eBay's postage fee... here we go again!

[backlogs]

Hello to everybody who might happen to read this.

I only use this account to browse on ebay to get an idea of prices for items I list elsewhere.

I'll never sell or buy on ebay ever again due to their illegal postage fee.

I know this has been covered so many times and I know there's been so much information and links to the relevant websites, but the following information and link to the ACCC website proves in a nutshell (as far as I'm concerned) that what they do from profiting from a service they don't provide is illegal as much as ACCC or any organisation does nothing about - so it's up to the individual to take a stance against them just like I have, but instead of rambling on about what I'm doing on behalf of all Australian ebay users and to make ebay pay back every cent they've stolen... here's the information and link to the ACCC website:

The Australian consumer law prohibits businesses from misleading consumers (ie: their illegal postage fee should be displayed next to the postage cost just as GST has to be displayed).  It also prohibits them from accepting payment (for products and/or services) if they do not intend to supply (those same products and/or services).

http://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/sales-delivery/non-delivery-of-products-services

I'll leave that with yourselves and whether you take a stance against them too is totally up to yourselves.  Everyone knows (or should know) that this place if "rife" with unfair business practices and policies, but when they conduct in illegal activities and decide to steal money from the very people who make them money then that's my justification for my own stance against them.

Cheers!

[backlogs]

Hi again, I'm back from my relaxing fishing trip and with plenty of time to start packing things to post that I've sold on “other sites”.

Looking through the comments, none of them appear to be from buyers and the stance I'm taking against ebay is also on behalf of buyers as it's their money in question too.

When I received the email from ebay (to my now closed accounts) regarding the introduction of their illegal postage fee the email came to my spam folder so I had to go the public library to read it instead of putting my own computer at risk. But why would such an email end up in my spam folder when ebay is in my contacts list?

Every ebay account holder was “supposed” to be informed of their illegal postage fee but I wonder how many received the same email to their spam folders? In which case the email could quite possibly have been deleted.

And I also wonder why “each and every” ebay buyer I've ever spoken to had no idea such a fee existed until I told them and as I'll continue to spread the truth to let people know where their money is going.

I stuck around ebay for a good while after their illegal postage fee was introduced hoping to be part of a class action against them which never happened but could very well still happen which I'm hopeful for.

Then came their next money grabber which was purely designed for sellers who choose to sell smaller items that can be posted (within Australia) for a couple or so stamps. So instead of getting (with a small button badge as an example) 14 cents extra for the postage cost of $1.40, that same item must now be sent with tracking information with a registered post prepaid label being the cheapest way of doing so, so they now get between 45 and 50 cents extra (per item through this example) depending on whether the labels are bought in bulk or individually. So that was it for me as much as it's a full scale nightmare having to cancel every advert before an account is even established on other sites but I done so anyway, and regarding the class action which I do still hope for I have a record of every sale I've ever had along with the email records which I'll always have too.

Some of the comments are against what I mentioned but why shoot the messenger for revealing the truth?

My stance against ebay is more than you could imagine which I'm doing on behalf of others too, not just myself, as I don't like people being robbed or mislead as much as some people just accept it.

I've previously contacted the ACCC to absolutely no avail, all I got was the same copy and paste that everyone else got, so in this case I tried a different approach which the ACCC is now aware of too as I've since let them know.

I pretended to be a business owner who found a loophole where I can profit from a service that I or my (phantom) company don't provide, and the response I received was far better than I ever expected which included the link I provided. So the ACCC, as much as they say nothing against ebay, most definitely said more than enough when it comes to a normal everyday business owner regardless of how fake that business owner may be – but that's what I had to do to assist in my stance against them and the ACCC's response certainly done more than that.

Regarding a small number of comments:

A sensible comment was from DG (digital ghost) who made reference to larger items that are purchased by overseas buyers, which was referring to how can the cost (of ebay's illegal postage fee) be factored into the sale price when there's no way of knowing what the cost will be until the item is sold.

For just one example of many for anyone who hasn't gave this any thought as ebay certainly hasn't - for a large item weighing just over 3.5kg with more overseas interest in it than Australian, or to give yourself a better chance of parting with it when Australia only accounts for approximately 0.3% of the global population, how could you possibly factor in their illegal postage fee when the difference could be the price of a large prepaid satchel (if sold within Australia) compared to over $130 for standard international air mail if the item was purchased by a buyer in the Middle East? And again, that's just one example of many and for an item with a value of $40... for example.

joe (with so many nuts in their mouth and can't stop saying mmmmmmm) wrote (as part of one comment) “it's just like the gov charging GST on tax” - well actually joe it certainly is not as GST has to be displayed in a clear manner for all to see so as people know where their money is going, so where next to the postage cost is ebay's illegal postage fee displayed? So that makes it misleading as well as being illegal.

Another comment stated a fact that nobody is forced to use ebay, but sadly it is still the dominant marketplace depending on the type of items you have for sale, so it's up to the other sites to advertise themselves better to hopefully take over as ebay is so full of unfair practices etc as every seller knows.

