eBay

longfinnsilvers · ‎06-09-2017

I tolerate GSP at the best of times if I really want an item. HOWEVER. I recently placed an Order that said my import charges were 0 only to have pitney bowes charge my paypal an additional 20.00 a day or so later.

I'm fine with paying the fee if it's there but when my ebay receipt says 0 and then I have another company billing me more without my consent I am not happy. Is this normal? or no? I'm looking at other listings and it's the same thing 0.00 import fees. I'm fine with paying them if I know what they are, not being slapped with them arbitrarily after the fact.

esclyons · ‎06-09-2017

i agree with you completely.. hopefully someone can shed some light on this because i have seen the same thing on many listings.. zero import fees..

marnotom! · ‎06-09-2017

What's the shipping price as stated in the listing?

marnotom! · ‎06-11-2017

@longfinnsilvers wrote:

I tolerate GSP at the best of times if I really want an item. HOWEVER. I recently placed an Order that said my import charges were 0 only to have pitney bowes charge my paypal an additional 20.00 a day or so later.

I'm fine with paying the fee if it's there but when my ebay receipt says 0 and then I have another company billing me more without my consent I am not happy. Is this normal? or no? I'm looking at other listings and it's the same thing 0.00 import fees. I'm fine with paying them if I know what they are, not being slapped with them arbitrarily after the fact.

Okay, it looks as though I may have to go into one of my notorious long-winded posts here.

First of all, there's no such thing as a GSP listing with zero import charges. If the import charges are "$0.00" it means that there's been some sort of estimate made of them and they've been added to the item's shipping charge instead. If you follow an auction listing for a GSP item with "zero" import charges you'll find that the shipping charge increases as the high bid amount increases. It's true.

$20.00 in import charges does sound a bit steep, but for an item valued at around $100 (assuming all charges are in US dollars), it doesn't sound out of line, particularly if the GSP is charging the equivalent of HST. Is the shipping charge on the PayPal invoice the same as the one in the listing? I'm wondering if what happened here is that the estimated import charges were split off from the shipping charges and two separate charges were generated by Pitney Bowes. I think that sort of thing has been described on this discussion board before.

reallynicestamps · ‎06-11-2017

marnotom! - I think part of the concern here is that the PB charges were added "a day of so later".

Normally, the GSP charges are on the billing page, before the buyer clicks agreement to pay. And the buyer can back out right there.

However, if the OP means that the charges showed on his Paypal account as a separate item a few days after the eBay charges, that would be more understandable. Two different companies, two different bills.

I agree that $20 is not unusual as a GSP charge.

There would be duty (or not) as a percentage of the selling price.

There would be GST/PST/HST as a percentage of the price.

And Pitney Bowes charges around $5 USD as a service charge.

What was the value of the shipment? Where was it manufactured? What is the duty on similar items?

I suspect a lot of buyers in post-auction excitement, just click through without checking what they are agreeing to. Then the GSP fees come as a shock.

sylviebee · ‎06-16-2017

@longfinnsilvers wrote:
I tolerate GSP at the best of times if I really want an item. HOWEVER. I recently placed an Order that said my import charges were 0 only to have pitney bowes charge my paypal an additional 20.00 a day or so later.

I'm fine with paying the fee if it's there but when my ebay receipt says 0 and then I have another company billing me more without my consent I am not happy. Is this normal? or no? I'm looking at other listings and it's the same thing 0.00 import fees. I'm fine with paying them if I know what they are, not being slapped with them arbitrarily after the fact.

That scares me. Yours isn't the first post that describes how extra charges were billed by the GSP at a later date.

marnotom! is big on reading through the mounds of nit-picky detailed rules and regulations re the GSP. Is there something in there where buyers have agreed to allow P.B. to add random charges after the fact to CCs?

I know there are companies that maneuver and manipulate customers into agreeing to unwanted recurrent billing, but this is different.

Has anyone ever had the experience where another retailer or service provider added unapproved charges to your CC after you'd left the store (so to speak)? I know I haven't.

I sort of think that if I did that to a customer I'd be hauled into court.

femmefan1946 · ‎06-16-2017

Ooooh!

I just thought of something that may make a difference here.

OP said he "ordered" something.

But if he was actually bidding in an auction (not buying a Fixed Price item) the system cannot calculate the GSP until the auction is over and the winner confirmed.

All the buyer can know is that the item is subject to GSP shipping. And cross all his fingers and toes.

marnotom! · ‎06-17-2017

Sylvie, the way I read the terms and conditions, all program fees associated with the GSP are supposed to appear at checkout. The T&C also mention that there will be a payment split and the buyer will receive separate payment statements from the seller and from Pitney Bowes.

However--and this is a big however--what we don't know and probably won't be able to find out for sure in this instance is what appeared for the OP at checkout. All the OP has said is that "$0.00" appeared for import charges, but I have no idea if this is on the listing page or what appeared at checkout.

As suggested by others, the OP may have simply clicked through checkout without noting the detailed charge list or the OP may have been dealing with an auction listing rather than a fixed-price one.

There also seems to be a lot of variation in how import charges are stated on a listing page. When I view a .com listing on my laptop's browser, import charges are buried in the listing's "Shipping and Handling" section, and quite often I just get a message stating that they'll be calculated at checkout, even when I'm logged into .com.

Having said all that, I'm pretty sure that in the past couple of months a similar situation along these lines was posted to this board. We came to the conclusion that the invoiced import charges were coupled with a shipping charge that was less than what was stated on the listing page, and the total of the revised shipping charges and the import charges was pretty close to what was on the listing page (with zero "import charges" on the listing page). The slight discrepancy in the two sets of charges was chalked up to a change in the exchange rate.

At this point, I don't think there's much more we can add to this without more information from the OP. Unfortunately, they appear to have done a runner.