Post by jimwentzell on Apr 3, 2019 15:21:30 GMT
I have given up on certain online sellers. Or, more correctly put, they have blocked me from bidding, and claim they "cannot do anything about it." Very frustrating but I have learned to let go, on so many levels, and now I have to apply it to my collecting habits.
The problem: some online sellers (and other venue sellers too, I'm sure) have software programs that allow them to "block" certain sellers. I have my list of favorite sellers, using eBay's relatively easy-to-use features. But as I purchase many lower-priced items over a longer period of time, such as single postcards and postal history items, the seller's shipping fees individually can cost sometimes many multiples of the item's individual cost.
If you're still with me you probably have had the same thing happen to you. You bid on, say, ten different items from a seller and you ask them--or they usually offer--to "combine" the shipping costs.
Well, one user in Sweden has worked this way with me and countless other buyers. I have counted over 800 covers and postcards purchased from them over the past eight+ years, representing items priced from less than $1 to sometimes up to $20 or more each. But sometimes the item I am purchasing does NOT get combined with the others, and that's where the seller's actions kick in. The seller claims their auction-listing software "automatically" blocked sellers who are past, say, thirty days due and haven't yet submitted payment.
Well, yes, my thirty-odd postcards I may have won over the past month or so may have been invoiced together (and I always pay them promptly) but there were one or two that they did NOT combine and eBay's "unclaimed item case" gets opened by the seller's automatic system. I cannot get the seller to separately add the single odd $1 or $2 item to my continuing newer items to combine for shipping! So eventually, I get blocked from future bidding as I am awaiting the seller to add that old one dollar item to my current purchase.
Even after sending messages through eBay, AND very politely-worded real-mail (snailmail) letters apologizing and pointing out the fallacy of paying, say, $11.00 shipping on a $1.00 item I won. The seller claims to not be able to reinstate me. I am sure this is not true, perhaps they realize I use a sniping system and they'd rather not have me bid with them anymore.
Below is a typical screenshot (not from my Swedish seller; however it's the typical eBay "action needed" case which I've always responded to:
The problem: some online sellers (and other venue sellers too, I'm sure) have software programs that allow them to "block" certain sellers. I have my list of favorite sellers, using eBay's relatively easy-to-use features. But as I purchase many lower-priced items over a longer period of time, such as single postcards and postal history items, the seller's shipping fees individually can cost sometimes many multiples of the item's individual cost.
If you're still with me you probably have had the same thing happen to you. You bid on, say, ten different items from a seller and you ask them--or they usually offer--to "combine" the shipping costs.
Well, one user in Sweden has worked this way with me and countless other buyers. I have counted over 800 covers and postcards purchased from them over the past eight+ years, representing items priced from less than $1 to sometimes up to $20 or more each. But sometimes the item I am purchasing does NOT get combined with the others, and that's where the seller's actions kick in. The seller claims their auction-listing software "automatically" blocked sellers who are past, say, thirty days due and haven't yet submitted payment.
Well, yes, my thirty-odd postcards I may have won over the past month or so may have been invoiced together (and I always pay them promptly) but there were one or two that they did NOT combine and eBay's "unclaimed item case" gets opened by the seller's automatic system. I cannot get the seller to separately add the single odd $1 or $2 item to my continuing newer items to combine for shipping! So eventually, I get blocked from future bidding as I am awaiting the seller to add that old one dollar item to my current purchase.
Even after sending messages through eBay, AND very politely-worded real-mail (snailmail) letters apologizing and pointing out the fallacy of paying, say, $11.00 shipping on a $1.00 item I won. The seller claims to not be able to reinstate me. I am sure this is not true, perhaps they realize I use a sniping system and they'd rather not have me bid with them anymore.
Below is a typical screenshot (not from my Swedish seller; however it's the typical eBay "action needed" case which I've always responded to:
.....which is good on the budget