eBay Refusing to Honour AUS Gift Vouchers for Item Purchased from Overseas

eBay is (so far) refusing to honour eBay Au gift vouchers for the purchase of products on ebay.com.au from overseas. It's been esclalted a second time now and I'm hoping to hear back on Monday or Tuesday with a more positive answer.

I found some enterprise SSDs that I wanted to buy for my home lab. They were listed on eBay Australia website by selecting the show options from Worldwide.
I made an offer (USD$1200) and the seller accepted it. I bought some discounted ebay vouchers (AUD$1600) to cover the cost and tried to pay for the items but it wouldn't work.
When trying to add the gift cards, I get an error that they're not available for use in my region. I contacted eBay Plus support and the support officer could see my point that I hadn't breached the terms and conditions of the gift cards. That has been escalated and I have submitted my argument for my case. After escalation to a support manager, they again noted that they understood my claim and could see there doesn't seem to be a case for eBay to prevent me from using them the gift vouchers. They have again escalated the case and I'm waiting to hear back.

My arguments are:

1. eBay gift cards terms haven't be breached
The only applicable eBay gift card terms and conditions that would appear to be being contested by eBay are:

Redemption
1. You must have an eBay account registered in Australia and an Australian shipping address to redeem the Gift Card.
4. The Gift Card may only be used for purchases on ebay.com.au where the seller accepts PayPal or credit/ debit card.

Gift card terms and conditions URL
My responses to these terms and conditions are:
Redemption Term 1.
- I do have an account registered in Australia and I do have an Australian shipping address in my account.
- I am trying to ship the item overseas but that doesn't breach the first term, I still have an Australian shipping address.

Redemption Term 4
- The item is available on the ebay.com.au website.
- I can open ebay.com.au in my browser, search for the term "abcdwxyz" and select item location "Worldwide".
- I am still on the ebay.com.au website and nothing tells me that I can't use eBay Au gift vouchers.
- The seller also accepts PayPal or credit/ debit card.

I sent screen shots proving my Australian account and address.
I sent screen shots proving the item is available on ebay.com.au website.

2. The item listing doesn't exclude gift cards.
Nothing in the item listing notifies me that I cannot use eBay Au gift cards.

3. The item specifically says it allows gift cards.
When I click on Contact Seller in the item listing and select Payment options as the topic, it specifically says it allows eBay gift cards.
eBay support staff have advised me this is up to the seller to dictate and tried to put the resonsibilty on them. I said that's rubbish and eBay coyld easily notify me that Au gift cards aren't accepted on all listings that don't fit their criteria.

It seems the shipping address I'm sending the items to is the sticking point for the eBay system though. If I change my shipping address for the purchase to Australia, I can apply the gift cards. I'm sticking to my guns though and will see what the outcome is.
Anyone else have any experience contesting gift voucher eBay terms and conditions?

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Comments

  • +1

    what if there was also an ebay item that is located in Australia present in the cart at the time of purchase? you can try adding something cheap into your cart (screen protector for e.g), and then try to checkout with gift cards for both items at once.

    I've bought stuff from a Chinese seller and computer parts from an Australian ebay user at the same time, when funded with gift cards the transaction went through without any issues

    • +1

      I don't think they allow 2 different currency item to be process in the same time.

  • +5

    When eBay say they are going to escalate a case it really means they are just telling you something to get rid of you. Don't ever be fooled into believing they will call you back because it aint gonna happen!
    The call centre is based in Philippines and the (contract) staff merely read from pre scripted responses. Once none of the initial scripts are not working the final line reads tell the client you are "escalating" the case.
    Still, good luck!

    • +1 their phone support I'd dreadful, they make up stories just to get you off the phone, I have been trying to sort my seller account from months Ni always get contributory answers and every escalation is just another stupid story

    • So far, with this case, I haven't found that to be the case. I seem to have been relatively lucky. Each of the support staff have actually understood my point and have apparently argued on my behalf.
      Will wait and see.

  • +9

    Doesn't shipping address mean where you are shipping the item to? It's not saying billing address or registered address.

    So, it would seem by shipping to a non-Australian address would breach Term 1

  • +9

    my interpretation of term 1 would be the item purchased needs to be shipped to an australian address, not simply having an australian address in your account.

  • +1

    The reason you need an Australian address is because it has to be shipped to an Australian address.

    There's an easy way to check that an item can be paid for using gift cards. Find the item you want to buy (via ebay.com.au of course). Add the item to your cart, go to checkout, select your correct shipping address, and add the gift card as a payment option (don't actually checkout). It'll tell you right away if you can't use a gift card, so you know to not bother making an offer (or buying $XXXX of gift cards).

