Paypal will refund your money, if you used paypal....

I'm with you. I don't know what "charges too much for shipping" means. All I know is I spend $x to have an item sent to my door. If that item was $49 + $1 shipping, it is exactly the same as it were $1 +$49 shipping. "Scamming" ebay is ebay's problem, not mine.

And why all the griping about handling? People kvetch if I charge "too much" yet they also kvetch if the item is poorly packed. Guess what, it takes time to pack an item well, address it, determine postage and get to the post. Best case scenerio, that is 15 minutes but could be up to an hour. Is my time free? I don't think so. A $40 shop-rate is ridiculously low and that gets you a minimum of a $10 handling charge. All you cheap SOBs who kvetch about a few bucks over "actual" shipping, why exactly should I give you anything for free?

Its all of our problems because it ultimately results in higher fees for everyone.

That is true but as stated before you will be required to ship the item back.

That shipping price was automatically calculated, so when the item sells, that's exactly the amount that the seller will have to pay to ship the item (provided he does indeed ship UPS). UPS Ground is expensive and a dubious choice for such a small item, but I imagine doing everything through UPS saves the shop a lot of hassle.

randyjawa,

I was unclear-when I say "true full refund" I mean I want ALL MY MONEY BACK! None of this "full refund on purchase price" BS. I want to end up not out of pocket-other than time, effort and gas to get to the PO.

I don't really have any strong feeling on the ethics of charging more than the postage price for shipping. I do know why it is done-to save on ebay fees (doesn't help on paypal of course). If they post the shipping fee upfront, then I have no complaint.

I have had folks ask me to lower the shipping fee-after the auction-No chance! Everyone else bid with that fee in mind. If you ask for a reduction post auction, you are just circumventing the auction, and screwing the losing bidders. It isn't called "true postage fee." We will have to disagree on this.

He sold you a "bad item"-ask for FULL TRUE REFUND-shipping both ways. Tell him the actual amount you need ,so he can get pos feedback.
Price of item+$16.95+$6.95 is what you want-tell him. Or blow it off and just leave poor feedback-bad item=poor feedback.

I don't know why it's any more of a hassle or costly to ship USPS priority mail for small items. You can get all the supplies for free shipped to you from USPS online, print out postage paid labels and they will pick up at your home or place of business. I never have to drive to the post office to ship anything or get supplies. Priority mail is generally cheaper than UPS or FEDEX, and usually quicker. Flat rate box is much cheaper for heavy items. You can also get online tracking and delivery confirmation to avoid the a-holes crying "I never got it." I've never had the USPS lose or damage a package, but UPS has trashed stuff and they are real dickheads about claims.

Really small items like that freewheel puller need to go first class mail.

I send almost all auctions USPS, some priority, some parcel post, some first class, and some media mail.

+1 USPS flat rate shipping is often the cheapest on heavy items. Bikes need to go FedEx.

Don't like it if seller fees will go from $0.35 to $0.40? Don't sell on ebay. No problem.

Complaining about shipping costs when you know what those costs are up front is just plain stupid. Period. If it costs to much to have it shipped to you, don't buy it!

If he misrepresented the item, why would it be "mean" to leave negative feedback? That's what feedback SHOULD be for. Sold 1700 items with 100% positive? Guess you got lazy pal. Do better next time.

>>That is true but as stated before you will be required to ship the item back.<<

Not necessarily. Sometimes in a dispute eBay will simply pay the refund but allow the seller to keep the original paid funds. This is a recent development, as of Summer '09, and I'm pretty sure this only happens when both parties have considerable eBay history and if the amount is not large. I just had this happen, as I posted above. If eBay has allowed the seller to keep the funds but refunded your money, you're under no obligation to return it. In fact I wouldn't.

https://pages.ebay.com/sell/July2009U...index.html#3-2

middle of the page:

"Offer an option to call eBay in the event buyers and sellers can't reach resolution themselves. We'll be taking a more active role in ensuring transaction problems are resolved and, in certain cases when we determine the seller was not at fault, we may refund the buyer at our own expense."

There are also cases where eBay/Paypal will 'force' a refund from the seller's Paypal account, including shipping one way, then they'll send you a prepaid label for the return, but that may be superseded by this more recent policy.

Oh no he can't.

Honesty is the best policy. The experience was negative from your perspective. No need to agonize over it.

I am still undecided but I honestly think this guy warrants some negative attention. It is just that being negative does nothing to help me feel good about myself or the situation in general.


If you don't want to beat him up with a neg at least mark it with a neutral and in the comments state truthfully what the problems were so other possible bidders can understand and then mark the detailed feedback appropriately.

Thats my point. If, as a seller, you dont agree with Ebay or Paypal policies dont use them.

