So I’m a frequent seller and occasional buyer on ebay. I swear to god though, about one of every ten people I deal with I with nearly ruin any good that comes from it though. News flash people- I do not set the prices of shipping. That would be Canada Post. Once it leaves my hands, there is NOTHING I can do about it, unless you throw enough cash at me to afford Priority or something like that and I can open a claim. You bitch about the price of shipping, and then bitch when it doesn’t reach you at the time you seem to think it should take. Tell me, what is that amount of time based on, anyway? Because here in the real world, it can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, or MORE, especially around the holidays. I do my part, and ship usually the next day, at MOST 2 business days. He bought on Sat, I mailed on Mon, and today I get an email in all caps saying FOR THE PRICE OF SHIPPING I SHOULD HAVE GOT THIS BY NOW. He lives in BC. What really pisses me off about this guy- is that HE is ALSO a seller! He should know better. Dick.
—nearing the last straw in the bale
This article appears in Dec 3-9, 2009.
I feel your pain, however I’m also a frequent buyer on eBay and have been screwed by people boosting shipping costs because they know they won’t get the price they want for the item. I’ve had sellers want to charge me $25 to ship a watch to me, ok, but then I ask how much it would cost to ship 2 watches together and they tell me $50. There’s no way it would cost that much to ship two small items. I’ve gotten items from sellers who charged me one price for shipping, and you can see that it only cost half that right on the postmark.
yeah those people are assholes PAS – i bought an iPod shuffle like 3 years ago that seemed to be a really good deal ($50 was the final price) and the guy wanted $25 for “shipping and customs considerations” I told him that was rediculous and to just mail it ground in a padded mailer.
He got all bummed and ended up putting the value at $150 on the slip so when it came over the border I had to pay like thirty dollars duty because apparently him writing gift on the envelope was impossible unless i payed for the “customs considerations”.
Wow, what a dick. You could actually have challenged that though, if you had sent the customs form in with proof of what you paid you would have gotten some of your money back.
It’s great now that sellers can’t give buyers neg feedback if the buyer gave a negative. I always tried to wait for them to give feedback first.
yeah, it’s like they take the worst shipping price into account and stick with that as a base rather than checking where you live. ‘Course if they get tons of people asking, they’re likely just lazy and don’t want to check every buttfuck city that they may need to ship to and just inflate to (as you said) increase profit.
I’m a frequent eBay buyer and as long as I’m aware of the shipping price, I can’t complain. As a buyer, I also realize that the mail system does not work on star trek transporters! I think if people are using eBay, they should be aware of how the mail system works