Leuf wrote:
On Sun, 08 Jan 2006 15:40:54 GMT, TomL wrote:


On Sun, 08 Jan 2006 01:42:48 GMT, Brian Henderson
wrote:


On 6 Jan 2006 13:26:16 -0800, wrote:

Actually, you need to report them to eBay. It is a violation of eBay
rules to pad shipping costs like that and they will end auctions that
do so if it's ridiculously obvious.

How do you report these issues to Ebay. I keep looking for the
"Contact Us About This Item" or the "Report Ebay Violation" buttons
but they seem to be eluding me..


http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/...umventing.html

You have to open the "additonal information" tab. I agree they aren't
going out of their way to make this accessible, but if they had a
button on the auction page they'd get 100k complaints a day 5% of
which would be valid.

You see the bogus shipping charges the most on things that there are a
lot of competing sellers. Not only do they get more profit by
avoiding fees, they get you to click on their auction instead of the
other guys because of their lower price. Consequently everyone
selling that item has to do it too.

It must be a numbers game, because when I'm scanning my search results I
don't look for the cheapest, I look at them all... *except* the ones
that've already exceeded what I'm willing to spend. That is, I cull on
the high side rather than selecting from the low side. That's somewhat
different, I think.

er
--
email not valid

wrote in message
oups.com...
wow - my S/H woes got more responses than I expected - no time to read
through them all "_

Anyway, im not bitching about the person who charges a couple bucks
handling fees - it makes sense and is fine to offset the cost/gas of
going to the post office, time spent foing so, etc.

My complaint was soley for the people (and there are plenty of these on
EBay) who try to hook you with a an item thats:
- Worth around $50.00
- Auction is listed for $10.00
- And hope people wont notice the $75.00 shipping and handling fee.

Before Christmas, I was hoping to buy my wife a new computer chair. I
checked Staples, Office Max and local stores, and found a couple that looked
good, and were low cost. For giggles, I checked EBay. Yeah, right. Same
chairs, 1/3 the price, and the shipping charge was almost exactly what
Staples et. al. charge for the chair itself.

I didn't see any bids on that one, and I sure didn't make a bid.

Enoch Root writes:

It's very dishonest when you realize that the seller is only paying
"taxes" on the $100 and is getting the $15,000 completely tax-free
because it's counted as shipping.

Shipping isn't tax-free.

In the state of Minnesota, sales tax is not charged on shipping costs if
it is listed strictly as shipping charges. If it is listed as shipping
and handling then tax applies on the S&H charges.

Vehicles have special sales tax provisions and you probably couldn't avoid
sales tax by claiming a really high shipping charge.

Brian Elfert

A.M. Wood wrote:

It is wrong in my opinion to fault a seller for adding a
REASONABLE charge for packing materials into the equation.

And no reasonable person would dispute this. But reasonable charge is
not what this thread is about.

On Sun, 8 Jan 2006 00:10:14 -0600, "todd" wrote:

I was responding to an earlier comment that no one should ever charge
"handling" fees of any kind. Obviously, eBayers participating in final
value fee avoidance by charging very high shipping costs should be killed.
I'm talking about adding a few bucks to the actual shipping cost as a
handling charge. What difference does it make if it's included in the price
of the product or not? Either way, the buyer pays. Anyone who thinks the
buyer doesn't pay is kidding himself. As long as it isn't excessive, I
don't see a problem.

The handling fee should be part of the purchase price. You don't go
to a store and get charged a handling fee, do you? After all, they
have to pay someone to put the product on the shelf, don't they? They
have to pay someone to ring up your purchase and put it in the bag?
Should they charge you a packaging fee too?

On Sun, 08 Jan 2006 13:02:52 GMT, Ba r r y
wrote:

Sales tax is not "paid" by a merchant, it's collected from the buyer
and forwarded on to a taxing authority.

I didn't say sales tax. I said tax, which in this analogy would be a
lot closer to income tax.

If the seller is keeping books, the $15,000 shipping charge would
probably result in some sort of profit, which _can be_ taxable,
depending on the structure of the business and the conditions on how
the money is taken out of the business, such as owner's dividends,
salaries, etc... G

You have to remember this is just an analogy. eBay charges "taxes" on
the sales portion of the auction. By playing creative bookkeeping,
some eBay sellers are screwing eBay out of their "taxes" by shifting
the real cost of the item over to the shipping side and selling their
products for a penny. eBay, of course, who is paying for the whole
auction system, has every right to stomp on this practice, and they
should do so. There is a cost to using the eBay auction site and
being dishonest to make an additional profit that you are not entitled
to should not be permitted.

--
If at first you don't succeed, you're not cut out for skydiving
"Joe Barta" wrote in message
.. .
Brian Henderson wrote:

eBay, of course, who
is paying for the whole auction system, has every right to stomp
on this practice, and they should do so. There is a cost to using
the eBay auction site and being dishonest to make an additional
profit that you are not entitled to should not be permitted.

