posted on March 22, 2003 05:00:40 PM new
Many sellers will combine items for and offer reduced shipping. If, for example, you bought 5 books from a seller (for $5 each) and they said they would ship all of them for $8. You would owe the seller $33, right? So, now you go to Ebay and just pay through one of the auction pages. When prompted, you enter $5 for the book and $28 for shipping...that lets you pay them the total and save them the extra fees. Common practice. Well, now a package shows up (with Delivery Confirmation) with one book in it and seller does not respond to your emails. How do you convice Paypal that you have a Buyer Compaint? Seller can prove that he/she sent you the item you paid for. I am actually having this problem right now. Input anyone? As buyers should we stop combining under Paypal?
posted on March 22, 2003 05:45:41 PM new
When combining, I have the seller send me a Paypal invoice which will state the amount paid for combined auctions and the actual shipping. This way separates the different auctions while allowig you to make one Paypal payment. I couldn't tell you what, if any, recourse you have by doing it the way you did.
posted on March 22, 2003 06:59:38 PM new
>When prompted, you enter $5 for the book and $28 for shipping...that lets you pay
>them the total and save them the extra fees. Common practice.
Eh, not so common practice and it doesn't save the seller any fees. eBay fees are calculated on the selling price of the item, not the price the seller collects; Paypal fees are calculated on the total dollar amount transferred between the two parties, including shipping and insurance.
If you're paying for combined items through Paypal, you list all the item numbers in the auction number box on the payment form, then enter the correct item and shipping totals in the appropriate boxes. Presumably (yeah, I know) Paypal records that information in case situations such as yours arise. As it is, they are more likely to assume that you grossly overpaid for ONE item rather than paid in full for five. Good luck.
posted on March 22, 2003 07:08:08 PM new
Karen: If you don't combine then Paypal charges you the .30 per transaction which would be for 5 books...$1.50 plus the percentage. Instead, one transaction fee: .30 and then the percentage of the total. It is less and the prime reason folks combine their purchases in Paypal. As for this I was able to email Paypal the confirmation email from the seller and I have the envelope w/postage that would show it is impossible to mail all five books for the postage indicated. But, basically, as a buyer you have little recourse if you combine purchases, unless you do as CBlev says and require an invoice from the seller. Good thought.
posted on March 22, 2003 07:12:21 PM new
Hi, I am sorry your seller did this to you.. not ALL of us are like that..
.Not to be tough, BUT,
If you made the payment to PP for the 5 Book's, and you are the buyer. If you put in $5.00 for book and $28.00 shipping.. then you are setting yourself up for a fall, and to be scamed.
In fact, You purchased 5 book's, and the amount you should have put in was $25.00 and $8.00 shipping.when you made the payment.
Also doing it the other way will NOT save on PP fee's, as they pay on the total amount pd. not by the item price.
I would also, in the "note" area, put in the ALL of the item numbers and names of the books, and make it clear that payment is for all 5 book auctions. I do this everytime I pay threw paypal.. just to make sure there are no mistakes
Not sure if this will help in a buyers complaint, but I'm sure it can't hurt.
Thank you for pointing that out for me, as a seller, not that I will scam anyone, but I will from now on make sure my buyers put the "correct" amount in for combined shipping. and not the price of 1 auction.
Maybe I am wrong here in my thoughts, but maybe not. Good luck to you. :}
posted on March 22, 2003 07:35:23 PM new
first,the seller may have overlooked the other 4 books,so see if he will respond to your email,is he still listing on ebay??
second,paypal will now accept complains and stored it on their file/
posted on March 22, 2003 11:14:13 PM new
Yes, I know there's a per-transaction fee that will be incurred only once if items are combined. The way you phrased your original post made it sound as if YOU thought that by including the cost of the additional items in shipping price as you did, you'd save the seller fees--which is untrue.
posted on March 23, 2003 04:56:11 AM new
Sorry Karen: Since I had headed the thread "paypal" I assumed people would know what I was talking about. My bad. I have had buyers win three or four auctions and pay for them individually on paypal. Ouch..the fees. Especially since my items are ususlly under $10. Since beginning on Ebay in 1998, this is the first transaction where the seller did not complete the transaction (had plenty of buyers as you might imagine). I emailed her three times over 5 days including one through Ebay. Finally went to Paypal and filed buyers complaint. Still no email from her. As an aside, if you go into an auction page to pay for an item and click on paypal, I am not sure it will let you change the amount under "auction item". At least that is what I was told, will try it the next time I buy something. According to Paypal, it doesn't really matter what you put in the message, they go by what is in the boxes. So, I think if you want your buyers to combine, the right thing, as both CBlev and wrights indicated, is to create a new invoice. And that is usually what I do as most of my buyers can't seem to add very well. I came out OK on this, just brought the topic up to give us something to talk and think about outside of YOU KNOW WHAT. Thanks to all for your comments.
[ edited by baylor45 on Mar 23, 2003 05:15 AM ]
posted on March 23, 2003 06:29:34 AM new
Good Morning All!
baylor, you are correct ~ if you attempt to pay by PayPal through the auction link or WBN link, it will only allow you to alter shipping amount and / or insurance.
What Karen refers to as the 'payment page' is accessed through the PayPal site. In order to enter auction numbers (separated by commas) or adjust payment amounts, you need to enter through the PayPal site rather than using a link.
If you click on 'send pmt', you can enter multiple auction numbers where it says item # as well as input the amount that you are sending. Right amount will be sent, all auction numbers recorded, separate transaction fees will not apply as there is only one payment amount for PayPal to fee you on.
*big time yes* to the *ouch* on fees when a bidder sends separate payments! I just had a bidder do it for four auctions (all under $9, mind you) and then they topped it off with a math error ~ sending a fifth payment that was for $1!
posted on March 28, 2003 06:05:22 AM new
AN UPDATE: I received a full refund from Paypal this am (message below). Now, the ethical dilemma: I think I should go back and pay her for the one item I received and her postage, despite the fact that she never answered numerous emails sent through both my email account and ebays, did not try to contact during the 10 days that Paypal wasa trying to resolve the issue and did not follow through with the rest of the auctions, etc. What do you think?
***************************************
Our investigation has determined that the seller is at fault, and as a
result we have attempted to recover your funds. $16.43 has been
credited to your account. This is the maximum amount we were able to
recover. Please allow up to 5 days for this adjustment to be
reflected in your account.
