As an avid eBay user I regularly purchase goods from the website. It is convenient, quick and easy.
However, like with many marketplaces, there are sellers who try to take advantage of people by selling counterfeit items.
There is huge global demand for respirators and people have flooded to every corner of the internet to find adequate protection.
I found three listings from sellers with good positive feedback who appeared to reside in the UK. They were offering 3m respirators with detailed photographs on their listings so I purchased them.
The three deliveries took a long time to arrive which aroused my suspicions. Recently, eBay has been cracking down on sellers who say they’re posting the item from within the UK but actually send it from abroad. When I contacted the sellers they took time to reply and when they did it was clear English was not their first language. Furthermore at the same time eBay removed the listings which set alarm bells ringing!
The first package arrived and the respirators were in plain boxes with no 3M branding. The respirators contained no 3M logo. It was clearly an inferior product. The seller had the audacity to try to offer me a partial refund whilst assuring me they were “good for coronavirus”.
The second and third orders from separate sellers took over a week to arrive and did have impressive 3M packaging, albeit with Chinese writing on them. However they lacked three important details;
1. A production lot number
2. An expiry date
3. The 3M safeguard, a unique reference number you can check on 3M’s website.
Stay safe out there and avoid getting caught out!