It's not a big deal if you purchase something and you want to return it domestically in the United States. For some reason China, Taiwan, Hong Kong all have agreements to send items to the USA at very reasonable rates.
According to the postal worker, it's almost nothing.
If for some reason "something does not work out" and you decide to "return your item" perhaps through eBay overseas it can be extremely costly sometimes exceeding the value of the part that you purchased. I found this out recently. I purchased a $32 rebuild kit and it was just so inaccurate, so different from the original that it was unusable. So, I contacted the seller and asked to return the item. It would've cost close to $25 to return this item without tracking ( you need tracking for International ). For some reason the United States does not have good rates to ship out items overseas. So, when you're getting ready to push the button to purchase
something, it's good to understand that you might be stuck with it or selling it here in the United States rather that shipping it back to the seller.

It's not a high dollar item. The motorcycle was fixed without the item. I was reimbursed anyhow, but it still is a nagging headache purchasing things from overseas that do not fit.

Thanks for posting Asco - confirms what I've read when reading negative feedback on sellers' fleabay accounts.

Just one, possibly sneaky/smartarse point, and that is, is there any way of finding out what model/vehicle your part is actually for - earlier or later model perhaps? If you can find out what it's for (and assuming that you haven't stamped on it, thrown it against the wall etc in frustration ), then maybe you could sell it on. Refund + sale price = a

Two items I bought shipped from China were wrong, ignition switch was $30 and spokes for about $50, both cases they told me to keep and they sent me correct the part.

eBay does not take phone calls anymore. They ask you to log on and do some explanation first. What happens after that I don't know.

I had thought about selling this part and listing it but if it's not correct I don't see the advantage to that? I don't want to sell somebody something that's un- usable because my reputation is worth more, regardless of the price or costs. If you would like to know what it is I have no problem telling you. Send me a personal message. Thank you

What I meant was being sent something for, say, a DT360A that was advertised as being for a RT2. You know it won't fit the DT360A, but you are able to advertise it honestly as being for a RT2.

That happens quite a lot over here in the UK for parts for things like a 1976 RD125 and RD200. This was a sort of crossover year for the European models and parts are often not very clearly advertised and bought by folks who aren't totally familiar with the different models.

I wasn't suggesting that you do anything untoward!

I have had two experiences one very bad and one sort of okay.
The one that was okay was unrelated to motorcycles. 2 pairs of pants my wife sent for for me unwhittingly bought as the advert had a UK flag on it and after quite alot of tooing and frowing they sent a bad e mail which said " you keep them and buy nomore from glorious shop".
The second one was very bad . To the tone of £200.00 bad.
The advert on ebay claimed that the company was in Liecestershire. It wasn't but in Shenzen city.
The item was a 10 litre ultrasonic cleaner.
It arrived looked quite good . Read the instructions ,filled it ,heated it,turned the heat of switched the cleaner on,bang ,small flash,popped the breaker and that was that.
Cut a long story short,both ebay and paypal were totally uninterested .
The company wanted us to return it.Not to Liecestershire but Shenzen,Southern China. The price £135.00.
We learned that the Chinese government helps Chinese buisiness with postal fees.
I never ever ,nor will i ever buy any Chinese stuff whittingly ever again. If something arrives and it has " Made in China" on it,it gets fired back to the vendor straight away. Bearings the lot.
More to the point as well,lots of new Yamaha stuff is made in China so that's put an end to that relationship too.

Not good Dave.

Still, it could have been worse - at least it wasn't your pants that went bang!

Its becoming increasingly more difficult to avoid defective products. If I can find something in a local store I will choose that over the same thing online even if its a little more expensive. At least when it fails I can stand in front of the customer service counter and make a fuss.

The overseas junk can be inconvenient as well as catastrophic. I run a tree service and have had 3 catastrophic failures of foreign made bolts on a chipper and a stump grinder and 4 blowouts with trailer tires. It was not like this 30 years ago.

I understand that threads sometimes take undesirable turns and that was not my intention. The whole purpose of this thread was to inform people that returning items overseas can be expensive. It was not meant to bash any Country Specifically ....

Well asco while i agree with your comment , i believe in calling a spade a spade. If they produce rubbish and there's no recourse then they deserve it weather it's English , American or from outer Mombassa.
Crap is crap and the sooner that people tell them the sooner something will be done ,or they loose buisness.
Bet someone would be quick to call you or me if we did defective work so if they get a bashing well they deserve it.
Don't worry asco ,i'm not haveing a dig at you pal nor critasizing you.
Just explaining the way i think and why.
Regards Dave