Had a dealing with an eBay seller, when I suggested his shipping rates were a little high, and explained my experiences using PayPal pre-paid shipping he cancelled my bids say I disputed the shipping charges. I suggest to stay away from On-Track-Hobbies, the guy is very difficult to deal with, no customer relations.

eh, Delivered price = price + shipping.
It's easy calculation to make before bidding. ebay will even sort listings for you that way.

when I see a vendor charging way too much for shipping, I know he's trying to protect some of his take from ebay - it's a kind of tax evasion. Is that your concern? it's not mine.

you know (now) you are not going to successfully haggle him down after the sale is made. he is hungry, you are not.

lesson learned, accept the Delivered price formula before bidding, or move on.

I understand the deliverance price, I only suggested he re-look at how PayPal does their pre-paid shipping as I use it all the time and take advantage of the PayPal discounts, and told him I would accept his shipping, it was after that he said I was disputing his shipping cost and cancelled the bids. I made every attempt to deal with him, including apologizing for my initial comments. And he is the one trying to make the sale, I am the customer. I just felt people should be warned that his customer relations are not the best.

Have seen this quite a bit lately: low initial bid with $50 shipping. This used to be illegal on eBay, but they got tired of policing things and now it's the Wild West.

Correct me if I am wrong,but ebay now charges fees for shipping and sale price.9% on both...So maybe you should check these things out before shooting off at the mouth about what you seem not to know about!!!
This was taken directly off ebay!!!
Here's an example of a final value fee calculation for an auction-style listing:
You sell an item for $95.00 with a shipping cost of $5.00.

Your final value fee on the item cost is 9% of $95.00, which is $8.55.

Your final value fee on the shipping cost is 9% of $5.00, which is $0.45

Almost forgot...Paypal also charges you fees to use that as well...
If you seen his sale price and his shipping price...and you thought they were to high...why did you bid????

Before I bid, he said he would combine shipping, thus I bid on several items. Then we were discussing PayPal and shipping, at which point he flew off the handle and cancelled the bidding. Yes eBay takes a percentage of the entire price including shipping. But when you pre-pay shipping with Canada Post, they provide a discount on the shipping, and the only fee you pay is a percentage of the money recieved.

Edit: I have filed a complaint with eBay, they looked at the history, and said the complaint was justified.

My post wasnt intended for you Kevin...it was for Bill Cross.

Actually Bill, you have it a bit backwards. People would sell cheap with high shipping cost to avoid paying the ridiculous listing and final value fees. Ebay put their foot down, but found they couldn't completely stop the practice. Instead they went with the policy of charging the final fee including the shipping cost. They did this, not to help the buyers, but to make sure they got their cut. It just feeds the vicious cycle. Their greed has forced a lot of sellers to increase shipping to maintain the same profit margin. This in turn has gotten buyers upset who don't know, or care, the situation.

Now, with that said, I must admit there are sellers who do have exorbitantly high S&H charges. It's up to the buyer to decide if they are worth the item they're buying (the last 8g camera card I bought was still much cheaper with the $10 S&H than I could have bought it pretty much anywhere else).

Finally, Kevin, if you ever have questions or comments about a seller's policies, you need to deal with them before you bid/buy. It goes a long way towards avoiding the situation you found yourself in.

"Shoot my mouth off"? Mike, I'm not sure what got your knickers in a knot, but the rude tone of your post is unjustified.

I am both a buyer and an occasional seller on eBay. I didn't feel the thread justified a history of the site's listing practices. My point was merely that many sellers are using inflated shipping costs to lure bidders into an auction that has a reasonable opening bid. For example, I was recently looking at a Tamiya F-15 Bunker Buster that had a good opening bid ($50), but a $50 shipping charge. If I were the only bidder, it's not a bad price. But if I get into a bidding contest of any sort with another buyer, the cost quickly shoots up to what it would cost me to buy it from Hong Kong or even here in the States. So I backed off.

There are many ways to handle these sorts of auctions. Mike, your attitude could use an adjustment.

And Bob, your point is quite something I would agree with: buyer beware, and make sure you understand the shipping before bidding.

PS. The fact that eBay upheld Kevin's complaint speaks volumes.

I stand corrected Bill.
What I am stating is total cost is what is the question here.
If you dont like the priceand shipping dont bid!!!
I find it irrelevant if price is .02 for item and shipping is $50.Total cost is what the bottom line is.Sellers get charged no matter the price or the shipping cost at 9%.
Sorry if I offended you.
It just sounded like you are unaware of total fees Evilbay is charging.
Seems to me they are the only ones benefitting now anyways.
Not many really good deals out there nowdays with total fees they are charging.Sellers need to jack up prices on whatever(Sale price or shipping)just to sell.
That is why I try buying and selling here on this site prior to going with them.
Thank You Armorama for this service you offer to us all...at no cost,which benefits us all!!!

Thanks, Mike, I appreciate the gesture.


Agreed.


Agreed as well. EBay used to be a fun place to buy and sell, but not so much anymore.

Totally agree Bill...I have been a member since the early days(1998) when things were good for all involved.

I don't think half of you even read Kevin's second post.

The seller said they would combine shipping. You cannot figure out a total unti after the auctions are over and you know 'which items' are being combined. At that point, there should be some back and forth between buyer and seller to determine a fair deal.

This seller was a bit unreasonable, as Ebay sided with Kevin in the dispute.

This is why you contact the seller BEFORE buying. If you let them know what items you're interested in, they can come up with a quote for you. Then, if you don't like it, you don't have to purchase them or you can discuss it further. And keep in mind the concept of a "fair deal" is subjective.

