Global Shipping Never ever again, under any circumstances.

[yarra.man]

Well what a pearler. I will never ever use it again. Over rated, over priced and incredibly slow. I am a keen modeller and on one occasion I was after some model decals from the US. The seller advised (admittedly he was not en experienced seller) that he would combine post for 2 sets of decals (about the thickness and size of say 6 stamps combined in area) and refund the rest. Well as it turns out GSP combined alright and it cost me over $35 US to Australia AND IT TOOK OVER 2 WEEKS!!!!

I complained about this and of course nothing was refunded by the seller and they pretty well told me to get stuffed, so I took it directly to EBay who told me hard luck. Given they were in an ENVELOPE the regular price being USD 1.85 and they charged me USD 28, it was over 15 times the cost of a similar First Class envelope.

WORK IT OUT YOURSELF.

More recently I bought a digital picture converter, I got the converter for $15 US and post was 55 USD. and it took over 3 weeks US to Australia.

NEVER EVER AGAIN.

[lyndal1838]

When the GSP is used the seller cannot combine postage.  Postage is applied to each item that you buy.....buy one item and pay one lot of postage.....buy 3 items and pay 3 lots of postage.   The seller has no say in it and the postage does not go to the seller.....it is paid directly to the GSP shipper.

The only way for a seller to give cheaper postage is to create a listing for you with all your items in it.  As long as he enters the correct weight and dimensions for the item then the postage should be cheaper.

I have seen other members come to the boards complaining about the high cost of sending envelopes through the GSP.....sellers are obviously not entering the correct dimensions as the service is supposed to be for parcels, not letter rate mail.

As for slow....no-one would disagree with you there.  If you only waited 2 or 3 weeks you were very lucky.....Pitney Bowes must be getting their act together as in the past I waited 5 weeks for one parcel and 6 weeks for another and I am in Sydney so no slow delivery once it reached Australia.

The only thing the GSP is good for is large and heavy items....it is extremely cost effective for those items.

The GSP has been in use for several years now and it has not imporved at all.....I suggest you have a look around the boards and see what experiences other members have had with it.

No-one wants to use it but unfortunately it is becoming more widespread as sellers love it...they are fully protected with insurance and ebay removes any bad feedback connected with the GSP.

Soon it will be a case of accept the GSP or don't buy from smaller sellers in the UK or USA.....these days it is mainly large business sellers who use the cheaper USPS or Royal Mail options.

[*tippy*toes*]

You need to look harder. The model decals and parts that I buy are not only cheap, they are free postage too. Some come from Aus, some come from the US. I guess it depends on what models you are referring to. They place I buy from doesn't sell them for everything ever invented.

[springyzone]

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@yarra.man wrote:

Well what a pearler. I will never ever use it again. Over rated, over priced and incredibly slow. I am a keen modeller and on one occasion I was after some model decals from the US. The seller advised (admittedly he was not en experienced seller) that he would combine post for 2 sets of decals (about the thickness and size of say 6 stamps combined in area) and refund the rest. Well as it turns out GSP combined alright and it cost me over $35 US to Australia AND IT TOOK OVER 2 WEEKS!!!!

I complained about this and of course nothing was refunded by the seller and they pretty well told me to get stuffed, so I took it directly to EBay who told me hard luck. Given they were in an ENVELOPE the regular price being USD 1.85 and they charged me USD 28, it was over 15 times the cost of a similar First Class envelope.

WORK IT OUT YOURSELF.

More recently I bought a digital picture converter, I got the converter for $15 US and post was 55 USD. and it took over 3 weeks US to Australia.

NEVER EVER AGAIN.

---

I agree with you in that I would be very cautious buying again from anyone using this type of shipping. It does sound overpriced.

All the same, I would never expect anything to come from US for $1.85 or anything like it, even in an envelope.

I send birthday cards to US & the normal price was over $2.50 last time & that was just ordinary post, no tracking as far as I know. Postage to US is not cheap.

I just looked it up & for letters it seems to be $2.95 now for a letter up to 50g & by registered post, that would be $15.90.

If GSP won't combine & they treated your purchases separately, then I presume US prices to Australia are similar so you could easily be looking at over $30. Ouch.

But I feel for the seller too as they have probably actually paid this postage amount or close to it  to get the items sent, so I can understand they wouldn't feel like refunding you.

Probably the best thing is to only buy overseas from ads where the postage cost is up front & known before you bid or else specifically quoted by the seller.

One good thing (admittedly not for you) is that your post has alerted people to the potential costs of buying from US now.

[lyndal1838]

Springy, the seller does not pay for the GSP shipping....they do not even receive it from the buyer so cannot refund it.

The paypal payment is divided into 2 sections.....the seller gets the item cost and the shipping goes directly to Pitney Bowes.

The sellers posts the item to Erlanger KY so they have absolutely no idea how much the buyer is paying.

The GSP cost is up front in the listing....it is not hidden so buyers can avoid it.  The only thing that is not stated is that there is no combined postage which can be a trap for anyone wanting to buy multiple items.

[springyzone]

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@lyndal1838 wrote:

Springy, the seller does not pay for the GSP shipping....they do not even receive it from the buyer so cannot refund it.

The paypal payment is divided into 2 sections.....the seller gets the item cost and the shipping goes directly to Pitney Bowes.

The sellers posts the item to Erlanger KY so they have absolutely no idea how much the buyer is paying.

The GSP cost is up front in the listing....it is not hidden so buyers can avoid it.  The only thing that is not stated is that there is no combined postage which can be a trap for anyone wanting to buy multiple items.

