Getting a bit sick of this over charged postage.

[gogetafix]

The last few months I've been buying from ebay quite frequenty. On some small items I've bought the postage has been set on the listing at £3.20 (Second Class Small Parcel). When the items arrive they have been sent as a Large Letter for £0.96p. I do know that postage includes packing as well. The latest parcel that I had arrive was just a very cheap jiffy bag. No extra bubble wrap or anything. So not a lot of cost with the packing. 20p at most.
Knowing these boards I know some my cry "Well you were happy to pay the postage price" and yes this is true I was happy to pay the postage price because I presumed it would be sent as a small parcel. The items I buy aren't that flat so I presume they would be over 2.5cms in depth. Perhaps the sellers thinks the item will have to sent as a small parcel hence the £3.20 Second Class postage price. 
When these sellers post their parcels and find out it can be sent as a Large Letter and pay for that service they pocket that difference in cost and don't bother sending their buyer a message and say it was sent as a Large Letter and not a Small Parcel so here's a small refund. These people must think their buyers are stupid. 
I also know these sellers have fees to pay but keeping the cost of postage that wasn't paid is all a bit of a con in my opinion. If it were me I'd partially refund the buyer. 

[kath3735_wxmjn]

what planet are you living on?How is the seller breaching ebay's fee avoidance policy?  You have to pay fees on the entire cost which includes the postage!  If i charge you £3.20 for posting e bay take their % from that as well so i end up paying for the rest out of the money i get from the item price.  I also buy the envelopes/jiffy bags, sellotage/brown tape, travel 4 miles to post the item.  Of course the big question is if i said free postage and charged you £10 for an item instead of £6.80 for the item and £3.20 would it make any difference to your purchase if you wanted that item???  You would obviously have been prepared to pay the £10 so what does the split matter?     By the way i have charged £3.50 for postage and been wrong and had to pay over £5 but i would never ever have dreamed of asking the buyer for the difference.   

I also buy quite a lot on e bay and i look at the total price and either buy or not buy and when it arrives i do not bother with looking to see what the postage is.  You are stressing over nothing.

[kath3735_wxmjn]

No you were not 'stitched up' , although you are acting a bit childish with this thread.

[kad1178]

Take the Tazmanian devil figurine for example that you harshly left neutral feedback for in my opinion. It was an auction that you won for a £2.20 + £3.20 P&P, do you really think if the P&P was £1 it would have still only finished at £2.20.... of course not, very likely it would have gone for £4.40 totaling the same amount so you've lost nothing yet you'd be happy with the latter but not the former?

As a buyer I actually like high postage costs on auction listings, it seems to put some bidders off and I tend to win items at an overall lower cost.

[gogetafix]

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@tsmgmd wrote:

What next.

The o.p bids for a item at £5.

When it's delivered he finds a old receipt showing the seller only paid £3.50 for it.

Would the o.p be messaging the seller saying you've overcharged me..

I think not.

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Well obviously not! 

[gogetafix]

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@kath3735_wxmjn wrote:

what planet are you living on?How is the seller breaching ebay's fee avoidance policy?  You have to pay fees on the entire cost which includes the postage!  If i charge you £3.20 for posting e bay take their % from that as well so i end up paying for the rest out of the money i get from the item price.  I also buy the envelopes/jiffy bags, sellotage/brown tape, travel 4 miles to post the item.  Of course the big question is if i said free postage and charged you £10 for an item instead of £6.80 for the item and £3.20 would it make any difference to your purchase if you wanted that item???  You would obviously have been prepared to pay the £10 so what does the split matter?     By the way i have charged £3.50 for postage and been wrong and had to pay over £5 but i would never ever have dreamed of asking the buyer for the difference.   

I also buy quite a lot on e bay and i look at the total price and either buy or not buy and when it arrives i do not bother with looking to see what the postage is.  You are stressing over nothing.

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At the moment I'm living on Planet Ebay where almost everything is very weird 😉 
Ebay fee avoidance is not the seller not paying their fees to ebay. It's passing those fees onto the buyer.  Someone will no doubt correct me if I'm totally wrong.
The seller is breaching ebays avoidance fees by telling me in a message that out of the £4.25 he charged for postage (which he only used 96p of for actual postage and put my figure in a small 5p paper envelope) he has to take his petrol, travelling time and his 15% ebay fees into account within the cost of postage. That is wrong. He should think about those things and place them in the price of his BIN figure. Which he may also have done as well. 
Saying that if I can see the seller is covering the ebay 10% postage fee within the postage cost then that's fine with me. As long as they don't take the mick and post it at a much cheaper price with awful packing not up for the job of making it through a postal system.

By the way I'm not childish but thanks for the insult. 

A snippet of ebay's fee avoidnance policy for your perusal : 

• Charging excessive postage and additional fees not already included in the price of the item, or passing seller fees on to the buyer the way

[gogetafix]

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@kad1178 wrote:

Take the Tazmanian devil figurine for example that you harshly left neutral feedback for in my opinion. It was an auction that you won for a £2.20 + £3.20 P&P, do you really think if the P&P was £1 it would have still only finished at £2.20.... of course not, very likely it would have gone for £4.40 totaling the same amount so you've lost nothing yet you'd be happy with the latter but not the former?

As a buyer I actually like high postage costs on auction listings, it seems to put some bidders off and I tend to win items at an overall lower cost.

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I appreciate your hypothetical scenario. Seeing that it is just that I can't really comment. I don't think my neutral for that seller was harsh. What would have been harsh if I had left a negative.

[tsmgmd]

I think all those of us who have responded have possibly come to one conclusion.

