Had to pay extra for a US ebay package?

[plushroo]

I received an item from ebay last week and the postal lady said I had to pay 3 + dollars to get it. I assumed it was an international item and it was just customs fees, but the item was from within the US. I messaged the seller asking why as I felt I had paid enough to ship it. They just said "ebay fees, paypal fees, etc." I've never had to do this before out of the thousands of items bought. Is this something that happens often?

Edit for second story: The item was on my front porch so all of it was received :O

[Thunderwing]

That sounds like a case where the seller didn't put enough postage on the package when it was shipped? So there was additional postage owing. From their reply, I would guess that you paid an amount for shipping (say $7), then they took their fees out of it (leaving $5), and the actual cost of shipping was ($8 as an example) so they paid $5 towards the shipping and left the rest as postage owing for you to pay.

Pretty sure that is not allowed.

[cassstorm]

Hmm, what state was it from? I ask because I had an orange card in my mailbox yesterday saying I have a postage due package.. And a few weeks ago I had one that said I owed 40 cents, but they left it anyway.

[ponylady]

So let me get this straight??? The seller messaged you back saying it was for their eBay fees??    If this is the case then they deliberately put in the wrong shipping weight/dimentions when printing out their label, thus causing there to be postage due upon delivery. Not cool!  It's the seller's responsibility to make sure they pay adequate postage. However, there's no way to force a seller to pay for postage due. A good seller would do so though and not give excuses. I would leave appropriate feedback and ding the shipping charge star.

If this should ever happen again do not pay the postage, nor accept the package.

[plushroo]

@Ponylady: this is all the message said:

Handling fees, ebay fees, paypal fees, etc.

@cassstorm: the seller is in KS.

[cassstorm]

I finally received mine today, but figured out why it was postage owed, it was shipped as a large envelope (bubble envelope, first class, with a printed by the post office extra stamp).. But it would have been considered a package since it was over 1/4" thick

[ponylady]

@Ponylady: this is all the message said:

Handling fees, ebay fees, paypal fees, etc.

@Thunder wing: the seller is in KS.

If that seller was smart, he'd roll whatever he wanted to charge to cover shipping, shipping materials, his seller and transaction fees, and anything else he wants to extract from you and roll it into the item price and offer "free" shipping. Having you pay extra postage is sneaky and dishonest.

As far as I know Ebay has no policy or protection from Postage Due.  It is an unfortunate loophole and people have been stuck for much greater amounts. Eventually eBay will have to step in and make postage due a reason to file. There seems to be a LOT of it going on lately.

[lovesbabysquirmy]

I would definitely leave honest feedback about "shipped w/postage due" - that is not a trick I want to indulge any seller with!

[Ringlets]

Ugh that isn't fair at all   unfortunately I don't think there is much you can do about it now but I would definitely be dinging that sellers stars and leaving them some  honest feedback about what happened. Personally I wouldn't want to deal with someone who deliberately doesn't pay enough postage so that the buyer has to pay more than they expect when the item arrives