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Thanks for the info. I don't sell internationally nor do I buy often from overseas so didn't really know how GSP would work, though I did assume it was a system where the postage cost was not set by the seller, it was dictated by the company if the seller opted in, and so it seems.

Under the circumstances, the seller certainly would not be prepared to refund anything and in that way, I can't say as I blame them, especially if the actual postage cost is in the listing.

It would be a rude shock though if you were expecting combined postage. If the decals are only the size of stamps they could possibly all have gone together but maybe the only way to arrange that, if a seller uses GSP, would be to make a special ad just for a buyer, where the items they wanted were all in the one sale.

[4channel]

I hear you yarra man. I have used it 3 times.

* First time I  never recieved my goods.

* Second time, seller couldn't work out how to change it to the much less expensive option of USPS. OK, I decided to go through with the vile process of using Global Shipping / Pitney Bowes as I really needed the items. They were rare and I would never get them again!'

* Third time I didn't know that it was a Global Shipping / Pitney auction as there was no indicator. And to this day still not resolved properly.

Global shipping is like the Genetic Modifier / Agrichemical company of postage.

* Just like those 3 main GM companies that screw with the DNA of our food, making people sick, the farmers go along with it unwittingly because they just go with the flow and have it forced on them. The end result, people lose the right to have a say what goes in to their mouths and get sick as a reult.

* The sellers are like those farmers, they unwittingly go along with it, many just go with the flow and some feel they have it forced on them. Many don't know any better. The end result, poor buyers and collectors are paying, double ...  triple ...  quadruple postage.

Totally disgraceful and unfair!

[4channel]

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@lyndal1838 wrote:

.

The GSP has been in use for several years now and it has not imporved at all.....I suggest you have a look around the boards and see what experiences other members have had with it.

No-one wants to use it but unfortunately it is becoming more widespread as sellers love it...they are fully protected with insurance and ebay removes any bad feedback connected with the GSP.

Soon it will be a case of accept the GSP or don't buy from smaller sellers in the UK or USA.....these days it is mainly large business sellers who use the cheaper USPS or Royal Mail options.

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Actually lyndal, out of all the sellers I have spoken to. None of them love it! They just accept it or don't know how to change it. Many of them despise it but don't know what to do.

I only came across one seller that appeared to agree with it, not for any of the reasons you gave but because he was a "nya nya nya-nya nya " type of seller. Almost arrogant and quite uppity. I asked him nicely but he wasn't interested. And he was selling duplicated stuff on DVD-R as well. Public domain stuff but $1 copied dvds thatcould be sent for $6 and with Global Shipping it would be $18 or more.

[4channel]

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@4channel wrote:

I hear you yarra man. I have used it 3 times.

* First time I  never recieved my goods.

* Second time, seller couldn't work out how to change it to the much less expensive option of USPS. OK, I decided to go through with the vile process of using Global Shipping / Pitney Bowes as I really needed the items. They were rare and I would never get them again!'

* Third time I didn't know that it was a Global Shipping / Pitney auction as there was no indicator. And to this day still not resolved properly.

Global shipping is like the Genetic Modifier / Agrichemical company of postage.

* Just like those 3 main GM companies that screw with the DNA of our food, making people sick, the farmers go along with it unwittingly because they just go with the flow and have it forced on them. The end result, people lose the right to have a say what goes in to their mouths and get sick as a reult.

* The sellers are like those farmers, they unwittingly go along with it, many just go with the flow and some feel they have it forced on them. Many don't know any better. The end result, poor buyers and collectors are paying, double ...  triple ...  quadruple postage.

Totally disgraceful and unfair!

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Oh and I forgot to add that with * Second time, there were hassles getting items delivered. Yes I paid double postage price for the items but they were rare. There were hassles getting it delivered to me. I had a third party, Fed Ex I believe demanding personal details from me (This is info gathering folks) , under threat of sending my items back to the seller in the US.

We live in the "Nothing is Sacred"  aka "Your Privacy ... what privacy  (You aint got no privacy Sucka!") age now where info is bought and sold, traded etc!

So each one of my 3 experiences with Global Shipping/ Pitney Bowes is as distasteful as it comes.

[lyndal1838]

FedEx is the courier company who brings the items to Australia.  Pitney Bowes is the logistics company that is the intermediary between the seller and the courier company which actually transports the items.  FedEx is responsible for clearing the items through Customs and if PB has not put the relevant information on the packages they will contact you for clarification.

Believe me it is not unusual for PB to muck it up and FedEx has to clear up the mess once the package gets here.

As for sellers liking or not liking the GSP.....I am careful to avoid it at all costs now but in the early days when it was first being introduced sellers did love it because they only had to pay local postage to send it to KY, there were no Customs forms to fill in, the item was fully insured and tracked and the seller had no responsibility at all once the item reached KY.  If an angry buyer left bad feedback for slow/expensive delivery ebay kindly removed it so the seller was not impacted at all by a delivery system that was and still is an abject failure.

Perhaps sellers are now waking up to how bad the system really is for the buyers and are changing their minds about using it....let's hope so.   However, sellers could make it so much better if they learned how to work with the system instead.  If they input the correct weight and dimensions of the parcel it often changes to amount of postage to be paid.....the system is definitely skewed towards being more cost effective for large and heavy items.

I have seen buyers complaining about paying big $$$ for a couple of stickers being sent by GSP.   I don't understand this at all because the system is supposed to be for parcels, not very small items that should be sent in an envelope.  Sellers need to get with it and make sure they opt out of a system that does them a disservice.   If they cannot work out how to opt out they should ask.   The process has been posted on the Aussie boards a number of times.