Seller charged 75% more for postage than what it cost to send

[wizz_2026]

Hi, I recently purchased an item and paid $8:25 postage.  When I received it, the postmark sticker said it cost the seller $2:10 to post.  The item was in a recycled plastic bag which was put in an A4 envelope, so packaging costs were minimal.  When I queried the postage discrepancy, the seller said it was because their Post Office was a 20 km round trip.  They said the postage and travel actually cost them more than $8:25, suggesting that they had somehow done me a favour in only charging me that amount.

Does anyone think this is unreasonable?  My one bugbear about postage is when seller's appear to be creaming profit from it.

[davewil1964]

OP is unlikely to still have an interest, a year later

[4green2000]

1 year old thread rears its ugly head..as i said in other threads, they should be locked say after 6 months and deleted after 1 year..!!

[davidc4430]

really a new thread would have been better

however if a seller charges a premium for postage making a buyer think they will be getting a premium postal service then posts via a cheap nasty way, well

they will end up with negs and not being able to sell

good sellers have long careers 

bad sellers lose the ability to sell

[heihachi_73]

Just mark their postage stars down if they do that. If they charge for Parcel Post and send the item as a letter instead *without tracking*, give them a big old 1 out of 5 for postage, which will put a dent in their account. Neutral and negative feedback doesn't do anything to people's accounts anymore, but it might be worth telling others that they sent the item as a large letter after you paid $5 more for the parcel rate.

[padi*0409]

Might be a "Pot/Kettle" moment, their P and H stars have taken a beating...................just sayin'

[carouselfetish]

The eBay policy is that they're not allowed to charge for that sort of travel etc. Take action and report it, is my advice.

[carouselfetish]

Why do people get riled about 'old threads' anyway? The topic is still relevant to someone. Let it go for anyone who needs it, I say.

[springyzone]

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@carouselfetish wrote:

Why do people get riled about 'old threads' anyway? The topic is still relevant to someone. Let it go for anyone who needs it, I say.

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I don't know about riled, but it can be a bit annoying on a couple of fronts.

I know I've been caught out at times, see a thread title at the top of the list and read a few of the posts, answer one, only to realise the person i replied to posted years back. That means that they may not even be around anymore.

But I think one of the main problems with old threads is that ebay policies change over time.

Some of the old threads that come up are pages long & they could be full of info that is no longer correct, so it's not going to help anyone.

If a person wants info on a topic, they'd probably be better off to start a new thread.

I blame the old thread problem on ebay & whoever runs these boards actually. They would be better off to lock threads that are over 12 months old, make them view only. That way people could still read them but would have to start a new thread if they wanted to ask a question.

[chameleon54]

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@carouselfetish wrote:

The eBay policy is that they're not allowed to charge for that sort of travel etc. Take action and report it, is my advice.

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Not trying to be smart or deliberately argumentative, but is this advice actually true ?  I took you at your word and went to the site map and searched postage policies for quite a while trying to find the policy you refer to. I couldn't find it. In fact I couldn't find any reference at all to sellers charging more than the actual postage costs.

Please provide a link to the policy as I am genuinely interested to read it. If its not true and just hearsay, its probably better not to make those sorts of claims on these pages as it just perpetrates urban myths and misleads other buyers into believing sellers are disregarding ebay policy when they may not have done anything wrong.

It may be another very good example of why it is best not to drag up old threads. Possibly there was such a postage policy many years ago, ( before ebay began charging sellers commission fees on postage maybe ? ) but it might not be relevant any more. I do remember hearing something about the policy you refer to years ago but have never actually seen it written anywhere.

[k1ooo-slr-sales]

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@chameleon54 wrote:

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@carouselfetish wrote:

The eBay policy is that they're not allowed to charge for that sort of travel etc. Take action and report it, is my advice.

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Not trying to be smart or deliberately argumentative, but is this advice actually true ?  I took you at your word and went to the site map and searched postage policies for quite a while trying to find the policy you refer to. I couldn't find it. In fact I couldn't find any reference at all to sellers charging more than the actual postage costs.

Please provide a link to the policy as I am genuinely interested to read it. If its not true and just hearsay, its probably better not to make those sorts of claims on these pages as it just perpetrates urban myths and misleads other buyers into believing sellers are disregarding ebay policy when they may not have done anything wrong.

It may be another very good example of why it is best not to drag up old threads. Possibly there was such a postage policy many years ago, ( before ebay began charging sellers commission fees on postage maybe ? ) but it might not be relevant any more. I do remember hearing something about the policy you refer to years ago but have never actually seen it written anywhere.

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you are right in a number of the things you say.

I couldn’t find anything about what you can’t charge for through the site map.  It used to be covered in the postage policy pages and included that you couldn’t charge for travel costs, parking fees or your time involved in posting.  What you could do is have a P&H charge and not specify a breakdown of that charge.  The amount charged must be “reasonable”, but that word is open to interpretation.

It is a good reason for locking old threads.

Advice that is relevant to sellers is to have a reasonable P&H charge and do no provide a breakdown explaining how you arrived at such a figure.  If a member asks for a breakdown you do not have to provide one, simply reply with “My P&H charge is within eBay guidelines for P&H”.  If they ask/insist on further details then I would block them as they would be, in my opinion, a potentially troublesome buyer who would ding my DSRs and/or make mention of P&H in feedback.