$9 USA Security Charge

[brighttomato]

This has probably been asked before but I can't find any topics that answer my question..
I recently had a purchase from a US buyer (item was over 700 g) and unfortunately the $9 security charge was not added to the postage cost. The buyer paid immediately with Pay Pal and I am left with a payment which is $9 short. I called ebay to try and find out why their postage calculator is not adding the security charge and they were not helpful at all, could not give me an answer. I asked to raise a technical ticket but have no idea how long it will take them to get back to me. In the meantime I can't imagine what I should do to fix this. I have over 200 listings - do I start modifying all of them to remove US from the list? Contacting people after they purchased and asking for an additional payment is sure to tick them off - great way of getting a neg feedback.

Am I missing something? Has anyone else experienced this?

[brighttomato]

I think I may have found a reasonable solution:

Under the postage calculator there is an additional service called "Additional post to locations - buyers contact for costs" with a selection of countries. I am presuming that if I remove US from the Calculated postage option and add to that "additional post to locations" option, my items will still appear to US buyers in search but won't give them a postage cost calculation and they will be forced to request a finalised invoice before they can pay. Just wondering how I can check that.. Has anyone used that option?

[tcrazer]

I find this surcharge extortion. $9 dollars. how did they come up with this figure?  A couple of dollars, maybe, but $9 is just excessive

[***super_nova***]

I find this surcharge extortion. $9 dollars. how did they come up with this figure?  A couple of dollars, maybe, but $9 is just excessive

Maybe ask AP, but I had the impression that is not imposed by Australian government or AP, but the US government and it applies to all mail coming to the USA from anywhere.

[digital*ghost]

Maybe ask AP, but I had the impression that is not imposed by Australian government or AP, but the US government and it applies to all mail coming to the USA from anywhere.

The $9 is charged, collected and - more importantly - kept by Australia Post.

On the website, they say "due to security changes imposed by the US..." or something to that effect, which is kind of designed to demake people think it's a charge imposed by the US, but that isn't quite the case.

What it actually means is that the US basically said "we're not letting any mail come into this country unless it's been through certain security measures....and we're not going to subject incoming mail to those security measures."

So, the charge is to cover the costs incurred by AP for them to subject that mail to the security measures imposed by the US.

When the US made that change, many countries imposed a similar charge, Japan actually decided not to process outgoing US mail at all for a while. Australia is the only country that I know of that still imposes an additional charge.

[digital*ghost]

Demake isn't a word... :_| (it was meant to just say make).

[brighttomato]

The $9 is charged, collected and - more importantly - kept by Australia Post.

On the website, they say "due to security changes imposed by the US..." or something to that effect, which is kind of designed to demake people think it's a charge imposed by the US, but that isn't quite the case.

What it actually means is that the US basically said "we're not letting any mail come into this country unless it's been through certain security measures....and we're not going to subject incoming mail to those security measures."

So, the charge is to cover the costs incurred by AP for them to subject that mail to the security measures imposed by the US.

When the US made that change, many countries imposed a similar charge, Japan actually decided not to process outgoing US mail at all for a while. Australia is the only country that I know of that still imposes an additional charge.

AP is ridiculously expensive (particularly international postage) and is one of the major reasons why Australian on-line businesses cannot compete on the world market. Perhaps if less $$ was spent on cheesy multi-million dollar "Zing" campaigns they would not have to charge these enormous charges for God knows what.

[kustomizer99]

AP sure is ridiculous.... it will cost over $14 for me to send a 76 page magazine overseas, with minimal packaging. That's way more than the cost of printing and the cost of listing on eBay combined. I'm sure it's all but killed any potential overseas sales.

[phorum_junkie*]

AP is ridiculously expensive (particularly international postage) and is one of the major reasons why Australian on-line businesses cannot compete on the world market.

It is no more expensive than Royal Mail in the UK and at least you can use AP to send parcels weighing up to 20kg overseas. In the UK anything over 2kg is handled by a different service, Parcelforce, and costs considerably more.

[kustomizer99]

True, UK mail is also a rip-off but nowhere near as bad as AP.

Postage in the USA is generally less than half whatt we pay here, and tracking is completely free.

[brighttomato]

True, UK mail is also a rip-off but nowhere near as bad as AP.

Postage in the USA is generally less than half whatt we pay here, and tracking is completely free.

Exactly!