Having been surprised at the latest postage ripoff from the USA, I have checked the Global Shipping they are now bound to.
US sellers are not bound to use this scheme.
What a deal for eBay. Your payment to the seller is split by PP into 2 separate parts.
One goes to the seller and the other to PITNEY BOWES who now do all the international postage.
Only for GSP items
The seller sends to a central post receiving area at local post costs. This is where PITNEY BOWES comes in.
They will dismantle the parcel and "repack" for international postage at a very expensive rate.
Repacking is unusual, and in general only happens if there is some doubt about the nature, origin or admissability of the item. It is not a standard practice. It woulkd be unlikely to happen if the seller provides correct item specifics, but they often do not.
Once the parcel is posted to you,
PB and everyone else associated with the sale now wash their hands of responsibility for the safety of your parcel.
The parcel is the responsibility of the shipper, and in fact the treatment of damage claims is better than the treatment of transit damage claims for items from non GSP sellers, since there is no need to waste money returning a damaged item. The buyer simply keeps it and gets a full refund, The seller keeps the payment for the item. The GSP insurer foots the bill.
If you find a seller using PB go the bottom of the page and you will see in the postage "to be paid to Pitney Bowes. Click on "learn more" and have a read of the PB/PP contract.
How do eBay and PP get away with it. I have stopped buying from the US for that reason.
I know of people who have had parcels from PP and are NOT happy with the service.
A unique combination of a complicated program with clueless sellers pretty well ensures unhappy buyers.
The seller packed the items in a cardboard box and bubble wrap, sent it to PP.PP in their wisdom repacked the items (in this case glass insulators) in newspaper and a postage bag. Guess what? The parcel contents were broken on delivery and the buyer has had one hell of a time trying to get a refund from PP.The seller is not at fault but PB sent fragile items in a post bag. Why do they have to repack items?
All accounts of cases like this need to be treated as just anecdotes unless some evidence is provided. Recycling them is as pointless as the original post. Since the reshipper is responsible for safe delivery, it is clearly bad business for them to reduce the chances of safe delivery.
Anyway, the point I am trying to make is, the seller is not responsible for the postage. They get nothing out of that PP & PB SHARE THE SPOILS,
The seller gets their domestic shipping cost. The 'spoils are probably pretty minimal in view of the costs involved.
hopefully that system NEVER reaches Australia. Aussie Post are expensive enough.
The system would never reach Australia because Australians do not have the same paranoid fear of overseas shipping so common among US based sellees. Also, the market scale is not there.
