See, this afternoon my granny, the one with a brain tumor, who is leaving to BC for a few weeks before her next cat scan - which no one expects to be good, phoned me and asked me to locate six books for her. Two Nora Roberts trilogy's.
Of course, I told her I would find them and make sure I had them in my hands when she returned home at the beginning of September. I found both trilogy's very easily on eBay and had my pick at which seller to buy from.
The one trilogy was 9.99 buy it now and 4.76 shipping - keep in mind, I scrolled to the bottom of the eBay page, selected my country, and the shipping is automatically calculated for my postal code.
14.75 for the books and shipping is an excellent price so I clicked the buy it now and paid immediately.
Then, five minutes ago I got an email from the seller (keep in mind the seller has 100% positive feedback)
Dear imbluepaintred,
How did you come up with the $4.75 postage. It will not let me ship to you. It only allows me to send to you Priority Mail which is $16.15 + $2.00 S&H. I have to print your receipt, your shipping label, my packaging and the custom forms. So you need to pay $18.15 for the shipping, not $4.75. That is why I ask all international bidders to ask me shipping & Handling before bidding or before paying. It cost me $4.80 to send just here in the US. So, you need to send me another $13.40 before I can ship the books. Postage is outrageous. If you would have asked before bidding I could have given you a choice to bid or not to bid. Go back and look at the auction at the bottom. It tells you just what I said about asking before bidding or paying. I will be awaiting the extra $13.40 so I can ship your books. The only other option is Express mail which cost more. First class mail is only for plain envelopes as in #10 regular envelopes. Thank you, Jan & Richard.
- mtx_shockwavz
I replied immediately. With a screen shot and this note :
Please see attached photo. This is the price YOUR listing gave me for MY postal code. I will not pay an extra 13.40 for shipping, you can either reimburse me my money or ship it as per YOUR listings price. Either that, or I shall have to send this to eBay disputes.
Shannon
Here is the screen shot, click it to make it bigger.
I refuse to pay more for shipping. There is NO WAY I would pay 18.00 shipping when I could have bought the books for the same cost (14.75) from six different sellers. In fact, the other trilogy my granny wanted? I got that also for 14.75 - this one had a lower price for the books - 5.00 and a higher price for shipping, 9.75.As I have never had a dispute on eBay before, I am looking for help. Where do I go from here?
Also, In the time it took me to write this post, the seller came back with this :
Dear imbluepaintred,
I am going to package these books and take them to the post office tomorrow and get a price, I do not know why PayPal & USPS can't let me have the option of First Class Mail online. This has me stumped. When I look it up on ebay it says one thing and when I look it up on the USPS site it won't let me offer First Class Mail. So, I will go to the Post Office in the morning and get back to you with an actual price from the post office. It has me stumped. It weighs about 1 pound and should be about $10.00 for First Class. One book would be about $4.75 first class. So let me check it out, so I know for sure. Thank you, Jan
- mtx_shockwavz
Again, While she seems to have come down on what I will "owe" her, I refuse to pay more than what her listing said I was required to pay. Also? I'm not sure how to respond to her. Should I email her back right away and repeat that I will pay no more than I already have, or do I await her email tomorrow and tell her then?
And when she still says I have to pay up, how do I get my money back so I can order the books from someone who has the RIGHT shipping info, so that I have them here for my granny when she returns home?
5 comments:
I have no idea with e-bay, sorry. Blogarita does TONS on e-bay, maybe e-mail her?
Good luck!
Now you know why I generally avoid selling to those damn Canadians! It is difficult to get accurate shipping prices to Canada for some reason.
I think you are both right, or at least not wrong. It looks like eBay had the wrong shipping info. I got bit by their shipping calculator a couple weeks ago on a package I sent.
If I were the seller I would offer to give you your money back.
As an eBay seller, here is what I think. I think that the seller didn't get the right weight put in their listing. The postage calculator you used did its job, but it didn't have good information.
"That is why I ask all international bidders to ask me shipping & Handling before bidding or before paying." Does the seller truly have this in the listing? If so, my opinion is that you should have confirmed shipping first before bidding.
I have that disclaimer on all of my listings, because I know how easy it is to make a mistake in a listing or for someone from another country to go to USPS.com and misinterpret our postal rates (they are easily misinterpreted, even for us).
While I don't blame you in the least for not wanting to pay the additional shipping, I also don't blame the seller for not wanting to ship it.
If it were ME, I would wait until the seven days had past, then I would file a non-paying bidder claim against YOU. Then you'd have the chance to respond with your explanation. If it were ME, I'd check my listing, and if I could determine that I had indeed put in the wrong weight, then I'd consider it MY mistake and send you the books for the $4.76 postage, despite the fact you didn't confirm international postage with me first. And I'd drop the claim against you, and all would be good and I'd give you your positive feedback.
If I could determine that my listing was good, then I'd either insist on payment, or refund you the money. If you paid, I'd send the books and drop the claim against you. If you wanted your refund, I'd send it, no problem, but continue with the claim. Either way, I'd not leave any feedback for you and I'd block you from bidding on my auctions in the future. BTW, a seller can no longer leave negative feedback for a buyer, which is both good and bad, depending on the situation.
As for how YOU can initiate the dispute, I can tell you where to look, but I've never done it as a buyer, so I don't know how it works. To find it, look on the left sidebar of your "My eBay" page. There is a link to "Dispute Console". There you will find the info you need to proceed with a dispute for item not being sent or not as described.
All of that said, I truly think most eBayers, both sellers and buyers, are honest people who simply make mistakes sometimes. In your case, the second email from your seller indicates that they, too, are completely baffled. It doesn't sound like they are out to screw you over. Hopefully you can come to some mutual agreement and all will be well, even if you have to get a refund and order your books from someone else.
Good luck, and you can always email me directly if you have more questions.
Tug - Heh! Too late! She saw the post!
Nobody - Well then ebay needs to fix their calculator. maybe sellers should enter a big dispute against ebay?
Blogarita - From my side, I would never have bought if I knew the shipping was so high, also, mot of the ebayers have "contact me for shipping blah blah blah" and I have always used the price ebay gives rather than contact the seller.
If the seller entered the weight worng, I'm sorry they lose out on shipping, but its not my fault. If they do not want to ship, thats fine, return my money, and relist, but I will not pay more!
I will not initiate a dispute so long as the seller and I are communicating about this, that would be wrong.
I agree that a reasonable seller would either take the loss on the postage if it was their mistake, and/or let you out of the deal by refunding your money.
I also agree that you shouldn't file a dispute as long as a line of communication remains open.
Unfortunately for everyone who uses eBay, there are unreasonable people, both buyers and sellers. That's why the dispute console exists.
Personally, I've never filed a dispute against anyone who was willing to communicate with me. It's always been people who get the winning bid then refuse to pay or communicate. Most won't even reply to eBay when THEY contact the bidder for payment. When that happens, the dispute may not get me my payment, but it does save me some of the fees when I relist the item.
I see both sides of it. I hope you can work things out with your seller.
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