eBay

wickedservant · ‎10-14-2013

I've generally avoided auctions where the seller chose to use the Global Shipping Program, but for various reasons ended up bidding and winning a few with this service, and it has presented problems in each case.

First, all shipping/handling charges are not visible. One charge is shown, one is not seen until viewing a credit card statement. This is deceptive, and by paying one fee to ship from location to location within the U.S. and then another to ship from there to the buyer, it is certainly not efficient.

Second, in the event that the seller wishes to cancel the auction/decides not to ship/etc etc who tells Pitney Bowes to initiate a refund of the seperately-charged second S&H fee? (including "Import Charges")

Though I am not the most active or spendthrift user on Ebay, I have enjoyed bidding and winning auctions here for over a decade and have never been disappointed with the format and standards until now.

If this garbage service becomes the norm for U.S. sellers, it it a despicably low norm. I won't be bidding on anything contaminated by it.

marnotom! · ‎10-12-2015

@sutherland1023 wrote:

You need to watch out even more now, as there seems a new tactic at play. I recently won a couple of pairs of Binoculars by being the only bidder, checked as I thought carefully and page showed USPS shipping $11.00, then a mysterious charge appeared on my credit Card, From Pitney Bowes Direct, charging for their extra fee's. I know they wasn't on the original listing but they change listing after closing and invoices as they go. Being caught the first time I was attempting to print off the invoice before it could be changed, they blocked some but not all.
How can you now bid on anything, in good faith and understand what your going to end up paying, Two sets of Bino's from different sellers

#1 Pair of USN E type 6x30 Bino's shipping 25.00, now another 20.00 separate charge just taken out of my account. not listed on original sellers page.
#2 Pair of miniature Oigee Bino's $9.00 pitney Bowes charges $40.00. How can anyone call this reasonable behaviour, it's just legal theft.

From the item number that Femmefan provided in another thread, I'm going to conclude that you were looking at the listing on the .com site and/or probably using a mobile to do your eBay browsing. That $11.00 shipping charge you saw is for shipping the binoculars within the United States and not to Canada.

When using a mobile phone to shop on eBay, you have to make sure you're either logged into eBay.ca or using the app for eBay Canada, which are optimized for Canadian users. eBay.com on a mobile defaults to settings for U.S. buyers, which is why you likely saw nothing to do with the Global Shipping Program when you first saw the listing for the binoculars.

Having said that, the charges for Canadian buyers do eventually show up with a bit of prodding, but if you're not looking for them they're not likely going to register for you.

arlene_v · ‎10-13-2015

Is Pitney Bowes shipping the dumbest thing in eBay history?

Ah finally a question I can answer!

YES.

00nevermind00 · ‎10-13-2015

@arlene_v wrote:

Is Pitney Bowes shipping the dumbest thing in eBay history?

Ah finally a question I can answer!

YES.

No kidding! And there have been a few dumb things along the way.

All joking aside, it wouldn't have taken much to make this trainwreck of a program a little buyer-friendly. The fact that it wasn't, combined with the lack of fixes for even the most glaring problems, shows just how much buyers (don't) matter in this scheme.

They richly deserve every single level-headed criticism thrown at them. And maybe a few of the rants too. Because fewer people would feel the need to rant at a well-designed program.

00nevermind00 · ‎10-13-2015

@marnotom! wrote:
Having said that, the charges for Canadian buyers do eventually show up with a bit of prodding, but if you're not looking for them they're not likely going to register for you.

Isn't that where the problem lies? The charges should be obvious on all platforms. Buyers should be able to tell at a glance that they are looking at a GSP item. Anything less is a shameful practice that is either shady or amateurish.

sylviebee · ‎10-13-2015

What would be nice for buyers if is they could eliminate GSP item from the search.

The problem is that when one isn't given that option it's easy to see something you want and be disappointed when the GSP is in there.

Better not to see that stuff at all than be disappointed or start trying to figure out ways to get the item shipped reasonably, the normal way without the GSP.