They shouldn't be charging import fees. ???
If it is applicable, it would be Customs charging you... and that's only if it were over a certain value.
Sounds a bit scammish to me. The only thing a seller should be entitled to charge for is the shipping, and only within a reasonable amount of the actual postage cost. (so check what it ends up costing when you receive it, compared to what you were charged)
Expensive trackable shipping is required to cover the seller from scam-buyers (who claim refunds for items they receive, but the seller can't prove that it was delivered), but the seller has to use that expensive shipping method if they charge for it.
From what I gathered, it's eBay that charges the fee and not the seller. Basically how it works is that if a seller in the US uses this program, they don't have to worry about handling the item at all after the auction ends; it's all done at eBay's GSP center where they package and ship the item off to the buyer (using a private courier, not UPS) without the seller having to do anything at all (except for sending the item to the center in the first place). Then, if there's a problem, PayPal will only cover the actual cost of the item, and not the shipping.
F**k i just paid for my botcon clench thinking i was paying for USPS Priority mail until i saw a 2nd payment made to the third party in charge of handling the shipping on my paypal receipt. What if the item actually gets lost in mail or doesnt arrive in intended country? Surely you have to be able to get the full refund on shipping?!!
Biggest rort of 'shipping charges' I've ever seen...
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/SET-OF-OP...#ht_500wt_1414
Report it. People like that try to get out of paying ebay fees. And that figure is not even worth that much either.
I reported it. Considering how often people used to avoid ebay fees by cranking up the shipping amount, it didn't appear to be an option on the menu of reasons it was being reported. And I couldn't say why I was selecting "other", so ebay will either ignore it or spend a couple seconds looking over the listing to see what jumps out as obvious.
I wonder how successful you could be in getting it cheap with the "buyer protection" element of Paypal. As in, you buy it for the minimum bid of $1, and pay $300 in total, but then when it arrives with significantly less postage, you make a claim or complaint to ebay about excessive shipping charges.
I get the impression that buyer protection might only cover the item itself (and it's price), so any excessive postage might only end up with just being able to give negative feedback... so it might not be worth the risk on an item that isn't worth $300. If it were a total of $200, and you were desperate for it, that would be worth the risk, because even if you didn't get any money back, you didn't spend more than the current going rate of this figure (with shipping) anyway.
Ended bidding now, whether from expiry or reporting I'm not sure, I'll make sure I report all silly postage auctions in the future, I wasn't aware you could even do that...
I have been very interested in a number of items out of Honk Kong lately, I have family that live in Guangzhou (Mainland China) and HK. The family in GZ are more flexible when it comes to onforwarding items to me in Oz. So I first ask the HK seller what the price for shipping is to GZ, if it comes back to the price they are sending to the rest of the World then I am a little sceptical so then I send a follow up e-mail asking for either local pick up in HK or postage to HK address. When it still comes up as same price as Rest of the World it sounds more scammy than usual.
I had this happen a few months ago for multiple items that I bought from a HK seller, so we had an e-mail discussion that ended quite amicably. Pretty much ended with: "If you are locked into these postage prices for a HK address I will report you to e-bay" he replied, "How about we just cancel the transactions." Thanks mate :-)
Having had enough of this BS I have recently reported someone for pulling the same sheizer, lets see how it pans out.