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What's this ebay seller's angle..

A common way of cheating to avoid fees. You have a certain number of free listings per month. If you do not use them all, they are lost when the month is over. To get around this, many sellers create such fake items that no one would ever buy. Later, these placeholders are modified to sell a real item.
 
Exactly, same as when someone on ebay runs out of inventory they bump the price to $10,000.00 so noone buys it but they can keep the inventory from reaching 0 so eBay doesnt remove it. People find a way to get by eBays terrible and forever worsening practices.
 
A common way of cheating to avoid fees. You have a certain number of free listings per month. If you do not use them all, they are lost when the month is over. To get around this, many sellers create such fake items that no one would ever buy. Later, these placeholders are modified to sell a real item.
Don't forget the $100 shipping for the item that would fit in a priority mail box. I contact them and they act like nothing is wrong with the listing.
 
Don't forget the $100 shipping for the item that would fit in a priority mail box. I contact them and they act like nothing is wrong with the listing.
Even since ebay started taxing sellers on the shipping costs most of that nonsense has gone away
 
Even since ebay started taxing sellers on the shipping costs most of that nonsense has gone away
Most.. but not all.. I have a few items lately i've saved watching.. that this is still the case (within the last month). :-/
 
Even since ebay started taxing sellers on the shipping costs most of that nonsense has gone away

It's not nonsense, it protects you as a seller from fraudulent buyers.

ebay has always had a horrible geolocation system, where it won't properly calculate shipping fees to the buyer. I've had it happen multiple times when I used to sell on ebay, where a buyer will use a specially crafted address to get around the geolocation lookup to get the cheaper shipping, when in reality, it's orders of magnitude more expensive. The only option is to cancel the sale, but then the buyer can leave negative feedback and hit you for it. There's no recourse for the same person doing the same thing again if you relist the item, ebay doesn't care.

Then of course there are the idiot buyers that try to skirt around not offering international and overseas shipping using P.O. Boxes, mail forwarding agents and escrow services. These come back to bite the seller in the ass when the buyer scams those people and they come knocking to you for money.
 
Doesn't ebay just use USPS/UPS to calculate shipping based on zip code?

Who knows what they use, but it's more often inaccurate than accurate. Even using USPS, UPS and Fedex's online shipping calculator on THEIR own websites is not accurate. I have several people that I trust that I ship stuff to and their addresses never validate in any shipping system from any of the carriers, and haven't for years.

This is where fraudulent buyers come in, they use intentionally nonsense shipping addresses that appear valid, but can't be seen by anyone, or resolve to a wrong location. Ebay doesn't care because the address is within whatever jurisdiction you say you'll ship to. They won't help you when you rightly decide not to ship to a thief, and you get hit with negative feedback.

I remember having Puerto Ricans doing this to me when I was still selling, despite me having no international or overseas shipping. I had this one valuable at the time video card that a bunch of them wanted and they tried all sorts of ways to get me to ship it to the void so they could steal it and turn around and hit me with a "not as described" or "never arrived" to get their money back. It was a scam that was gaining traction at the time, and is widespread today.
 
I have been using calculated shipping for my US buyers accurately for years. It helps that most of what I sell is consistent dimensions and weight, but yes, for US buyers eBay will calculate it by ZIP combined with the dimensions and weight you set up in the listing. Also, if you use USPS, they charge the buyer retail counter rate, but if you ship thru ebay or PayPal (or really any online service) you get the discounted rates. I come out ahead enough to cover envelopes and labels and such on that difference alone.
 
I remember having Puerto Ricans doing this to me when I was still selling, despite me having no international or overseas shipping.
Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory and thus is not international, at least according to the USPS. Airmail postage and/or customs forms are not required to send items from the mainland to Puerto Rico or vice versa.
 
Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory and thus is not international, at least according to the USPS. Airmail postage and/or customs forms are not required to send items from the mainland to Puerto Rico or vice versa.
sure but does ebay acount for this on thier rules and regulations. eBay does everything in its power to punish and screw its sellers.
 
Ebay is definitely slanted towards buyers for things like feedback and returns. But I don't see how they are at fault for shipping costs. If you put in the correct weight and dimensions, USPS is going to calculate the correct postage. Because it's the same system you use to purchase the postage...
 
How are they at fault? Ok here is an example. I sell Apple IIc video adapters. Some guy bought one from me. After receiving it and getting the impression by his email Forrest Gump was this mans mental superior he filed a claim against me. His claim was my video adapter didnt work as an RF adapter! No where in my listing does it say its an RF adapter. I explained to the guy and said that as well but eBay sided with him even though I have sold hundreds and never once received a single negative feedback on them.

Im getting to the point now.. Because of this, eBay dropped my seller rating even though it was a bogus claim. Because of that my ebay shipping discounts became much less (they took away my power seller standard over this). So eBay controls shipping costs. Also I sell alot of items through the global shipping program since international shipping has priced me out of it. I see what they charge the buyers and the figures are ridiculous. And again, even though ebay tries to paint the image that its a third part doing the shipping its all controlled by ebay. eBay does everything to get thier dollar first in the end; seller and buyer be damned.
 
How are they at fault? Ok here is an example. I sell Apple IIc video adapters. Some guy bought one from me. After receiving it and getting the impression by his email Forrest Gump was this mans mental superior he filed a claim against me. His claim was my video adapter didnt work as an RF adapter! No where in my listing does it say its an RF adapter. I explained to the guy and said that as well but eBay sided with him even though I have sold hundreds and never once received a single negative feedback on them.

Im getting to the point now.. Because of this, eBay dropped my seller rating even though it was a bogus claim. Because of that my ebay shipping discounts became much less (they took away my power seller standard over this). So eBay controls shipping costs. Also I sell alot of items through the global shipping program since international shipping has priced me out of it. I see what they charge the buyers and the figures are ridiculous. And again, even though ebay tries to paint the image that its a third part doing the shipping its all controlled by ebay. eBay does everything to get thier dollar first in the end; seller and buyer be damned.
Whether or not ebay gives you a shipping discount is a separate issue from ebay incorrectly calculating postage via USPS etc. Which was the original claim.

The biggest problem with the global shipping program is the fine print. If something is "too expensive" to ship, they are allowed to just refund the buyer and resell the item themselves.
 
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