The O/P  thinks it is his right to complain to a seller about his P.P charges even though he has legally agreed to pay the amount shown.

And he is not afraid to comment on what he allegedly thinks is overcharge..

I'm just wondering how many sellers have used the blocked bidder facility offered by eBay.

[gogetafix]

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@tsmgmd wrote:

I think all those of us who have responded have possibly come to one conclusion.

The O/P  thinks it is his right to complain to a seller about his P.P charges even though he has legally agreed to pay the amount shown.

And he is not afraid to comment on what he allegedly thinks is overcharge..

I'm just wondering how many sellers have used the blocked bidder facility offered by eBay.

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If you look back not everyone who responded has come to that conclusion. I think I have a right to complain and comment. I will probably never find out if I've been blocked as I don't think I'd be a repeat customer. 
I was hoping for more replies testing me on more moral dilemmas. I'm trying to get my 500 replies badge 🙂 

[poeticperidot]

Yes, you are absolutely right...it is very annoying! I'm spending more in postage costs than the actual items sometimes. When I sold stuff in the past I always refunded the difference after posting, even if it was pennies...it was the principal that mattered to me...and I can honestly say virtually every buyer came back and thanked me. 

[mawels_87]

So many sellers over change for postage. If an item i want that has an offer button i make offers very low even if not excepted by the seller. i refuse to pay more for postage than i know how much it should cost. For instance a seller was selling a watch for £15.00 + RM basic Second Class postage at £12.50. If i posted the same watch myself it would have been listed RM second class £3.20 Sign For postage. At the post office it would cost me £2.26p. Anyway the seller's watch was not really worth any more than £10.00 in the poor condition it was in. I put in an offer of £6.00 because of the well inflated postage cost of £12.00. 

I put in many offers on many items each day so if sellers like that declined offers it doesn't matter as there will always be a good number of good sellers that come back with an except or a reasonable counter offer. 

[Anonymous]

If you go in a store and buy a large item of furniture and request delivery you will be given a price.

If you agree the price you then conclude the deal.

After delivery do you then ring the store and complain because you think the charge is too much or it came in a small van and not a big truck.

On ebay it couldn't be simpler. 

The price a SELLER charges to get your item to you is displayed. 

It is not the price a carrier or RM charge. 

Last point... When you see a listing that says FREE PP do you think the seller is actually getting a free of charge service from RM or a carrier. 

[elitegiftsltd]

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@poeticperidot wrote:

Yes, you are absolutely right...it is very annoying! I'm spending more in postage costs than the actual items sometimes. When I sold stuff in the past I always refunded the difference after posting, even if it was pennies...it was the principal that mattered to me...and I can honestly say virtually every buyer came back and thanked me. 

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Then set item price higher or change postal carriers to reduce postal costs.

Nice of you to refund buyers in part. I used to find that irritated buyers so stopped doing it. 

[gallovidian]

If you feel so strongly, rightly I believe, you make it sound like a mistake not to have left feedback for it.  Really blatant cases, especially those where they use a cheaper delivery service than they offered, can be reported through Help and Contact.

They are not onto a safe unearned income unless buyers allow it.

[gallovidian]

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@Anonymous wrote:

If you go in a store and buy a large item of furniture and request delivery you will be given a price.

If you agree the price you then conclude the deal.

After delivery do you then ring the store and complain because you think the charge is too much or it came in a small van and not a big truck.

On ebay it couldn't be simpler. 

The price a SELLER charges to get your item to you is displayed. 

It is not the price a carrier or RM charge. 

Last point... When you see a listing that says FREE PP do you think the seller is actually getting a free of charge service from RM or a carrier. 

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Giving a seller a free pass on breach of ebay policy is bound to be easy.

The ebay buyer isn't in a store.  He is buying in a marketplace which requires the seller to obey the Selling Practices policy, which is perfectly clear that the P&P charge covers expenditure by the seller,,,, and neither his work nor his appetites.

The violation o excessive P&P isn't committed by receiving payment. It is committed in creating the listing. A buyer may or may not  come along and pay, but he doesn't confer absolution by buying. He is still entitled to give feedback and/or report excessive P&P charges.

[Anonymous]

The seller displays his price for POST AND PACKING.

And that price is not what the seller pays his carrier. 

And where does a reasonable amount finish and a excessive charge start. 

Buyers and sellers don't need eBay intervention on PP. 

We are adults, we know what we want to pay. 

There is a simple answer.. Every seller should add postage into the starting bid price and display FREE POSTAGE.. 

[bennotbill]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Every seller should add postage into the starting bid price and display FREE POSTAGE.. 

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Even then you will still get some people complaining why the item wasn't delivered the next day by hand in a Rolls Royce in golden packaging.

Some people are born complainers who refuse to look at what was probably a good fair total price, refuse to take into account eBay's cut of the p&p, and refuse to believe there is anything to consider except the actual postage price.

[downsizingxs]

I always refund if I manage to send what I thought would be a parcel as a large letter. The buyer is usually very surprised by this 🙂 but I hate being overcharged also. My motto is 'do as you would be done by'.

[gallovidian]

People are complicated, and for those deeply disturbed by a minority of compulsive complainers there is salaried employment, preferably for something which doesn't involve people.

But I believe we can safely assume that getting an unexpected refund irritates fewer people than feeling they have been overcharged,

[nigel_paul_wright7557]

If p+p looks too much buy elsewhere.

Leave appropriate feedback to let others know.

[Anonymous]

I love responders who moan about postage and how sellers should behave.. 

But I think it's hypocritical when a seller is trading in watches under a private account and not only breaking eBay user agreements, failing to pay business seller fees, and worst of all failing to display a registered business address and display a legal returns policy.