Sellers with high postage

[taipan_qld]

I see people selling small items for say $30 with a large postage cost of like $500 (item located locally) which I think should  not be allowed , its almost ripping people off, I know you dont have to buy it but even if its worth $500+ if it was faulty then they only have to say they have no more stock and only have to back the $30 and keep the $500 postage as they dont have to reimbust the postage?

[jamesheagles]

I think its a tax thing, they claim the postage as a tax deduction. Also an incentive to buy from them as its also a tax deduction for the buyer.

[joz15au]

Not legally. Tax deductions have to be substantiated.  In the event of a tax audit they would get a rude shock if claiming $500 for postage and couldn't provide proof of expending that amount.

[daydreams_12]

Did you bother to look at the date of this thread?  Ebay introduced fees on postage many years ago to eliminate just this problem.  I very much doubt you will find the same thing happening today.

[heihachi_73]

eBay ended that loophole long ago, this topic has been lying dormant for five years.

The total item value (price + postage) is used for tax purposes (both eBay's cut and GST). So in other words, $11 + $8.95 postage is exactly the same as $19.95 with "free" postage. eBay won't actually allow people to list items with significantly higher postage than the item price, it comes up with an error message and won't list at all.

[cezm]

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@heihachi_73 wrote:

 eBay won't actually allow people to list items with significantly higher postage than the item price, it comes up with an error message and won't list at all.

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Postage cost has no correlation to item cost so I'm not sure why they do that.

I've sold a $10 book that cost $60 to post overseas without a problem

[south.coffee]

2020 is 'The Year of the Recycled Thread'.

Thanks for rehashing a 5 year old problem, fixed long ago by eBay. Move on...

[heihachi_73]

I had an old LCD handheld game at $2 a couple of years ago and eBay wouldn't let me drop it to $1 as long as it had $8.95 postage attached to it. The game was 3cm thick so there was no way it would have passed as a large letter despite weighing about 30 grams. I ended up just cancelling the thing as no-one was interested anyway.

[davewil1964]

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@heihachi_73 wrote:

I had an old LCD handheld game at $2 a couple of years ago and eBay wouldn't let me drop it to $1 as long as it had $8.95 postage attached to it. The game was 3cm thick so there was no way it would have passed as a large letter despite weighing about 30 grams. I ended up just cancelling the thing as no-one was interested anyway.

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Makes sense. Especially when the fees would be at least $1.50.