@sherbetlemon63 wrote:
"Must be just me and the OP then"
Not just you imastawka at all, what is wrong with you all. I'm a seller for over 10 years and there is no way I would charge a cost of a satchel or box and put in a cheap envelope. Getta outta here!
Blatant postage profiting and against eBay policy. If you can send via a cheaper postage option than what you have listed, refund, simple.
It's like any other service-based industry. My landlord likes to complain to me all the time about the shonks who try to overcharge her for the work she wants done around the place - one gardener quotes $2000, another quotes $500. One company quotes $1500 for the installation of an AC, another one $1000, and you can bet the cost of the air-con is pretty much the same for both of them, and you can also bet you can only make an assumption about the quality of the work / service each one will provide (with perhaps being somewhat informed if there are customer reviews available somewhere). Point is, just because someone is charging more than someone else, it doesn't mean the more expensive one are "scammers".
There is no such thing as "postage profiting" IMO - well, there are exceptions, if I request (and pay for) an express service, and the seller uses standard then pockets the difference, then they have deliberately profited. As a seller, I am fully aware that when someone (professional or casual) sits down and decides how much they want to receive for a particular sale, they don't make any more or less than their total just because they put X amount in column A and Y amount in column B. That seller may well have decided to make $8.50 their flat rate for whatever reason (I use flat rate postage because it simplifies everything, I don't have to adjust, reinvoice, issue refunds, buyers know P&H costs up front, don't have to wait around, can get a good discount if they buy multiple items, and don't have to pay postage several times over as they would if I tried to incorporate a free post model), so perhaps knew full well the top could be posted for less, but lowered the price they asked for it by $6.00 to continue to streamline their model.
Like I said, I get why it leaves a bad impression, and if the seller came to the forum asking for advice, I would advise them to rethink their postage policy because it has the potential to give their customers a very bad impression, as we have witnessed, but that doesn't change the fact that you can't presume your impressions, presumptions etc based on what you do are correct or factual, or that it means the seller "ripped" someone off.
