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Author Topic: Unscrupulous ebay traders  (Read 8833 times)

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Offline Casper

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Re: Unscrupulous ebay traders
« Reply #29 from previous page: August 12, 2004, 11:58:47 AM »
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Morley wrote:

Yeah, I also did it from my computer at home...using BIC and IBAN and all that... the problem was, the receivers bank wanted 15€ for accepting money from a Norwegian bank...huh. We're not in the EU you know, so they rip us off as often as they can.


I was about to transfer money from my Swedish account to a German bank account the other day and my bank wanted €1 for the transfer and the German bank wanted €11 to accept the money, and Sweden is in the EU.

Ended up using paypal instead.
 

Offline CyberusTopic starter

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Re: Unscrupulous ebay traders
« Reply #30 on: August 12, 2004, 01:47:29 PM »
Quote

Morley wrote:
Yeah, I also did it from my computer at home...using BIC and IBAN and all that... the problem was, the receivers bank wanted 15€ for accepting money from a Norwegian bank...huh. We're not in the EU you know, so they rip us off as often as they can.


I think you'll find that banks rip you off as often as they can, full stop. It doesn't matter if you're in the EU or not!
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Offline TheMagicM

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Re: Unscrupulous ebay traders
« Reply #31 on: August 12, 2004, 02:10:46 PM »
 
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Don't they charge you for that? And also, they will not pick up First Class Mail or Parcel Post packages. Only Express and Priority Mail and they charge $13.00 per pickup.



BoingBoss: Nope. Not one penny.  On the website it specifies what kind of packages they are picking up, even though they are not priority, I check them off as such and have never had any complaints.
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Offline Framiga

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Re: Unscrupulous ebay traders
« Reply #32 on: August 12, 2004, 03:31:21 PM »

COD is my "rule of life" if i don't know the customer or bank tranfer if i already know him.

More expensive, but . . . SAFE :-)

Ciao

PS- think about all those poor guys, ripped on Amibench.
 

Offline Wibbly

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Re: Unscrupulous ebay traders
« Reply #33 on: August 12, 2004, 04:33:00 PM »
I think that it's your own fault if you are upset about the postage. As someone else said, the fee was disclosed on the auction, and you therefore had an option not to bid on the item. As someone that DOES measure out and charge very accurately, I would think you'd spot that the shipping/handling fee was way off anyway.

As for people that don't like the PayPal/Ebay fees charged... You have the option not to sell your item on Ebay. All these fees are disclosed when you sign up (I've only recently started using Ebay, and I DID take the time to read all the crap before disclosing all my information). There's an option to put a reserve price on your item. Perhaps people should decide how much they need for the item, add on the ebay/paypal costs, and set a reserve accordingly.

Finally, if you have your own business, you would realise that the Paypal fee is not unfair. Every time you put a cheque into a business bank account, it costs a flat fee. Every time a credit card transaction is made into the account, there is also a percentage charged for the transaction. It's standard practice, I don't think Ebay/Paypal's fees are unreasonable. I think if you had a special bank account for your ebay stuff, and had it set up to where you could receive funds from a credit card, the cost would be similar (only the bank would charge you for the ability to receive funds in this way anyway, so Paypal is most likely a cheaper option)
 

Offline Madgun68

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Re: Unscrupulous ebay traders
« Reply #34 on: August 12, 2004, 04:53:39 PM »
Quote

Morley wrote:
What I really dislike about Paypsal is that there is no option to choose who has to pay for the transfer. Paypal is very convienient for both parts, but it is always the receiver who has to pay for the transfer. If you do a wire-transfer with a bank, you can specify who should pay for what, ie. the seller can get the exact amount on his account without paying for the transfer. But wire-transfer is WAAY more expensive than Paypal, so in the end I really think Paypal's fees are appropriate.

(I transferred 30€ to a German account once, the fee from my bank ended at 20€...should have used Paypal...)
It can be worse.. I bought an item from a guy in Poland. The bank charged me $75USD (61 euro) for the transfer from this bank to his. On top of that, his bank charged him more money just for receiving it.

I agree. I think that, considering how fast the operation is, the ~4% fee Paypal charges is nothing compared to some of the other payment options out there.
......
 

