So I bid on two old sport VHS tapes which were at 99c.
Won both auctions only to see the seller is charging about $58.60 a piece for postage via a 500g prepaid satchel. Admittedly I got lazy as I was phone browsing at work and didn't think to check the postage charge - that's on me no doubt.
So I messaged them about combining shipping into medium satchel which should only cost about $14.
No response for a week, until now, where I have received an invoice with shipping combined totaling $117.20... still stating a 500g prepaid satchel.
I've hit up the ebay.com.au twitter to see if there's anything I can do, but that the moment I've faced with two choices.
- suck it up, take the hit, and just leave negative feedback
- don't pay, but risk my clean record and face possible repercussions.
EDIT: just for clarity, the seller is based in SA. So purely a domestic transaction.
I believe it's against eBay rules to profit on shipping which is obviously what the seller is doing.
On those grounds, should you have an unpaid strike against you, you can call eBay and have the strike removed by explaining the situation.
I was in a similar situation last year where the seller refused to combine shipping even though it was advertised on his listings that he does offer combined shipping. I refused to pay, took the strikes and had them removed.
But it may be worth giving eBay a call first in case policies have changed and also to just let them know of the situation.
Ergh, been so loaded up at work that I haven't been bothered to deal with this until now. I'd suggest pick up but I have no doubt the seller would refuse. Looks like this was one of those list for 99c, jack up the postage type deals. Hasn't even responded directly to my initial question, and isn't exactly beating down my inbox demanding the money, so direct contact is probably the last thing on their mind.
Anyways, I sent them another message, feigning ignorance, pointing out that the postage charge remains unchanged and that a prepaid parcel post satchel is no more than $9 so surely this must be an error somewhere.
Didn't think of that, but I checked and the primary post address is definitely North Cairns, and it was stated in the total amount requeste. Did ask the seller to check if they calculated postage based on that address though.
I did this once when buying a bunch of trading cards from overseas. This was about ten years ago when $20 postage was excessive. The seller came up with a postage charge of about $50 and I refused to pay. Nothing ever came of it, and I ended up regretting not going through with the transaction as some of those cards are incredibly hard to find.
Ergh, been so loaded up at work that I haven't been bothered to deal with this until now. I'd suggest pick up but I have no doubt the seller would refuse. Looks like this was one of those list for 99c, jack up the postage type deals. Hasn't even responded directly to my initial question, and isn't exactly beating down my inbox demanding the money, so direct contact is probably the last thing on their mind.
Anyways, I sent them another message, feigning ignorance, pointing out that the postage charge remains unchanged and that a prepaid parcel post satchel is no more than $9 so surely this must be an error somewhere.
As it is two items, combined shipping, does that count as 1 or 2 strikes?
Didn't think of that, but I checked and the primary post address is definitely North Cairns, and it was stated in the total amount requeste. Did ask the seller to check if they calculated postage based on that address though.