should get them, this go round.
-Richard Knip-

I have an update that I think will interest just about everyone who has experienced having an item confiscated via eBay Global Shipping. After having my item confiscated it reappeared for considerably more money than my original purchase price. I really wanted the item so I reordered it from the 2nd seller (not the same as the first). I waited for the item to be delivered. It was delivered today. As soon as the item was in my hands, I contacted eBay to voice my complaint. Ebay has refunded every penny of the difference via a credit to my account. It was done instantaneously in the amount of $102.52. I could not get back cash, but I'm happy with an account credit just the same. They claimed to have never heard of the issue happening before and they said that they will be looking into the problem. I let them know that it has happened to many fellow collectors and that we are all avoiding purchasing any item using their Global shipping program due to the frequency of confiscation.

Thats very interesting. I would really love to have an "outside source" from Ebay look into this further. I think you may be on to something with your fraud scheme idea on certain more expensive objects, being shipped through the Global Shipping Program.
-Richard Knip-

You can bet that they won't look into the problem and they are hoping that by paying you that you will not make a fuss. IMHO

Very good to hear but I believe Paul is right. I'm sure they are aware of the problem with confiscations in the GSP but they will of course not admit it. That's why they were so quick in paying you back. To keep you quiet.
I guess that's what they hope for.

I'm sad to say but I don't think we can expect any changes.

I'm not in a rush to believe eBay either, I think that the confiscations will continue. Why wouldn't they? They seem to be making a profit at our expense.

What I wanted everyone to know was that if your item reappears on eBay after it's been confiscated, bid on or buy the item back if you can because if you do end up with the item and can show eBay that it's the same item, they will reimburse you the difference. So you can still end up with your cuff for the original amount instead of the inflated resale price.

No one should have to jump through so many hoops just to acquire an item that is already rightfully theirs. But if you can get the item back, you can get them to pay you any extra funds that you expended to reacquire it. What they're doing still falls somewhere between shady business practices and fraud. They'll most likely continue the confiscations because only a very few people will ever get them to pay up for a loss of funds. 

Been thinking, what would happen if I put a set of cheap Indian Darby cuffs on eBay. You bid £400 for them and I send them eBay Global Shipping Service. They get confiscated, I get my money back the buyer gets his money back and then they are sold to a 3rd party who thinks they are worth £500! Needless to say no one buys them so they get stuck with a £10 set of cuffs! What do you think?

CHRISCUFFS wrote: ↑

Nov 22, 2021

Been thinking, what would happen if I put a set of cheap Indian Darby cuffs on eBay. You bid £400 for them and I send them eBay Global Shipping Service. They get confiscated, I get my money back the buyer gets his money back and then they are sold to a 3rd party who thinks they are worth £500! Needless to say no one buys them so they get stuck with a £10 set of cuffs! What do you think?

Please do it! They just took another pair of cuffs from me, a beautiful set of RCS Darby’s.

They do deserve it.

I think both would be classed as Postal Fraud

If you are correct, wouldn't what they are already doing be classed as Postal fraud too?