[ebay] $80.00 s/h charge for N scale items

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I can only assume this seller plans on "handling" himself a lot while packing this stuff. He must be used to paying whorehouse handling rates.

Reply to
Dont Know My Name
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And just HOW do YOU know those rates?

Reply to
Steve Hoskins

Bidding has ended for this item so I think it's safe to assume that he made a typo!

Reply to
Jon Miller

--------------------- "Steve Hoskins" wrote

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I've bought enough model railroading supplies through mail order over the years, to know what it's going to cost to ship this stuff. In this case not more than $15-$20 despite UPS' rate hike this past week.

Reply to
Dont Know My Name

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I can only assume this seller plans on "handling" himself a lot while packing this stuff. He must be used to paying whorehouse handling rates.

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"Jon Miller" wrote

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You're such an ignoramus Miller. Are you sure not Rathburne's child? The auction has expired because it's 7 days has ended:

Start Time: Jan-03-04 07:58:14 PST End Time: Jan-10-04 07:58:14 PST

The $80.00 s/h charge wasn't a typo. Had it been, I wouldn't have posted the original message ridiculing the seller unjustly. Seller vigorously defended his shipping charges as "fair" in several emails to me.

I hadn't noticed earlier. He was offer $400 insurance for an additional $25. UPS charges $.99 for an additional $300 (400 total) coverage unless that was raised this past week. USPS charges $5.20 for $400 insurance. It's against Postal regs to markup their Insurance premiums.

Reply to
Dont Know My Name

Have you contacted eBay about it? IIRC, it's against their user agreement for sellers to charge inflated shipping costs, or attempt to markup insurance costs against postal regulations...

Reply to
Sean S

I wasn't talking about SHIPPING RATES. Read the other user's (Dont Know My Name) comments.

It was intended to be slightly humorous, something I notice most people in here do NOT have any sense of.

Reply to
Steve Hoskins

No, you can charge whatever you want for shipping (I don't know about the insurance regulations, but shipping cost is fair game because there's more to it than just what the USPS or UPS charges for it). Nobody's being forced to bid on an auction with an inflated shipping cost. They even have a separate option for "actual shipping cost" when listing an item - you can either check that box when you list an item, or you can specify your own shipping cost.

The only thing you can't do is charge extra for accepting certain forms of payment. Otherwise, you can charge pretty much whatever you want. It's up to the buyer to decide whether or not it's worth it - I always look at shipping cost as part of the total cost whenever I bid on an auction. And if a shipping cost is not specified, as it doesn't have to be, I generally won't bid.

Whenever I sell an item, I always mark up the shipping cost by a few dollars - a *few*. There are some legitimate reasons for doing this - bubble wrap ain't free, for example, and many shipping outlets charge a premium over published rates that are available on the net (meaning I have to pay more to ship than what it might say on the web site). Plus, I'm spending valuable time packing these items, and I think that's worth a buck or two; if you buy from a company, they always either add a handling charge in or they just inflate the shipping a bit themselves in order to help cover the costs of salaries for their warehouse workers. Anyway I've never charged $80 to ship something that would really cost $20, but I might charge, say, $25 or even $30. I don't think that's a big deal. What a seller is charging for shipping is not the UPS or USPS's shipping cost; it's the *seller's* shipping cost. They're two different things.

That's not to defend $80 for this auction, or $25 for $400 insurance. Both of those sound unjustly inflated (the insurance cost sounds grossly inflated). But a small markup on the published shipping rate is fine; as both a buyer and a seller on Ebay, I think it's actually unfair to expect to pay the exact published shipping rate that you might find on a shipping company's web site.

// Jeff Williams // snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com

Reply to
Jeff Williams

No. But apparently it's OK to post misinformation like this.

Reply to
Mark Mathu

_I_ caught it.

Jay CNS&M North Shore Line - "First and fastest"

Reply to
JCunington

If anyone does that to you, let a postal inspector know. Call the Postal Inspector's number in the Post Office's area of the government section of your phone book. Or call your local postmaster. If he doesn't know the number, he can get it.

If the offender also happens to be a postal employee, he'd be in REAL big trouble. The post office takes a very a dim view of rules breakers.

Jay CNS&M North Shore Line - "First and fastest"

Reply to
JCunington

I guess in your hurry to be an obnoxious ass in a response, you missed the "IIRC" at the start of my sentence.

Heaven forbid somebody might make an honest mistake..

Reply to
Sean S

"IIRC" is hardly an excuse for posting incorrect information when the correct information is readily available.

eBay Policies : Excessive Shipping/Handling

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Reply to
Mark Mathu

Here's some correct information for you...

You're an asshole.

Reply to
Sean S

AMEN!!!!

-- Jim McLaughlin

Please don't just hit the reply key. Remove the obvious from the address to reply.

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Reply to
Jim McLaughlin

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------------------------ "Jeff Williams" wrote

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Williams, You're more ignorant than the other guy.

Not only can you NOT charge anything you want for shipping (eBay has a rule forbidding jacking up s/h in order to avoid Final Value Fees (commission), but at least three states have passed consumer fraud laws dealing with this issue since eBay has become so popular. 2 of those states are OK & OR. Shipper can't markup s/h by more than $5.00 over actual cost.

Reply to
Dont Know My Name

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"Sean S" wrote

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Mark Mathu seems to have his share of detractors among this group's members.

The truth of the matter is, the morons among us are a little jealous of those better educated posters, especially the ones that can shoot from the hip and later backup their comments with factual documentation.

Sean, you're a horse's ass for being correct in the beginning of this thread, but then changing your beliefs based on misinformation posted by Jeff Williams. Typical emotional behavior of a minor.

Reply to
Dont Know My Name

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"Steve Hoskins" wrote

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Sorry, you must have been victim of another poster failing to properly attribute previous posts. I am "(Dont Know My Name)", the original poster and I'm also the one who posted whatever comments you were referring to when you posted this message: "And just HOW do YOU know those rates?"

Not having a sense of humor is something *I* have never been accused of.

I suspect Jim McLaughlin might fall into that category.

Reply to
Dont Know My Name

I've been called worse ... lol.

One of the problems is, eBay isn't real clear about the issue in their pages dealing with S&H issues. On one hand, they say it's OK to charge any shipping fee up front as long as the set amount is disclosed in the auction description ... but then claim the costs must be reasonable ... while not sayig what exactly constitutes a "reasonable" total.

Of course, eBay's lack of clarity is probably one of the very reasons two states felt it important enough to get involved.

The fun part is, watching the sellers and buyers try and justify their positions on eBay's forum. One seller actually claimed that if they stop for lunch on their way to ship an eBay item, they could include it in the handling charge because it was done during part of the transaction!

Reply to
Sean S

Mud-slinging doesn't change the fact that you put out incorrect information.

Reply to
Mark Mathu

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