And in response to another comment from joe (with the mmmmmouthful of nuts) which has nothing to do with ebay's illegal postage fee. I only have this account for browsing and getting an idea of prices but I don't need an account for that so it's only for items being sold by auction that I choose to watch. Do the Good Guys, Harvey Norman, Dick Smith etc etc charge people for browsing on their websites for price comparisons? And how many of those people browsing on their sites are actually their competitors? But guess what? I am charged each and every time I'm on ebay due to their system cluttering sponsored adverts which eat into my internet download limit and what if I happen to have prepaid internet which thankfully is not the case? Some people recommend Ad Block or Ad Block Plus but that gives that company (and whoever they may be associated to) access to the very guts of computers or devices so why would I do that? So in this case “yes” I do get charged for browsing on ebay, thank you for asking. And regarding being charged for doing what I believe is at least advisory to others by leaving a comment... I can only imagine that strange thinking has something to do with those nuts stuck in your mmmmmmouth.

Cheers to all – or almost all!

[lyndal1838]

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@backlogs wrote:

Looking through the comments, none of them appear to be from buyers and the stance I'm taking against ebay is also on behalf of buyers as it's their money in question too.

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Perhaps you should go back and reread the answers.....the very first answer you received was from a buyer only as was the third answer.

As I have said many times....I don't understand why sellers are so up in arms over the postage fees.  Any seller who prices their items properly is passing the charges on to the buyer anyway.

[digital*ghost]

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@lyndal1838 wrote:

As I have said many times....I don't understand why sellers are so up in arms over the postage fees.  Any seller who prices their items properly is passing the charges on to the buyer anyway.

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For many of the same reasons sellers copmplain when Australia Post increases their prices.

Because, as I pointed out earlier, it's not always a simple matter of just passing the cost on to the buyer when the cost is going to be unknown. 

Increasing selling costs, as you point out, increases item prices. In order to actually pass the increased costs on to a buyer, a buyer has to be willing to pay the increased price. It also makes offering additional postage options (inclduding international) a lot more difficult to accomodate. 

Higher costs to sell on eBay means higher prices on eBay, and alternatives become more attractive - more alternatives are available to buyers than are available to sellers. (Well, in truth, more viable alternatives are available to buyers).  

Those are business concerns, other concerns are more related to the ethical side of things, which is just as worthy of discussion, JMO. 

To the OP, your question was posed on the selling on eBay forum, and the majority of regulars posting here are sellers. They also have the most concern about this issue because - as mentioned - a buyer can look anywhere they like for the same product at the best price, and how that price is made up is (more often than not) of little to no concern (GST on feminine hygiene products notwithstanding - that seemed to cause quite a bit of offence and uproar, and as such, I suspect the only real way to get the average consumer to care enough to protest - and loudly - would be if they had a full understanding of what the fee was costing them and how much cheaper things could be, thought it was unfair plus had no other option than to pay that fee - i.e. no alternative to eBay. That'd be an uphill battle because eBay is optional, and selling fees are the seller's responsibility to consider and deal with - especially when it comes to auctions, buyer decides the price, after opening bid anyway, and why should they care that the seller now gets a little less of the total?). 

Anyway, my point (I did have one 😄 ), is that every post in this thread is written by a buyer. 😉 Not necessarily eBay buyers, maybe, but this is my buying ID, so I feel qualified to refer to myself as one. What I can tell you purely from the perspective of a buyer is... Once upon a time I bought so much here that at one stage, I had an average of 70 items on their way to me for several weeks running. At this point in time, I have two. I haven't abandoned eBay as a buyer specifically because of the fee on postage, but because I get better prices elsewhere (wholly related, of course, but a slightly different reasoning behind the shift to alternative sites, by which I mean it's not what the seller pays that had me looking elsehwhere, but what I'm asked to pay). 

[digital*ghost]

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@aussie.grazing.boards wrote:
@digi

No offence taken, and you've raised very relevant issues. I figured out long ago that if your selling products that don't fit through the Auspost 20mm gauge, you're going to be pushing it up hill to make a profit, especially when competing with the Chinese sellers, who pay pitence in postage, and are not subject to the 20mm rule once their products hit our shore.

I'm slowly phasing out some of my bulky items and sticking to smaller products that slip through the 20mm gauge, with only $1.40 or $2.10 postage.

I also find that you are competing with sellers who do not put a return address on the items they sell, and are knowingly under paying postage. How can you compete with that? You can't. Unless you have an ABN and are registered wit auspost, and print false price postage labels on your items, and hope like hell auspost doesn't pick up on it.

I've often bought bulky items from Aussie sellers, who put a $1.40 computer generated label on it. But is an item thicker than 20mm and is really a $7.15 satchel type item. (Does that make sense?).

