topic Re: Is it even legal? in Selling

Is it even legal?

boatie_au — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 01:15:49 GMT

I have sold a luxury bag via ebay and during the postage process I have measured only size of the bag box and weighted then issued an ebay postage label. After arriving the post office, I have purchased a post office box to further protect the parcel. So the pracel box postage price was $23 and buyer received the item all good happy days.

But over a month later I have been issued with a huge $129 fee for "postage adjustment fees" since the actual postage dimension was slightly bigger (less weight). I just can't figure this out on top of my head how could this even happy, could this be prevented via posting stage I would happy to add bit extra fees to cover extra size of the parcel at the site but not getting hit by this huge totally unexpected bill after a month later.

Not sure what they doing to protect the seller's rights seems non

Re: Is it even legal?

love_of_cars — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 04:16:55 GMT

I assume it's Australia Post.

Get onto their website and start a support chat. State the tracking number and size / weight of the parcel and get them to look it up and explain to you what happened with the fee. It may well be an error and you can get refunded. The worst that will happen is they will point out where you went wrong and you can learn from it.

Re: Is it even legal?

gutterpunkz05 — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 06:02:27 GMT

Yes, charges for underpaid postage are legal and penalty payments may be applied on top of the postage recovery. $129 seems excessive unless your measurements were well understated. Contact ebay CS to question the charge.

Re: Is it even legal?

boatie_au — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 23:36:38 GMT

it is just a bag box with less than 2kg, not sure how they managed to work out with over $100 postage fee, eBay costumer service just ask me to push the ball to post office completely useless

Re: Is it even legal?

siddieswans — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 00:59:53 GMT

Trying to help here. You purchased an eBay postage label based on the size and weight of the original box. You then bought another larger box and presumably used the original postage label? Of course the new weight and size is going to be more, so naturally the cubic weight (over 1 kg) postage cost is going to cost more than the original label you purchased. If the eBay label was for Australia Post love_of_cars has given good advice about how to find out why the postage adjustment fee was so large. If it is eBay courier I have no idea.

Re: Is it even legal?

gutterpunkz05 — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 04:39:33 GMT

If it is over 1kg and you are not using flat rate packaging, then cubic weight applies, and is calculated from the exact parcel measurements, H W D all taken at the widest point.

Re: Is it even legal?

boatie_au — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 07:25:16 GMT

got that, I made a mistake back to then, but I was just a casual seller how would I possible know the additional fee would be that much? My point was there should be a pre-warning process to pay off additional weight in advance as when I purchased the postage label I did all measurements at home and I would simply get rid of the box if that was the case.

Re: Is it even legal?

davewil1964 — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 09:42:20 GMT

Any seller, casual or not, should be across what postage costs are and how they are calculated.

Re: Is it even legal?

gutterpunkz05 — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 09:56:22 GMT

Hi there, ebay issues a label based on the information you declare, they have no idea that additional charges have been applied by AP, until they are billed accordingly and then they will recover any outstanding postage and penalties from you.

Australia Post had a major clamp down on underpaid postage, and items now pass through automated weight and measure devices whilst in transit. Note this system is not foolproof, but unless you can prove otherwise you have little chance of having the charges reversed.

Re: Is it even legal?

sandypebbles — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 21:03:50 GMT

I'm not sure I follow the how would you possibly know part?

You know what information you put in eBay for the label

You know you then went and sent the item, in a larger box

Amount of the fee aside (which, yes I agree is pretty out there) you did know that the size of what you ended up posting was not what you 'told' eBay you were posting

Re: Is it even legal?

shoppingbag* — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 06:59:28 GMT

You should have taken it back home, cancelled the first label, re-measured and weighed the item and printed another label. There are warnings when you print the label to check the size and weight. Even if the parcel is 2mm over in size you can be fined heavily.

Re: Is it even legal?

smoothmotiontech — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 15:49:20 GMT

There should be no "heavy fines" for 2mm over.
In fact they don't "fine" you at all. Any additional charges are related to "what it would have been if calculated correctly" plus potentially a small processing fee. So no, 2mm over will NOT trigger "heavy fines".

They round up to the nearest cm so yes 2mm over could round up to another cm, and that 1cm more could tip it into a new price bracket if it goes over a certain cubic size. But that's just a cost recouping, "heavy fines" implies there is a crime here, which is not the case. It's just you being charged what you should have been charged if you had put the measurements in right.

Now does this $129 or whatever it was from the OP sound reasonable? Probably not. But without knowing what the parcel size and weight they put into the system, what the actual parcel size and weight was, if it went from a flat rate to a calculated rate, and where it was going from and to, we can't know. On the surface it sounds high and they should challenge it, because the scanning systems DO make mistakes sometimes. But either way it's not from "heavy fines"