    I think what you're trying to do is have them shipped to somewhere in the US (so they won't attract GST) and then have them shipped to Australia for a lower cost and without GST (maybe splitting up the packages, be careful of this because customs can combine the value of multiple packages that were shipped from the same place at around the same time). Sorry, you'll have to just deal with the (potentially) higher eBay shipping rate plus GST, and have it shipped directly to your Australian address.

    If this was a couple days ago, eBay US had an 8% eBay bucks promotion going on. I would have used that instead (in fact I did just that, I wanted an Apple Watch with ECG and the US versions are the only ones that can do that). Always check first, 8% (off a future purchase, look into eBay bucks before relying on it as a discount) plus lower shipping and no GST (my mom will ship it for me and it's well under the $1,000 threshold) made it a better deal than using my 15% off gift certificates and having it shipped to me directly.

    • I am trying to have the item shipped to the US, but it's not to avoid GST, I'll still be paying that.
      It's to get much cheaper shipping. The shipping from USA to Australia is insane and not much of a discount for each additional item. But shipping within the US is cheap and the cost of reshipping four of them will be less than the cost of one item shipped to Australia.

      • Unfortunately eBay has no way of knowing that you'll eventually ship it to Australia. For all their system can see - you're buying something from the US, and getting it shipped to somewhere in the US.

      • Can I ask who you use for reshipping? I've investigated so many US-to-AU parcel forwarders but have never found one offering reasonable pricing.

        • shipito.com

  • +2

    Term 1 could be considered as breached, from eBay’s perspective.

    The term isn’t “Australian shipping address on your account”, rather the item must be shipped to an Australian shipping address. Sure, it doesn’t explicitly say that it must be shipped to that address, but that is reasonably assumed.
    Another example would be Click and Collect terms and conditions; some explicitly say you must present a valid form of ID, but others simply say “you must have a valid form of ID”. Obviously the purpose of having a valid form of ID is to present it at pickup, and merely stating that you have a valid form of ID wouldn’t get you anywhere (despite technically meeting the T&C’s).

    I think your success comes down to how lenient eBay are willing to be. You’re right, in that you haven’t breached the terms, but only because (I’m assuming) you’re feigning ignorance to the purpose of these Terms, whereas I’m sure most people would interpret Term 1 as relating to the shipping address of the item for which the gift cards are to be used since, after all, the sole purpose of a shipping address on eBay is to receive said item.
    eBay are known for being relatively difficult to deal with, so I’m unfortunately not all that confident that you’ll get the desired outcome, but can’t offer any direct insight.

    • See my [example below] (https://www.ozbargain.com.au/comment/6866342/redir).

      Click and collect isn't a good example because there is no way for the click and collect agent to confirm valid ID without checking it. Ebay on the other hand, can easily and readily confirm I have an Australian address at any time without me needing to use it.

  • +1

    I am trying to ship the item overseas

    This is the problem. You must ship the item directly to Australia.

  • +2

    I doubt you would be successful. Based on the "play on words" which you are using as your argument, I think the term "1. You must have an eBay account registered in Australia and an Australian shipping address to redeem the Gift Card." would be expected to mean the shipping address of the transaction. Not merely that you have some other Aussie shipping address on your account although you are shipping the goods to another country.

    Otherwise anyone could get the best gift card deal from any region and change the URL of the eBay site (remembering it's a single global system, regardless of .com.au or .com etc) to 'influence' the rules in their favour regardless of where they live and where the item is going from/to.

    But good luck.

    • Yet, their terms could have just have easily stated something like:

      Only valid for items listed on eBay.com.au where the item is located in Australia and sold by an Australia based seller where the default currency in listed in Australia dollars.
      Any items located or sold from overseas or listed in another currency (or noting an equivalent Aud currency conversion) are not valid.

      That would have been clear and without the possibility of interpretation.

      • But that's not accurate. If people here are interpreting Term 1 correctly, you can buy something from the US, so long as it's shipped to Australia.

  • How about trying the following-
    * select your Australian address to ship when you purchase the item
    * message the seller and ask them to ship to your overseas address

    • +1

      Why would the seller do that. It would mean they won't have any protection.

    • -1

      And I'd pay significantly higher shipping charges! I can get the item reshipped much cheaper than the shipping charges to Australia.

  • I've had a few issues with that gift cards but what worked for me was, and you should try as well:
    * Select PayPal as the payment method and log in, however just add your gift cards so $0 comes out if the PayPal account
    * Don't pay the full amount in gift card, leave a bit and pay credit card

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