Offline Madgun68

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Re: Unscrupulous ebay traders
« Reply #35 on: August 12, 2004, 05:12:15 PM »
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I think that it's your own fault if you are upset about the postage. As someone else said, the fee was disclosed on the auction, and you therefore had an option not to bid on the item. As someone that DOES measure out and charge very accurately, I would think you'd spot that the shipping/handling fee was way off anyway.
Sometimes it can be misleading though. What may seem like an appropriate charge for shipping and handling at the time you're bidding may not seem so when you receive the package. I remember paying for a pci card once. The shipping didn't seem too far off. When I got the card, however, it was simply tossed inside a box (freely moving around.) Had I known at the time that the seller would ship it as such, I definately wouldn't have thought the shipping reasonable.

A lot of the time it is obvious though. It's not uncommon to see someone listing an item undervalue and then trying to make some of that up in shipping and handling fees. (Easy to avoid.)

I never list shipping fees on my auctions. If the item goes for roughly what I think it's worth, I'll charge the price it costs me to ship exactly (I don't take in to account for anything else.) If I wind up getting more than I hoped for, I'll frequently cut the buyer a deal on shipping.
......
 

Offline CyberusTopic starter

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Re: Unscrupulous ebay traders
« Reply #36 on: August 12, 2004, 05:15:17 PM »
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Madgun68 wrote:
Quote
I think that it's your own fault if you are upset about the postage. As someone else said, the fee was disclosed on the auction, and you therefore had an option not to bid on the item. As someone that DOES measure out and charge very accurately, I would think you'd spot that the shipping/handling fee was way off anyway.
Sometimes it can be misleading though. What may seem like an appropriate charge for shipping and handling at the time you're bidding may not seem so when you receive the package. I remember paying for a pci card once. The shipping didn't seem too far off. When I got the card, however, it was simply tossed inside a box (freely moving around.) Had I known at the time that the seller would ship it as such, I definately wouldn't have thought the shipping reasonable.


Exactly, I didn't know how thick/heavy the item would be.

If I'd bid on a memory SIMM and the postage was 10 pounds, it'd be obvious the seller was overcharging. But with this, I wasn't to know until it arrived.


As for the PayPal fees thing, its no longer about whether one should pass the charge on to the buyer or not, ebay's TOS forbids it AFAIK. I used to levy a fee of 50 pence for transactions under 5 pounds. Now I don't accept PayPal for payments under 5GBP. Hmm, maybe I should add more to my postage costs.

I just originally thought this was grossly dishonest and against the spirit of ebay, but I guess not.

Regards
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Offline FastRobPlus

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Re: Unscrupulous ebay traders
« Reply #37 on: August 12, 2004, 06:41:14 PM »
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I never list shipping fees on my auctions. If the item goes for roughly what I think it's worth, I'll charge the price it costs me to ship exactly (I don't take in to account for anything else.) If I wind up getting more than I hoped for, I'll frequently cut the buyer a deal on shipping.  
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Now I don't accept PayPal for payments under 5GBP.
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Those are good policies, and I did them too at first.  But I've found that two things help undecided users bid for an item in an auction:

- Shipping charges quoted up front
- PayPal accepted

With these two things, I realy do think you get more bids, which makes it worth accepting PayPal and giving costs up front.

As we saw in the begining of this thread, it's not a perfect way to do business.  For the second time in a row, I've overcharged a buyer for media mail shipping, and now I need to refund some money.  But as you know, PayPal will eat part of that in the transaction fee.  So while I don't really like offering PayPal or quoting shipping up front, I do it anyway to be as convinient as possible to buyers.
 

Offline Effy

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Re: Unscrupulous ebay traders
« Reply #38 on: August 12, 2004, 11:21:33 PM »
That´s why I try to sell objects at a minimum price where most fees are in-calculated ...

Offline CyberusTopic starter

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Re: Unscrupulous ebay traders
« Reply #39 on: August 16, 2004, 02:15:43 AM »
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Framiga wrote:
PS- think about all those poor guys, ripped on Amibench.


Did anything come of that investigation into the ripping?
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