But again, this all boils back down to competition. It is the common denominator in everything that has been brought up in this thread, IMHO

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Sounds like we've taken a similar tactic 🙂  (I only have a couple of non-letter rate items now, whereas when I first opened my store, around 70% of items were parcel-rate. It wasn't that long ago I could send a package under 500g for less than $6, but once it hit the $7+ mark, I pretty much stopped buying anything that I couldn't send as a letter).

Shifting to letter-rate items - I believe - was a very good move at the time I did it, and it thankfully made the FVF on postage quite easy to deal with for me (I also use a flat rate system, meaning I charge the same for 1 or 100 items, so FVF is relatively fixed), but with all the upcoming changes (particularly to AP's letter pricing and two-speed delivery), I'm starting to feel that re-introducing some parcel-rate items might be of benefit - about 20% of orders I send out are 250g+ letters, current pricing $3.50, but next year it'll be min. $5.00, so the gap is getting smaller and smaller. I've actually started to phase out some of my lowest priced items and brought in higher priced alternatives (still letter rate, but I feel like having items with a retail value higher than postage costs is a little better - for impressions if nothing else. 

[davewil1964]

after their illegal postage fee was introduced

You might like to check with the ACCC and your local member of Parliament. Whilst immoral, the charges are NOT illegal.

And your insistence that they are affects your credibility.

[x3n0m]

I have been told by an excellent inside source that everthing that you have said is about to all happen next year,this country of ours is going to go on a downward spiral very fast most probably another recession on a larger scale than previous recessions.

A free trade agreement with a country where workers commonly earn 50 cents per hour where organ harvesting of innocents is a common practice, a country poised on militarily acquiring rich oil fields from their neighbours, a country that supports a tyrannical murderous regime .. and a trans pacific partnership that is being negotiated in secret by multi national corporations that our politicians are being wooed to sign on to  with no disclosure until after the fact!! .. no union oversight due to deregulation of industry to stop the student visa scams and our jobs being taken over by contracted labour at $5 to $10 per hour or less .. a property market that is being spruiked beyond what is affordable so that the well heeled can claim billions in negative geared welfare, not to mention all the corporate welfare, taxbreaks, tax-rorts and handouts to the filthy rich multi nationals bent on mega profits at any cost .. our health system systematically being dissassembled so that the parasitic insurance companies can dictate who gets treatment and who doesn't all so that they can make mega profits and our government regulating that we pay ever increasing amounts into the multi national rorting superannuation pansy scheme .. no preparations for the carbon trading scheme we are already signed to 7 years ago with the G8 which kicks in any day now, university degrees that cost $100,000 .. blind freddy should be able to see that all this must end in slavery and servitude for a very large portion of Australian society ..

[identity000614]

I AM VERY TICKED OFF WITH THE FEES ON POSTAGE AS WELL, BY NOW EBAY WOULD HAVE MADE A LOT ON MY POSTAGE. IT IS ALSO SNEAKY OF THEM TO INSIST SELLERS PROVIDE FREE POSTAGE SO THE AMOUNT OF FEES THEY CHARGED ARE NOT THAT OBVIOUS. I HAVE CONTACTED MAURICE BLACKBURN REGARDING. IT IS A VERY HIGH POSSIBLITY OF A CLASS ACTION BECAUSE THEY ARE CHARGING FOR A POSTAGE SERVICE, WHICH THEY ARE NOT A POSTAL COMPANY. MAURICE BLACKBURN HAVE BEEN VERY SUCCESSFUL IN HELPING THE COMMUNITY IN FIGHTING THE BIG CORPORATIONS OF TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE NORMAL EVERYDAY NOBODIES. WHAT I NEED IS AT LEAST 12 PEOPLE TO COME FORWARD FOR THE CLASS ACTION TO KICKSTART, THEN MAURICE BLACKBURN WILL START THEIR WORK. THERE ARE OTHER CONDITIONS TO BE MET TOO FOR EXAMPLE THE LENGTH OF TIME THEY HAVE BEEN DOING IT.  I CAN'T REMEMBER OTHER CONDITIONS. I ABONDONED THE IDEA BECAUSE, I WAS NOT SURE HOW I WAS GOING TO GET PEOPLE TO COME FORWARD.

[lyndal1838]

Actually ebay do provide a postal service that is roughly 10% less than Australia Post for similar services.

You can bet that the ebay lawyers have thought it all through very carefully so it is very doubtful that a class action would be successful.

And there is no way that ebay forces any seller to use Free Postage.   They still get their % whatever method a seller uses.

[identity000614]

No they don't that is the agreement they have with Australia Post. Ebay is not a postal service. You don't totally understand postage service, Ebay is an auction site. And what if sellers use other couriers. They can't restrict sellers to use Australia Post only otherwise they have to pay the 10%.

[identity000614]

I am not saying they forces sellers to use free postage, I am saying that the fees on postage is then not so obvious. It is harder to calculate the actual cost of the postage if ebay is to payback the fee charged.