Won Item, Paid for it, Postage Cost is incorrect

[4bytes]

On Tuesday 10th of August I made a bid on a scale model vehicle that is located in the United Kingdom. I only made the bid with two hours left on the listing and with myself being the only bidder I won the auction & paid right away (as I always do). For what it is the Postage cost to Australia came out somewhat cheap so I thought I'd be getting a good deal here on the postage. The item would be shipped without going through the GSP (according to Ebay). I'd still be paying the small import cost (I think it is 10% off the top of my head) which is fine, no problems with that. The winning price was 60 Pounds which when you convert all of this to Australian Dollar at this time of writing this post, it comes close around to $135 – $140 AUD.

I got a message just this Wednesday (11th August) from the seller saying they've never shipped to Australia and will have to check the costs. I sent them a message just saying "Thank you for getting in touch with me, Please let me know what the available options are for postage and I'll look into it". I understand that when you've won something on Ebay it is a done & done deal and you can't just go canceling.

After I sent that message the seller responded again not soon after and just told me again it will be shipping from the UK and they'll be in touch with me again ASAP. It was only Wednesday at the time I received this message.

Tonight (14th August) Seller has messaged me again saying they've been quoted between £15 and £18 and are asking me to pay the additional cost of the item and they will post it ASAP, proof of postage will be sent to me (whether that is before or after I pay the postage I don't know), I'm not seeing any buttons to pay additional cost because probably I've already paid for the item?

As I've never really dealt with this situation before on Ebay what should I do? do I go through and pay the new shipping cost (remember I already paid for the shipping cost when I won the auction originally) and if that is the case how do I exactly pay for it? What are my options or what should I do to ensure I don't muddle up anything for both of us?

A bit lost here as I've never encounted this issue before and the few times I've purchased internationally postage costs have been correct & never an issue.

[digital*ghost]

LMAO, we all have ethics sugar, some of ours just happen to be different. 

I've never asked or made one of my buyers to pay for one of my mistakes, either (quite the opposite). Strangely, this doesn't preclude me from having empathy when someone else makes a mistake, and working with them. 

[springyzone]

I think ethics can be a difficult thing to define to the nth degree.

No doubt some would say my ethics are dubious but what I tend to look at is what is overall fair in the circumstances, rather than keeping to the letter of the law.

As I said earlier, in the past when selling, we covered our own mistakes & there were even very occasional times we sent things to people for free plus fully refunded if we found we had neglected to mention a fault which we thought may have caused a person not to buy at the original price. But we're talking smallish items. Goodwill gestures.  Maybe a shortfall of up to $10 here and there.

By my ethics, if there is a genuine mistake made on the part of a seller, he or she should not feel obligated to sell at that price. For instance if I listed a car at $11,950 and found someone had snapped it up because I had accidentally typed $1,195, I would not honour the transaction, simple as that. But if i had typed $11,900 then yes, I'd follow through as I'd be willing to absorb that difference. To me though, with an error, it is a goodwill gesture rather than a moral directive.

In the same way, as a buyer, let's say you were the person who snapped up the car at $1,195 and then the owner told you of the error. Is it ethical to then (knowing of the error) insist the seller should hand it over at that price? I'm not sure it is. It smacks of opportunism.

So on ebay I'd be willing to stretch the letter of the law a bit at times to get what I think is an overall fair result, regardless of exact rules and conditions. In the instance of a seller who genuinely underquoted on postage if I really wanted the item and the new postage rate did seem fair, I'd probably compromise and pay the difference.

But that's me and each buyer would have to decide for themselves as there is no moral obligation (in my eyes) either way, to pay extra or not.