There's actually not enough info about this situation to make any kind of call on it (and no, I don't care to know anymore about it). It could have just been the perceived tone of Kevin's communications that got the seller going. It could be that the seller has had a spate of buyers wanting to negotiate after the sale (this has been a problem). Like I said, too many unknown variables.

Ebay siding with Kevin means very little. The system is pretty well stacked in the buyer's favor. Unless a seller has crossed all the "t"s and dotted all the "i"s in triplicate, Ebay will always side with the buyer.

As with Mike, I've been doing Ebay since the late 90's, mostly as a seller. I, too, miss the days where Ebay just hosted a site where people could trade with other people without all the meddling by them that's going on now. Sure there were problems, but it was still better than what it is today.

There are WAY too many auctions on eBay to let one get under your skin.

So just move on and forget about it. It's a lesson learned.






It still is for me (since 2004) I just know how to avoid the Riff-Raff!






~ Jeff

Some good points about Ebay there.

We sell as MJW Models on Ebay and I agree with many of the points raised. It is totally stacked in the buyer's favour. I mean for example, the feedback system is not fair at all, how can Ebay think it's fair that a buyer can leave a negative comment and you can't even leave negative feedback for non payers?

To balance it out, there are some dodgy buyers out there too. We and several other UK sellers got 'done over' by an Australian buyer call Guardsmanjones22. He bought several paint sets from us and other items from the other sellers, he got the 2 more expensive paint sets we sent by registered post but strangely now the one that went be unregistered post. He messaged us 2 weeks after buying to say he hadn't got the item. We looked into the Royal Mail's policy for missing items and they said (at the time)that they allow 5 weeks (for international post) for the item to be delivered or returned to sender. If after that time no one had the item, it would be classed as lost and we'd be able to claim for it. We therefore advised the buyer of Royal Mail's policy, even sending him the link to the page, and that if he still hdan't got the item after that time, we'd refund him in full.
He, without responding, then immeadiately opened a missing item case, saying we had refused to refund him and were using delaying tactics and he knew how long it took items to be delivered. I then messaged him, to protest and repeated we had promised to refund him and please be patient as the item could turn up anywhere at anytime. He then straight away (again with no message to us) esculated the dispute to a paypal claim and left negative feedback saying we refused to refund him.
It turned out he had done the same to about 8 or 9 other UK sellers at the same time - this was all in the same day! I contacted Ebay to complain and say this is surely abuse of buyer protection at best, fraud at worst! Ebay looked at the messages we had sent and agreed the feedback was unfair and removed it. We then spoke to paypal who agreed the thing looked very suspicious and would investigate him for possible fraud. In the end paypal made us refund him, I guess they couldn't prove any fruad had taken place but he had to wait a few weeks more to get his money back, than it would have done for us to refund him, if he had listened to us!
If anyone reading this is still awake by now, we at MJW Models, charge what it actually costs us to send things, bearing in mind you are allowed to add extra for packing materials. Sadly Royal Mail postage isn't always that cheap and they recently hiked their prices and the way the postage is priced.
We do combine post and we work out the cheapest way to send things, bearing in mind once you spend over a certain amount it goes registered post but we can't stress enough the point someone else made in an earlier post - ASK before you buy! If you have any concerns about combined postage, we're happy to provide estimates and then you can decide to buy or not to buy!

thanks
Mike

Mike, there are bad folks out there. I used to sell books online through Amazon, and had one dude say he never got the book, do now I do delivery confirmation on all sales, even though it costs me money. I make it a selling point, though, and it has helped my feedback.

Hi Bill

We've tightened up a bit on international sales, as that was where things seemed to go missing! Most things we send overseas required a signature on delivery - that way the chance of fraud is minimised.

Ebay policy says sellers should use registered post but that can make you uncompetitive. I think they should perhaps make sellers use registered post, that way everyone's in the same boat and it would be a safer place to trade for all.

thanks
Mike

Nothing I ship outside the US is sent without insurance or by registered mail (depending on the destination). I dislike using registered because it adds $11.00 to the price of the postage and buyers really balk at that. All domestic mail goes with delivery confirmation.

To be perfectly honest, I don't see where a seller should be responsible for a delivery company's actions after mailing the package. As long as mailing confirmation is provided it should be up to the buyer to spring for insurance or any other upgraded shipping service. This is getting truer every day as the USPS goes into their cutbacks. Fewer people handling the same amount of mail is a recipe for trouble.

Been there had these things done to me as well...Only a few cases though.There are a few bad apples out there though just like here.SHAME!!!
Yes,I still sell and buy on evilbay.Its hard not to with all of the exposure your items get and how many items are available,but I try doing my business here first!!!
Like I said before, seems like evilbay is the only one prospering.

And don't forget that in some sections eBay restrict the amount you can charge for postage, books as an example, in most cases it costs a lot more to send a book than ebay will let you charge, but no one complains that they underpaid postage do they.

Anger management classes anyone?
This is just one more reason I don't like using Ebay. I let a ICM T35 slip by for a relatively low price.
I tend to use Ebay only if I can't find the item anywhere else and then only if it is about half of what I would expect to pay. Then, there's always the problem of receiving a damaged or less than complete item.
Please don't include me in the drama section. Just MHO, here.

Yeah Matt, we did stray a bit, but if someone reads this thread and picks up a hint on how to negotiate the minefield that is Ebay, isn't it worth the trip?

I agree 100% with that statement. I quit selling over 5 years ago just because of eBay's policies, and how they protect the buyers more than the sellers. Especially when it's all in the sellers favor.

It's not perfect but it's still a good source for finding what you want and if not, then it wasn't meant to be.






~ Jeff