eBay question..........

Here goes... I am just wondering something, I just bought an item off eBay for around £10, but the description said that postage would be invoiced, and not put on the description. I thought, hey, its ok if he charges me alot because I got the itm so cheap in the first place... BUT... he then sends me an invoice for P&P of £60! ($120)!!!!!

What am I supposed to do? This is a con, but how can I report it?

well lucky for you ebay just revamped their security check procedures. First off, was it a "buy now" item or was it "auctioned" you'll need to know the specifics when speaking to customer service. You can call them but plan to be on the line for 10-15 mins at least, its hard for ebay to get your funds back because they are just a "virtual middle man" more than likely you'll have to rate the guy, or you just might be able to get your funds back through paypal. goodluck

No, the thing is I HAVE NOT payed (due to extortionate joke-rates for P&P), but now I will have my 100% feedback damaged just because I did the thing that most people would do, which was to not pay the rate.

Did you ask the shipping charges before bidding ?

..YES! 3 times! ..and still got no reply.

I would have been tolerant to pay £20, alot more than anyone else would tolerate, but £60!

C'mon, I mean thats like saying I could sell a CD for £5, then send him an invoice with P&P for £10,005.

Does this mean he HAS to pay it?

...And then this guy will end up giving me negative feedback, damaging my 100%!

ahhh I see, yeah this sucks real bad, I'd contact customer support about it and explain your delima

And how would I do that without picking up a phone?

I believe they have support by email. I imagine its pretty quick since many people dont use it. You know us, got to use a phone.

I have searched for ages, but I cannot see a link or any email connection with eBay! Please help

I'll look, and I'll leave feedback soon

http://pages.ebay.com/help/contact_us/_base/index_selection.html

If a seller does not state shipping/handling charges nor state to email for quotes, then it can be assumed to be free. You are under no obligation to pay more than you agreed to. This is a fraudlent practice on ebay that should be reported right away. File a claim now.

I am an eBay Powerseller with over 9,000 positive feedbacks. Not sure about the UK version, but on the home page for US eBay, there is an option to Chat Live with an eBay person. My experience with this is that I have waited no longer than a couple of minutes to get someone from eBay to Chat (via IM) with. I suggest that you not leave this person Feedback yet. You will want to hold that in abeyance for negotiations with the seller. Let eBay know what happened and see what they recommend. Send the seller a message through the eBay messaging system. The seller is obligated to reply to you about any questions within three days. If they do not, you will have more of a case with eBay. Check out the seller's feedbacks and see where s/he stands.

eBay has gotten very sensitive about low prices and high shipping costs and may invalidate the entire auction and/or ban the seller if they find this to be egregious enough. In the future do not purchase anything without checking the seller's feedbacks and asking about shipping (again, through the eBay messaging system) and any other questions that you may have.

I will not leave any feedback unless he/she does, and WILL DEFINATELY chack next time.

The seller has not responded in 5 days and I feel that they are just going to report a non paying buyer about me!

....The seller seems to have eBay on his side... there isn't much I can do.

I filed a complaint to eBay and was tod that they would get back to me between the next 24-48 hours... vso ill give it a day and respond.

If the seller did not state shipping charges, there are none. Don't worry about it. If you have already paid the agreed price, then the seller cannot ding you as a NPB.

Thats because the final value fees have gotten so out of hand. You used to only have to pay the listing fee which was all fine and dandy as your going to have to pay for an add atleast to sell anything. But then ebay got greedy and wanted a percentage of YOUR MONEY !!!. 5.5% of the first $25 then 3.5% of the rest. This plus listing fees make guys not want to sell stuff anymore, or in your case sell the item for a very low price and charge a large shipping cost. Since ebay cant touch the shipping fees you charge as part of the Final Value Fee that is why most guys are rasing shipping and selling items cheaper. If you want to blame anyone for the inflated shipping costs on ebay blame ebay. Plus PayPal gets a 3.5% cut of any money you recieve which ebay also owns

So in total with listing fees and money that paypal takes out (if you use them) your are paying close to 10% of your total profit to ebay.

Or you also have the option not to buy/sell on ebay either.

But yeah with your problem I suggest contacting the seller, ask him to mutually withdraw the transaction then report him to ebay.

In addition dont plan on getting to far with ebay as they only care about the 10,000+ powersellers that make them most of their cash. Ebay does have a call center but only the top 2% of the ebay community get the phone number. Read some articles on it, it is pretty funny. If the number gets leaked and they start getting many calls from non super power sellers they change the number.....

With all the fees, if you're not making at least $20 profit on a sale, you're losing money.

Kind of true, but that is only looking at eBay as a profit channel. I use eBay to find corporate customers who buy once from me on eBay and then come back to my ecommerce site as regular customers. So, I view eBay as a marketing channel that pretty much pays for itself via the slim margins that I am able to eke out for my low-priced cables. Of course, we have to put up with snot-nosed kids (and/or illiterate adults) spending $6.00 for a USB cable and complaining about the color, expecting three hours of tech support to set up their printer, etc. Thankfully, eBay has a 'block bidder' function which I use liberally for such one-hit wonders. I keep saying that I am going to stop running my stuff on eBay and then another big potential customer finds us there and I stay on...

Okay, so I get the following message back from ebay from customer support
(yes, it is supposed to be all ????'s)

"
????:


???????eBay??????????????????????????eBay?????????????????24-48?????????
??

????????????????????????

???????

??eBay??


??:
????????????????????

???????????????????????????http://pages.ebay.com.cn/help/contact_inline/
index.html

"

So I go on the site:
http://pages.ebay.com.cn/help/contact_us/_base/index.html

...and I don't know about you but I cant read anything.

Is is actually meant to be in chineese or something and I don't have the lang. package for it?

----------Please don't merge posts-----------

Okay, so a slight edit (after a bit of time thinking)
--- so I took out the "cn" from the address (logical eh?) and when I get to an english version of the page (ebay.com) I just find that it is the same page that I started my complaint on.


Ahhhhh!

Sounds like you got a reply from one of their customer service offices in China, perhaps.

I would get back to them via the English website (include any Reference number that you may see on the page or in the email) and tell them that you did not receive an answer. You may also get a follow up email from eBay asking if your issue was resolved and you can indicate that it was not.

I also suggest chatting live with customer service (I mentioned this in a previous email) and you could cut and paste the link from the 'reply' into your chat with a person and let them see that there has been no answer. Quite truthfully, I do not waste my time with phone or email with these guys and always go right to the live chat option to get a problem resolved. Just go to the main ebay home page and click on the 'Live Help' and you will be able to talk to a customer service rep (you will be queried as to the nature of your problem and they will route it to the right person.