Seller asking for more money for shipping

[libert_5033]

Hi All,

I recently purchased an item from a seller in Italy. As usual, the listing specifically outlined the price and the shipping costs. After confirming the purchase I immediately paid via PayPal.

After a couple of days, the seller contacted me to say that he may require more money to ship the item to Australia where I am based. He said that he was going to check another shipping service to see if he could honour the listed price and that if not he would include a free gift with the packaging to compensate for the cost. I wasn't so concerned about the free gift but appreciated that he was trying to resolve the situation amicably.

Then he messaged me again a couple of days later advising that he had now sent the item and that I had to pay him additional funds - he had not confirmed a new price with me prior to sending to ensure I was willing to pay it (and also hadn't included any "free gift"). The postage he is now asking for is double the original postage cost.

Furthermore, he asked me to sent this to him by PayPal as a "Friends and Family" payment so he could avoid costs. He quickly sent me a money request via PayPal.

I sent him a message saying that what he was now asking pushed the cost of the item far above what I would have been willing to pay but he insisted that this is normal procedure and that I had to pay him.

I can see by tracking the item that he has shipped it already and I do have a tracking number, but I know for a fact that asking for extra payment is against ebay terms and conditions and I have also heard that making an additional payment for an item can void my PayPal protection.

So my question is, is there any merit in what the seller is saying and am I in any way obliged to pay the extra? As I already have the tracking number presumably there is not much he can do to stop the shipping but I would rather not have the negative feedback when I haven't done anything wrong.

I'm not a regular user of ebay so any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks

[jellybirddesigns]

You are under zero obligation to pay more that what was asked - it is the sellers problem if they did not calculate the correct postage. Ignore any attempts to try and solicit further fund from you. In fact, the whole thing sounds a bit dodgy.

I would also wait until the item is safely in your hands before leaving any type of feedback. 

Sellers cannot leave negative feedback for buyers - that option went out the window 10+ years ago. If they leave feedback, it will have to be positive. On the other hand, you are free to leave whatever feedback you prefer.

How much extra did they try and request from you?

[ramcycle2010]

jellybirddesigns is spot on, it's not your problem if the seller miscalculated the postage.

I've had this happen to me, a seller asked me for more money because he had underestimated the postage for something I had purchased and paid for. I refused, so he cancelled the transaction. I then left honest feedback which negatively affected his feedback score.

If your seller doesn't play nice and own his mistake, he deserves the honest feedback you are entitled to leave.

[springyzone]

The others are right and you are not obliged to pay any more than what has been charged.

It's hard to give you definite advice on this because we don't know the cost of the original postage or the new cost. Nor the experience of the seller.

I do think the seller should have offered you a couple of choices. First, a cancellation and second,  postage of the item for an exact amount extra, so you knew where you stood before making any decision.

He has gone about things in the wrong way. He has paid the dearer postage and posted the item, then demanded the extra.

However, I noticed there had been prior communication with you and I think it is possible you may have replied to him with something along the lines of 'I would appreciate that' when he offered to look round for a better postage deal. It could even be that the postage deal he did get was marginally better than the original carrier was offering, we don't know.

You are under no obligation. I would reply that I would wait until receiving the item. Once I did receive it, I'd ve having a look to see if the postage rate was on the parcel and if you could see it was quite a bit more than what you had paid for, maybe making a partial refund of the extra cost, especially if he is a fairly new seller and has included a small gift.

That way, he would learn his lesson about just how ebay worked and that buyers did not 'have' to pay extra, but at the same time, he wouldn't lose out completely.

[libert_5033]

Thanks for your reply, you have very much confirmed my thinking on the matter. Postage was originally $20 and he then requested an additional $20.50. When I queried whether this was in line with ebay terms and conditions he withdrew the request on PayPal so I suppose that's the end of the matter!

[libert_5033]

Thanks for your reply. The item was a vinyl record. Postage was initially $20 and then he requested an additional $20.50.  This would have made postage much more expensive than the item itself and would have exceeded the maximum I would have paid for the item.

After he made the offer to look for cheaper postage I didn't even get the chance to reply before he sent me another message saying he'd posted it (at a cost no cheaper than he'd originally been quoted). If he'd had checked with me I would have said no and let him cancel the transaction if he wished.

He's a very experienced seller with hundreds of transactions so I guess it was an oversight, although he did get a bit aggressive after I queried it. His feedback is 100% so will give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was having an off-day. The record has been sent so will say no harm done.

[4channel]

I know that from Italy a vinyl record can be sent for much less than $40.50 Why did the seller gallop ahead like that without checking with you first?

I hope that you can see the stamp value when the record arrives. Anyway, take note of what the label says if not a stamp. I wouldn't leave a negative in this case. But if thinking of neutral, you can elect not to give him FB at all or a positive with a low star rating for postage costs or poor communication

Being an experienced seller, he should have an idea about international postage and getting the best commonsense  economical postage cost for his customer.

[springyzone]

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@libert_5033 wrote:

Thanks for your reply. The item was a vinyl record. Postage was initially $20 and then he requested an additional $20.50.  This would have made postage much more expensive than the item itself and would have exceeded the maximum I would have paid for the item.

After he made the offer to look for cheaper postage I didn't even get the chance to reply before he sent me another message saying he'd posted it (at a cost no cheaper than he'd originally been quoted). If he'd had checked with me I would have said no and let him cancel the transaction if he wished.

He's a very experienced seller with hundreds of transactions so I guess it was an oversight, although he did get a bit aggressive after I queried it. His feedback is 100% so will give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was having an off-day. The record has been sent so will say no harm done.

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Those details do make all the difference.

The main thing is he is an experienced seller and by the sounds of it, possibly even running a small business on ebay. That changes things completely, as far as I am concerned.

I see your feedback rating here is 11. 

An experienced seller should know how ebay works and the fact he told you that it was correct you had to pay extra sounds to me like someone trying to bluff a newbie.

As you say though, no harm done as the record has been sent. I'd guess that the record probably did cost him some extra to post but that was his mistake in calculation, not yours and if he posted the record off without even waiting for your response, then I would not be refunding any extra. For a very inexperienced seller I might take some pity, but not for a very experienced one.