One thing for sure - and I know this from unfortunate experience - if you paid via Paypal they will put in an ultimately successful dispute on your behalf if you open the dispute and note it as 'item not as described'. As a seller, I was screwed by this policy recently; shipped a near NOS bike, insured for the purchase price and sent with DC, too. Somehow, the top tube was slightly dented in shipping. Buyer, representing a third party in Japan, refused to submit a claim, cried to Paypal that the item was 'not as described' (i.e. - dent not called out in auction - doh!) and got a refund of the original price and shipping.

Postscript: Paypal even completed the refund to the buyer before I received the bike back from the buyer! This was totally NOT in keeping with their stated policy in disputes such as this, but it happened anyhow. Oh, and the buyer basically chucked the bike back into the box when he shipped it back to me - somewhere along it's way back to me both quick release mechanisms from the Dia Compe brakes disappeared.

Overall, I'd say if you go the same route - and you have every right to do so as this guy misrepresented the saddle - you will only end up being charged return shipping. Chuck the saddle in a large Ziploc, put ti in a padded envelope - probably only run you about 7/8 bucks.

Good luck!

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! :\

Oh, and final call on leaving negative: if it meets the criteria, call a spade a spade. Too many people out there worrying about retaliatory feedback; why? Anyone looking can tell the difference between retaliatory and deserved feedback.

Last negative I left was for a BIN item, which the seller then tried to get me to cancel the auction - without giving me a reason. I requested that he send the item. No dice - in fact, he relisted the item within the hour without a BIN (he did the same to an Italian buyer on another item listed around the same time) without even trying to further contact me to tell me why he wanted to cancel/relist. It came out that in both auctions, he'd supposedly not wanted to offer a BIN (both BINs were different). Most likely, soon after he listed he found out what the real value of his items were, but didn't pull the auctions soon enough. I and the Italian buyer both left negatives - mainly because he didn't wait for our responses to his request for cancellation before relisting both items. The Italian buyer actually contacted me and was just as ticked off as I, asking whether I planned to leave a negative! In the end, we both did - and no retaliatory feedback, either.

This is my take on this:

(and I have been on ebay pretty much since the inception and I have 100% positive feedback and my feedback score is in the thousands -albeit bought 90% more than sold)

-avoid (and flag) sellers who are trying to make money from overcharging shipping fees. In addition to being a bad karma, it is a straight fraud (here is is this Cinelli bar for $0.99 with a $30 flat shipping charge.) You/one should know that these people are there to make money and don't care about the quality of what they sell. Anyone can do better than that and assume what you might get is crap.

-then is the gamble: sh*tty shots of something that you hope that it is what you hope it is. The odds beat Vegas gambling, but this is the territory we are talking about.


live and let live, but darn it, be smart about it..

Please give the guy a bad feedback. Why have feedback if you don't use it?

Some anal orifice sent me a 3 speed hub with one cone loosened. The cone was pitted. Did he inspect the cone and not bother to tighten it again before rushing off to get his digital camera? Was it simply loose when he unlaced it from the wheel, but it somehow escaped his notice?

It was the first bad feedback he ever got.

What if he gives you your money back plus shipping both ways? Do you buy stuff on ebay just so you could get to box it up again and send it back?

Wouldn't you like for it to mean something when you see a good feedback score?

No. That wasn't your point. And again, policing ebay is ebay's problem. Not mine. That is the point.

I would think calling holes "some marks" is misrepresentation, plain and simple.

Several years ago I went through a complaint procedure on a non-delivered frame. Wasn't a big deal in terms of my time. The initial aggravation of getting the seller to talk to me was worse.

Randy lives in Canada - not sure it works the same way for him using Canadian post.

My wife and I have been selling/buying on Ebay since 1995 and have a positive feedback rating of over 1600 combined and most of it is from buying and as was said before if Paypal was used you can get a full refund and if the seller wants the item back they will need to pay for it. When you make a claim you need to tell them straight up that you are not going to pay a dime for said item being that it's not your fault the item was damaged/not as described and you are not going to pay for somebodies mistakes. I also state that I will leave appropriate feedback. I went from never making a Paypal claim to making at least 8 in the last year alone because of idiots that don't know how to pack items to ship,and I got a full refund and got to keep the items all 8 times. Ebay is not like it used to be and there are more crooks and idiots on there then ever before and I wonder sometimes how some of them got a 100% feedback rating when the only time I ever used them the item is not as described,am I the only one this happens too?

I'd pull the trigger and leave a negative feed back. You are not happy with the purchase and it was misrepresented. How lame is that not to mention that it has a few flaws. He is banking on you not to send it back...from the beginning. That is why he did not give an accurate detail description. It was all about money (yours) and getting away with it. Slam him. Maybe he will be more careful in his descriptions from now on...but I doubt it...it won't hurt his ratio that much ~ another reason I would do it.