At the end of last month, I bought won an auction for a piece of jewelry. The seller offers combined shipping; several times in the past he has waited while I bid on a few more items and sent me an invoice when I was “done shopping.” As previously, after winning another piece I asked for an invoice. He sent me a rather unusual reply: that the only way he could do the shipping was by making the shipping for the second item cost the same as the item itself. The first item remained with its own shipping cost, the usual amount he charges and the amount in both listings. So my total cost is for the two items, one regular shipping charge, and one inflated shipping charge (about three times the cost of shipping the other item).
I wrote back saying I was willing to pay a little more than the regular shipping, but not the much higher cost. He answered that he was not trying to make money off shipping, and would I please hold off paying until he straightened things out. I agreed. A week passed with no messages from him. I wrote again asking if it would help if I paid the high-cost shipping, and he could refund me. (I’ve had sellers spontaneously refund part of the shipping when it turned out the item could be shipped for less that they had in the listing.) Still no reply.
I don’t have a problem waiting, but I'm worried about repercussions from eBay of not paying nearly two weeks after the initial auction. He is still listing items so I assume there's no emergency preventing him from attending to this matter.
I would very much appreciate it if anyone can advise me if I should take any action and if so, what?