Someone mentioned that there is no way ebay could keep an eye on all
it's auctions to prevent such a thing from occuring. But it seems to
me that it should be fairly simple to automate and report such things
on their end.

Many of these sellers have multiple items and do this over and over.
One would think it would be a simple matter to find auctions where
there is a suspicious ratio between the sale price and the shipping
charge. It could even be done while the auction is running if the
seller has a buy it now price.

Once such auctions/sellers are flagged, ebay can manually take a
closer look. I can't help but wonder why they don't watch this a
little closer... seeing as it appears to cost them money. Or maybe
it's a practice they tolerate because they want as many sellers as
possible so that when people go looking for "it", there are plenty to
choose from... even if they are cheated out of a little revenue.


That is exactly the reason that they don't. They want to keep as many
sellers as they can to attract the most buyers because in the business
world, a little is better than nothing at all. EBay is no longer the only
auction site on the web but they are still the biggest and want to stay that
way.

--
If at first you don't succeed, you're not cut out for skydiving

Brian Henderson wrote:

eBay, of course, who
is paying for the whole auction system, has every right to stomp
on this practice, and they should do so. There is a cost to using
the eBay auction site and being dishonest to make an additional
profit that you are not entitled to should not be permitted.

Someone mentioned that there is no way ebay could keep an eye on all
it's auctions to prevent such a thing from occuring. But it seems to
me that it should be fairly simple to automate and report such things
on their end.

Many of these sellers have multiple items and do this over and over.
One would think it would be a simple matter to find auctions where
there is a suspicious ratio between the sale price and the shipping
charge. It could even be done while the auction is running if the
seller has a buy it now price.

Once such auctions/sellers are flagged, ebay can manually take a
closer look. I can't help but wonder why they don't watch this a
little closer... seeing as it appears to cost them money. Or maybe
it's a practice they tolerate because they want as many sellers as
possible so that when people go looking for "it", there are plenty to
choose from... even if they are cheated out of a little revenue.

At any rate, I still have a problem with such tactics on principle and
avoid such sellers like the plague.

Joe Barta

The Brian Henderson entity posted thusly:

The handling fee should be part of the purchase price. You don't go
to a store and get charged a handling fee, do you? After all, they
have to pay someone to put the product on the shelf, don't they? They
have to pay someone to ring up your purchase and put it in the bag?
Should they charge you a packaging fee too?

A few years back, I bid successfully on a tele-extender for a camera.
The bidding started at $1.00, with free shipping. I bid $15, but since
nobody else bid, I got it for $1.00.

Well, I felt a bit bad about it, as the fellow had obviously thought
it was going to go high enough to pay for his free shipping. I ended
up sending him $10.00

My point in this is that there really are a few ways to do it.

1. bidding starts at $1, shipping set at $5, handling set at $2
2. bidding starts at $3, shipping set at $5, no handling charge
3. bidding starts at $8, no shipping charge, no handling charge

Is there any difference to the buyer here? #1 ensures the seller will
recoup his expenses, without having to set a reserve. I look at the
entire package when I decide what to bid, and I don't much care
whether the cost is listed in column A or column B.

I tend not to bid on items that have all the cost in the shipping and
handling, but that's because it usually means that the overall price
is too high. To me, that's a regular sale, not an auction, and I
resent paying more for it than the current market stipulates through
the bidding process.

"Brian Henderson" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 8 Jan 2006 00:10:14 -0600, "todd" wrote:

I was responding to an earlier comment that no one should ever charge
"handling" fees of any kind. Obviously, eBayers participating in final
value fee avoidance by charging very high shipping costs should be
killed.
I'm talking about adding a few bucks to the actual shipping cost as a
handling charge. What difference does it make if it's included in the
price
of the product or not? Either way, the buyer pays. Anyone who thinks
the
buyer doesn't pay is kidding himself. As long as it isn't excessive, I
don't see a problem.

The handling fee should be part of the purchase price. You don't go
to a store and get charged a handling fee, do you? After all, they
have to pay someone to put the product on the shelf, don't they? They
have to pay someone to ring up your purchase and put it in the bag?
Should they charge you a packaging fee too?

Would you feel better if it was buried in the price of the part? Does that
make you think you aren't paying it? I really don't see the problem as long
as a) it isn't excessive and b) it's fully disclosed. Most people with a
high school education should be able to do the math. Do you believe mail
order places should not charge for shipping? After all, when you go to Best
Buy and purchase a television, they don't add a shipping charge, do they?
Yet the television had to be shipped there, so Amazon is cheating people by
charging shipping, right?

todd

"todd" writes:

high school education should be able to do the math. Do you believe mail
order places should not charge for shipping? After all, when you go to Best
Buy and purchase a television, they don't add a shipping charge, do they?
Yet the television had to be shipped there, so Amazon is cheating people by
charging shipping, right?

Unless a mail order company drop ships from the manufacturer, they had to
pay shipping to a warehouse somewhere somehow. This is no different than
a retail store paying to have stock shipped to them.

