Buying on eBay and shipping via a USA based freight forwarder?

[Sensorei]

Does anybody here do this? I've hit a dead end trying to purchase stuff of value from sellers based in the US because Ebay recognises my Aramex freight forwarder address in New York as a 'PO BOX'.

It doesn't matter that I am paying using a paypal cash balance and not a credit card. They are still convinced I must be a Nigerian scammer, or that something will go terribly wrong for them if they ship to a freight forwarder in New York, since my paypal verified address is in South Africa. Americans still seem to think Africa is one huge country and we catch a ride to work on an elephant.

Are there any MyUS or Aramex Global Shopper type freight forwarders that I can use with eBay without being flagged as a PO BOX? This stuff I need to buy you just can't get anywhere else.

 

[Orihalcon]

I use AGS with Ebay regularly and have zero issues. Have each of my shipping points listed and select the local one at checkout.

Easy peasy.

 

[HvRooyen]

Just managed to do exactly that - first time buying on EBay. Used MyUS address with Invoice address a PO Box in SA. Only trouble was getting the address / Zip accepted by EBay, but that was due to formatting issues.

 

[Yuu]

Our very own forumite's site is now live. Everyone has provided positive feedback so we are going to be using his service in the not too distant weeks ahead .

Scott's Shipping

 

[Jola]

I have used Stackry for this. Unfortunately their shipping options are fairly expensive.

Very interesting that eBay orders that take more than 3 months to get from China to SA take just over a week from China to the USA.

Guess where the problem lies ?

 

[Sensorei]

So it turns out that eBay sellers have an option to choose not to ship to PO boxes, and the AGS shipping address is detected as a PO box. I haven't tried to buy expensive stuff over R5k before on eBay which is probably why all the extra security.

The 2nd line of the AGS shipping address is your client ID code - this flags the address as a PO box. So I will just leave that out and ask the seller to write it on the waybill. It's still not easy convincing some US sellers that I'm not a scammer after they see the South Africa paypal address.