I saw a card I wanted on eBay from a seller from the US available for 28.95 USD BIN with Best Offer enabled. Since it was stating the shipping fees were 18.27 USD towards me I choose the Best Offer option with an offer of 21 USD, explaining I had to pay an additional ~18 USD shipping on top of the card.
The seller was kind enough to accept my offer, and I completed the payment.
I then received the following message:
I was confused for a moment, because 18 USD is certainly not something people from within the US would have to pay… After some messages back and forth, which you can see here within spoilers:
[SPOILER: Click to show](javascript:void(0)
We came to realize that on his end only 3.70 USD shipping was visible without any clue about the full prize I’ve paid, while on my end I had to pay 22.45 USD shipping; the 3.70 USD in the transaction towards him, and an additional 18.75 USD for the international shipping/import fees in a transaction towards a separated company…
This is just plain ridiculous if you’d ask me… For starters, it causes the confusion like above if the seller doesn’t know the full amount I’ve paid, especially after accepting a Best Offer for the reason I stated. In addition, before I completed the payment it was stating the shipping fees were 18.27 USD, but this was raised to (22.45 USD) 18.75 + 3.70 USD after actually finalizing the payment of the auction. Now I know that’s not a lot of money, but it’s just stupid and a scam on eBay’s part to leave things hidden like that imho!
Has anyone else experiences something similar before, either at the end of buyers/seller? What international shipping options do some of you guys/girls from the US use for selling auctions internationally?
This is how GSP works. You’re paying $3.70 for him to ship to the GSP domestic shipping center. He only gets $3.70 because he’s shipping to a US address. The extra fees you pay are then middleman fees for the GSP domestic shipping center to handle the international shipping.
Think of it as you’re paying two different people, each contributing to you getting the item:
1.) You pay the seller $3.70 to get the item to the middleman location within the US.
2.) You pay the middleman $18.75 to handle international shipping and customs.
It wouldn’t make sense for you to pay all the money to the seller, then have the seller pay the middleman fee. eBay streamlines the process. It’s very convenient for US sellers to ship internationally this way.
Personally, I don’t use GSP because I can ship to buyers for less without it. However, I fill out the customs forms myself and am fully responsible for the item reaching it’s location in another country.
Yeah, I indeed know about how that works (now at least). I just think it’s weird the seller doesn’t know how much I pay in total for shipping. I don’t meant that they should receive my full amount, and forward a part of it to the international shipping company, but it’s just weird that the seller can’t even see what I’m paying for his auction, especially after accepting the Best Offer for the reason I gave. I can definitely understand his confusion when he accepted my Best Offer, and then sees the 3.70 USD shipping…
Not sure why you see this as an “eBay scam”? They always only informed the seller of their shipping cost. Maybe you never heard a complaint before because most sellers know international packages are more than 3 bucks.
Whenever I purchase off eBay from a seller with GSP it shows up as two transactions in my PayPal history. One to the seller and the other is always Pitney Bowes for the international shipping and duties. On the eBay side of things, every item with GSP shows 3 distinct prices per listing. First the item price, second is the shipping costs and finally there’s the import charge. My guess is eBay combines the local shipping + international shipping and displays it as one amount so as not to bombard the seller with information. This can lead to confusion, as is evident by your case here @quuador .