Originally Posted by
divineAndbright
^^Not surprised on the inflated shipping costs at all, I'm not to sure where it began, but its so common that now everyone accepts it and its wrong! I've been using ebay since the late 1990s and out of about 300 buying transactions I think 3.. maybe 4 people charged actual shipping, a quarter were at least fairly close that you know, no big deal, but the rest massive inflation. I see people asking $25 to ship bar tape or a front derailleur, gimme a break.
I think it started way back when ebay sorted items "cheapest first" not including the shipping price, so people would list things really cheap, and make up for it with an inflated shipping charge.
I myself have on occasion grossly overestimated shipping costs, but refunded the difference to the buyer when I got the actual cost at the post office (ebay's shipping calculator once tacked on an unnecessary
$15, so I don't trust using it either).
I've also noticed far more non paying bidders since ebay got rid of negative feedback for buyers (
stupid stupid stupid, ebay is run by idiots) - what's more ebay has also made it harder to report non-paying bidders! :\