Have you noticed how just when you have adjusted to something that was never perfect, they change it to make it worse!
The global shipping process being a case in point. You bought your item from we'll say the USA, it is shipped to a place in
Kentucky, Erlanger, flown out to its country of destination, it landed in we'll say the UK, got through customs, because you had paid up front. was put in the hands of Citipost AKA 13Ten, spent at most 3 days in their company then was dropped off at a courier, then delivered. Well it seems to have got worse, we now have WN Direct involved, they play a totally useless part in it all now, they intercept as it clears customs and hold it for a time before releasing it to 13Ten, who then pass it to a courier of
their choice. It would appear that paying up front for a service now puts you at the back of the queue. It used to be simpler once upon
a time, now your parcel has a world tour before you get it, makes you wonder why travel is so expensive.

I don't know who WN are, but why do they get involved?. Whenever I got anything from the U.S, once it cleared customs, I got a notice from Parcelforce to say that I had to pay the customs charge before it could be delivered, or I could pay and collect from their depot.

Hi Robert, normal shipping it comes through the US and our own postal services, as you say, Parcelforce pay any charges then notify
you of any costs to be paid before they deliver, the global shipping method means you automatically pay up front when you buy your article through ebay, a firm called Pitney Bowes run this operation, it slows down shipping, then gets slowed down even more when
it hits our shores, now we have at least three companies involved in our parcel delivery, one can ask why, but the answer is, so that
someone one else can make money out of a process that has now got to be the next thing to Sea Mail for being ponderously slow.
I think its high time ebay had a serious look at this now, service seems not to be on their list, but we pay for it non-the-less.

Both Ebay and Paypal can be difficult to get an answer from, and when you do get a reply they appear to have misread what you wrote.

The worst part is that they can't even ship to correct addresses. I bought a L&H and the seller had correct address for me, I had correct address for myself, eBay has the correct address, yet they manage to ship it to a post office about 25 hours away with car. I didn't go to pick it up, for sure. Would have been the most expensive L&H in history I think.

Junk and I try to not buy if it says Global Shipping program. eBay has actually been less and less used lately

I just use the normal post service.I bypass there weird service.

I don´t bid if seller uses the Ebay shipping service. I may miss some nice items, but I prefer to buy from European sellers.

Me neither. All of this has killed off any transatlantic e bay purchases for me.

I too, will only purchase from only within the euro zones unless from a collecting friend from the U.S. etc.

If someone is willing to assist me through an acquaintance via a forum etc, that's different but never from a unknown via e bay global shipping program.

Well, I have used this new facility by Ebay a couple of times now, and found it very good, perhaps I've been lucky, but the items spent less time in our customs than it
would have through the normal route. A couple of items spent more time in customs than it took to come halfway across the globe, quite ridiculous really, and then
its pot luck if you get charged the extra, you always get the handling charge I thought. I suppose the downside is that the global postage service assumes that you
get charged the extra at the customs every time, but this is not correct, I questioned this and was told it is purely the luck of the draw. I am totally against the stealth
tax that duty is, but giving it to Ebay who avoid paying tax if they can, we are between a rock and hard place.

Well here's the proof, it is even longer now than it used to be with Global, package posted 28th Sept. from USA, gets here 9th Oct,
clears customs, picked up by WNDirect, given to Citipost/13Ten, delivered 15th Oct. Tracking said it was still in Warrington, parcel
was in my hands at noon. Good job I in. Why Parcelforce, who operate a perfectly good 24 or 48 hour delivery, can't just be handed this immediately, or any other courier for that matter eludes me. We now have TWO intermediates and extra days waiting time, the tracking system is obviously not updated regularly, where before, even with Citipost, after customs clearance, it only took 3 days to delivery, now its 6.
How long before someone else joins the party and we make it a round month?