Hi, David---
Yes, you're right. Ebay sometimes even blocks you when you WATCH an item you found on a foreign ebay site and later try to access it from your saved list on US ebay!
I recently found an Ideale saddle directly on Ebay France and selected "watch." It saved that item on my watch list. Later, when I tried to go to the item from my USA ebay page, where it appeared on my watch list, it said, "Item not available" or some such. So I went back again to ebay France, wrote to the seller and asked him if he would ship to the USA, he said yes, so I placed a bid. But I had to do it directly from ebay France, as USA ebay wouldn't let me bid or even access the auction page.
I ended up winning the item, and it's sitting right here next to me. As Curly of the Three Stooges once said, I think in that episode where he plays a boxer and knocks everybody out only when the tune, "Pop Goes the Weasel" is playing-----"It was a long, hard fight, Ma, but I won!"
Cheers,
Peter Jourdain
Whitewater, Wisconsin USA
> From: David Ross <dlr94306@yahoo.com>
\r?\n> Subject: Re: [CR] Beautiful British Road Bikes on Ebay
\r?\n> To: oroboyz@aol.com
\r?\n> Cc: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
\r?\n> Date: Monday, June 29, 2009, 11:28 PM
\r?\n> Hi Dale, you wrote:
\r?\n>
\r?\n> > Then, each time I tried to go look, I got a ?"Your
\r?\n> search returned 0 items."
\r?\n>
\r?\n> This is due to a really annoying, fairly new policy of
\r?\n> eBay's that won't show listings in locations not on the
\r?\n> seller's "ship to" address. I've corresponded with a couple
\r?\n> of friends in the UK who have been tripped up by this
\r?\n> inadvertently. When they use the standard seller's listing
\r?\n> page on eBay, it defaults to UK-only shipping. Unless one
\r?\n> catches and changes that to include the US, we don't get
\r?\n> find the item in a normal search. And, of course, you get
\r?\n> that "0 items" result when you *know* they are out there.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> So the moral is ... if you're selling on eBay and you want
\r?\n> aliens to view (and maybe bid on) your auctions, make sure
\r?\n> you offer shipping to that planet!
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Dave Ross
\r?\n> Portola Valley, California USA