30 Day Baseball Card Challenge

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Totally Shipped Off!


Imagine winning this Carlton Fisk autograph off of eBay for $6.50.  Pretty awesome, right?


Now imagine having to pay $11.25 for shipping.  Let's just say... it killed my celebratory mood.



 

I was curious to see if the seller uses this strategy with all of his customers, so I went through his other eBay listings.  That's where I discovered that his other baseball cards had shipping rates ranging from $2.07 to $4.00.  So what's the deal?

I love showing off this card ;-)

Is my card going to be hand delivered by Ms. Upton?  I decided to ask the seller about his outrageous shipping rates.  His response:


Touche´ Mr. Mcromano-half!  It truly is my responsibility to bid based on the shipping price, which is why I sent payment immediately after reading the seller's response.

However... based on your original listing, the shipping fees were listed as:  Varies based on location and shipping method (see photo below).

Who in the heck assumes that it's going to cost themselves $11.25 for shipping?


By the way, the card wasn't delivered by Ms. Upton.  And guess what?  It only cost the seller $2.97 to ship.  Let's say we tack on another $2.03 for the padded envelope, gas, time, and ink.  That still only brings it up to $5 for shipping.  Which means he pocketed an extra $6.25.  I'm not amused.


Oh well... we bid and we learn.  I'm tempted to leave this guy neutral or negative feedback.  Am I out of line?  Also... can he leave me neutral or negative feedback in retaliation?

Interested in reading your feedback.

Happy Sunday and sayonara!

22 comments:

Mark said...

Sellers haven't been able to leave negative feedback for a couple years, so no need to worry about retaliation. Should you have checked shipping costs? Probably. But I agree it's worth a neg/neutral, or at the very least reporting him to ebay for fee avoidance.

Spiegel83 said...

Give him a negative response. That is a ridiculous shipping rate. The Fisk and Upton are sweet cards by the way.

unclemoe said...

At least give him a one star for reasonable shipping charges.

George said...

I would have told him that I was no longer interested in purchasing the card. That is unreasonable.

Captain Canuck said...

nail him with a huge negative... all one stars. It's idiots like him that ruin ebay.

oh, btw, $11.25 shipping is cheap for me... I haven't found a seller yet who doesn't charge at least $13 to ship to Canada....
and ebay wonders why their sales are down this quarter.....

Hackenbush said...

Most eBay people are good but I run into guys like that now and then myself. You're right to at least ding his stars and maybe leave a negative. Am I wrong though or is $17.50 shipped still pretty good for that card?

buckstorecards said...

I don't do a whole lot of ebaying, but when selling costly cards I refuse to have them sent without tracking and insurance. Heading stateside, that goes for about $16.00. However, I will also send a scan of the receipt from the Post Office to show that I'm not trying to soak them - that is the shipping cost.

Eric Bracke said...

That's a little bit slimy on the seller's part. I would have left a negative for charging that much. Still a really sweet card.

CaptKirk42 said...

Negative or Neutral and ding his shipping stars for unreasonable price. Here is an ebay story of mine where I gave the guy neutral feedback (told him I was going to before doing it and waited a week) plus for all the shipping cost related stars I only gave a one or two - I got a two card PWE yep PWE from an Ebay order I paid $4.14 shipping on. NO combined shipping and the guy sends in a PWE with 2 Forever Christmas stamps as the actual postage for the envelope. Fortunately the guy at least put both cards in penny sleeve and toploader but then just wrapped in some lined notebook paper around the two and put in a standard #10 business envelope. Fortunately both cards survived. The PWE showed the outline of the toploaders so I knew before opening the envelope contained a card or cards If the guy had sent in a regular bubble mailer I would have given positive feedback and all 5s on his stars. For a small amount of cards any shipping costs over $4 is ridiculous.

Dion's IP Autos only said...

There is no fee avoidance either since ebay charges fee based on item plus shipping so ebay gets there $$$$

Dion's IP Autos only said...

When I purchase on Ebay I always consider the shipping in my final bid and adjust bid to what i'm willing to pay. If it is not stated I ask them how much it would be before bidding. Was burned once so have learned assuming you have too Mr. Fuji. "Fool me once........." lol still a nice card for the $17.50 but would have been better at $12.

Dion's IP Autos only said...

Also, What is the swatch on the Upton card? Panties? Hmmmmmmm no that would be to much to ask for!

JediJeff said...

Negatives straight down. Nail the guy to the wall.

Baseball Nut said...

I would be ticked off with this too. That's why I never bid on an item unless the shipping amount is set. That way even if the shipping is clearly an overcharge I just reduce my max bid accordingly.

Something about this transaction doesn't pass the smell test. I have no idea if this is even possible, but can a seller adjust the shipping price after it looks like bidding is slow? Can a seller build several shipping scenarios and pick the highest one if they didn't quite get the price they had hoped?

Regardless, you have this seller on a technicality. The price for shipping that you paid $11.25 for was for the item to be shipped "expedite shipping - USPS Priority mail".which it was not. It was shipped First Class Mail. Priorty Mail costs between $5 and $6 dollars.

Play at the Plate said...

You got screwed no doubt. I would do my best to put the shipping charges and costs in the feedback so people can see.

Ryan G said...

Everyone's missing one very important point here, too. The seller's listing (or at least, the invoice) states that shipping is via USPS Priority Mail. This was sent first class. (And even via priority mail the price is way too high.)

I am very careful about checking shipping prices, especially if I want something shipped to Japan. But if prices aren't listed on the site, and the seller charges extreme shipping fees, I would certainly take action via feedback or even complaining to eBay. If it's not possible to see the fees before the end of the auction at all, that's just wrong.

The Lost Collector said...

Man, that's crazy. I would never expect $11. I would never expect more than $5 for a single card, and that is really stretching it.

cynicalbuddha said...

I'd file a claim for some of that money back or at least tell the seller that you want a portion refunded. The listed stated that the cards would be shipped priority and he shipped them first class! You got yourself a case if you want to dispute it with ebay as well.

sg488 said...

Negative feedback and report him to E-Bay.

Mark Zentkovich said...

comc is much better if they have the card you are looking for..plus you can leave it there until you buy more stuff to make a larger shipment worth the 3.00 shippping

Fuji said...

Thanks for all of the awesome feedback. After reading everyone's responses, I ended up contacting eBay. They told me that I should contact the seller one more time to see if he would reconsider refunding part of the shipping. They also told me that there wasn't anything wrong with me leaving "negative" feedback in this situation if the problem wasn't resolved.

So this morning I sent the seller a message asking if he'd consider splitting the difference on the shipping. A few minutes ago, I received a $6 PayPal refund.

As for his feedback, I'm probably not going to leave any. I don't feel comfortable leaving him "positive", but at the same time he worked with me at the very end... so I feel bad leaving him a "neutral".

Ana Lu said...

That's the true lessons learn the worst way =(
But if you worked out the deliver and re-pay of the shipping cost..Give a neutral feedback ;)