Brian Elfert

"Brian Elfert" wrote in message
...
"todd" writes:

high school education should be able to do the math. Do you believe mail
order places should not charge for shipping? After all, when you go to
Best
Buy and purchase a television, they don't add a shipping charge, do they?
Yet the television had to be shipped there, so Amazon is cheating people
by
charging shipping, right?

Unless a mail order company drop ships from the manufacturer, they had to
pay shipping to a warehouse somewhere somehow. This is no different than
a retail store paying to have stock shipped to them.

Brian Elfert

So you agree that Amazon, Dell, etc. are dishonest because they break out a
shipping charge when B&M stores absorb it in the product cost? Heck, I bet
even Lee Valley charges shipping.

todd

On Mon, 09 Jan 2006 19:29:30 GMT, Joe Barta wrote:

Brian Henderson wrote:
eBay, of course, who
is paying for the whole auction system, has every right to stomp
on this practice, and they should do so. There is a cost to using
the eBay auction site and being dishonest to make an additional
profit that you are not entitled to should not be permitted.

Someone mentioned that there is no way ebay could keep an eye on all
it's auctions to prevent such a thing from occuring. But it seems to
me that it should be fairly simple to automate and report such things
on their end.

That was actually me who said that.

And there are many items that legitimately have a high shipping cost,
so just killing all auctions with a high cost doesn't make much sense.
Does eBay require people to disclose shipping costs up front? I know
most people list them, but is it a hard rule?

On Mon, 9 Jan 2006 19:04:07 -0600, "todd" wrote:

Would you feel better if it was buried in the price of the part? Does that
make you think you aren't paying it? I really don't see the problem as long
as a) it isn't excessive and b) it's fully disclosed. Most people with a
high school education should be able to do the math. Do you believe mail
order places should not charge for shipping? After all, when you go to Best
Buy and purchase a television, they don't add a shipping charge, do they?
Yet the television had to be shipped there, so Amazon is cheating people by
charging shipping, right?

Oftentimes, it is excessive. Last night, for example, my wife was
looking for a USB cable for her cell phone. Lots of people are
selling them, most starting around $20 with shipping around $4. But
there are a couple people who are selling them for $4 with shipping at
$25. All of those are "BUY IT NOW" prices. Certainly it doesn't cost
*ANYONE* $25 to ship a USB cable, they are just making extra money off
the buyer ($5 additional over other sellers) and extra money off eBay.
In short, they're ripping everyone off.

It's called having character. Too bad so many people have none.

on 1/10/2006 6:45 PM Brian Henderson said the following:
That was actually me who said that.

And there are many items that legitimately have a high shipping cost,
so just killing all auctions with a high cost doesn't make much sense.
Does eBay require people to disclose shipping costs up front? I know
most people list them, but is it a hard rule?

AFAIK, there is no such rule. If there is, it certainly has not been
enforced.

I certainly can see there being a measure of ambiguity with regard to
shipping costs when you're talking about selling off a 45 lb widget. I
cannot see it when you're talking about a DVD set, or something which is
fairly light and "standard."

A wise buyer will simply ignore an offering in the latter category and
not bid on it. In those cases, I think the presumption is you're going
to take it in the butt in shipping charges.

For those goods in the former category or an item that's one of a kind,
the buyer will inquire and get a somewhat firm committment regarding
shipping costs before bidding. If he/she doesn't, they probably aren't
bright enough to realize they've been had when they get that poke in the
rear.

When I was looking for windows XP to upgrade one of my PC's, The best
price (on ebay) I found was like 69.00 plus $15.00 shipping. The guy was
upfront about making his profit from the shipping. Remember, Ebay takes
a cut from the selling price, but not the shipping. This was for a full
version, intended for OEM.

John

Ralph E Lindberg wrote:
In article ,
Enoch Root wrote:

..

Can any sellers say whether Ebay charges extra to have the shipping
calculator on your page?


Not one penny, nor do they charge a fee on "handling" charges

And therein lies the catch.
I have E bay sellers with items listed as $1.00 buy it now, but postage
and handling is $25.00. E bay collects on the $1.00 and the seller makes
100% of the postage and handling, less the postage. BTW these items on
another site had postage at $3.75 US.
regards
John

there's also the bit about return policy. I bought an external drive
case- couple of bucks, 15 or so shipping. I thought, sleazy, but it
adds up to the right amount, so I bought it. when it came, the case was
badly sub-par quality. wouldn't recognize. the vendor's return policy
was sale price refund only, and I have to pay shipping return. so I'd
be paying $3 shipping to get a $2 refund.

lesson learned.

Ba r r y wrote:

The boating supplier Dave mentions probably is using it as a
loss-leader special to attract other sales, as they're probably losing
a few cents on it if you order nothing else.

Now if Dave would share the name of the boating supplier... G


heads up: I never received my order from them. turns out they never
filled the order, so I canceled it today. Flakes!

Dave