The photo looked great...but what came in the mail didn't look a thing like it?

Not unusual if you are buying pearls or jewelry pieces from Chinese sellers.  Most of them have a photo made up of a stunning "showpiece", but that is never the item you actually receive!  For example, I bought a pearl necklace from a Chinese seller, after seeing the lovely necklace photo below...

The seller stated in the item description that these were "perfect round South Sea Pearls".  Look pretty durned good, right?  Well, can you imagine what I thought when the necklace below showed up!



The necklace wasn't terribly bad, but it certainly wasn't the one I paid for!  The pearls are fairly round and the pearls were a good size...but that's about all that matched the item description.  All in all, they are worth the $4.99 price tag, and even the $20.00 I spent on SH...but they sure as heck weren't what I was expecting!

Well, you can and SHOULD complain to eBay about sellers who "bait and switch". 

The "bait and switch" routine has been around for years, but on eBay, with 13,000 miles between the buyer and the seller, the only way to protect yourself and others from this scam is to REPORT the seller, and get them kicked off eBay.  When a seller puts a fraudulent photo on the item description, and you buy based on that photo and the description, eBay can take action against the seller, and sometimes you can get your money back...but in most cases, if the item costs less than $25.00 you have no protection.

A large number of Chinese sellers are honest, show the actual item you are buying, and have reasonable shipping fees.  I have reported so many of them, they are beginning to get the picture.  But there are still a large number out there who don't get reported. 

I suggest the following if this has happened to you:

1. Contact the seller by e-mail immediately.  Let the seller know that you are dissatisfied, and why.  Most sellers will try to avoid getting eBay involved.  If the seller has trouble with English, tell them you want somebody who understands English to contact you back.
   
2. If the seller doesn't clear the problem up without charging you more money, then go to eBay's complaint page.  You can get to that page by using the "Report this item" link at the bottom of the item page.
   
3. Let eBay know that the seller sold you something that was not properly described, and that you have been defrauded.  If you only paid $2.00 for the item, and $45.00 SH, complain about excessive SH as well!
   
4. Check out the seller's store (almost all of these sellers have stores) and report any items in that store that have terribly low prices and excessively high SH.  Report these as "circumvention of eBay fees".  The link to report these sellers is at the bottom of the sales page under the bidding box on the item description page.  Don't hesitate to use it!  Report "Item not as described" as well.
   
5. Do not buy from that seller again!

As eBay constantly warns, "caveat emptor...let the buyer beware".

We are all responsible to make sure eBay is a safe place to buy and sell.  It is eBay's "community watch" that protects us from scams.  If you discover a scam, and you want to stop it, do not hesitate...complain!  It's really up to us to get these scam artists off eBay.