What is the problem with eBay's shipping charges??

[fortuna]

Look, I don't like to pad shipping charges to make a profit. I'm one of the probably three people on eBay who ask for actual shipping charges to be covered. I also ask for 1.00 domestic and 2.00 International to cover packing materials.

On this last set of auctions, again and again eBay quoted people shipping fees which were 1 to almost 5 dollars less than the minimum fee from the post office. Parcel post is 4.90 flat rate, small box anywhere in the US and they quoted people 2.00!!! Not only that, but in every case my handling fees were not charged.

Of course, the nice, wonderful customers on eBay pitched a fit and refuse to pay ACTUAL shipping fees so I canceled 4 sales and refunded them. (3 Canadians and one Puerto Rican, by the way). The American clients paid my invoices with fixed shipping fees. Every auction I chose to cancel was for a 1.00 sale so these people actually expected me to pay out of my pocket to send them a free item, apparently.

I tried to contact eBay about the problem, since it's not one of the pre-made problems I couldn't get an email contact and had to wait for live chat. The 42 minute wait time turned into 5 hours and by the time an agent came online I had fallen asleep.

You know, I'd think it was something I did but the system did manage to quote the correct shipping charge to several auctions so I have no clue why it couldn't do the same when parcel post is a ****ing FLAT RATE FEE!

Of course, printing my postage out via Paypal I was given the wonderful surprise of having a surcharge tacked on every shipping payment. They can't seem to add that fee onto the shipping quote either.

I swear to God, eBay just hates sellers. They screw us every way possible.

[rsot]

The picture is pretty big and pretty screwed up.

[cardfelon]

Paypal doesn't charge you a surcharge for printing postage. You should look at the fees charged such as delivery confirmation and such.
There are no parcel post flat rate boxes. There are Priority Mail flat rate boxes which do cost $4.95 for a small flate rate box. Parcel post is the most inexpensive way to ship with USPS but also the slowest. So if you are getting quotes for Parcel Post and then trying to use Priority Mail boxes then thats where you are running into problems.

[fortuna]

my mistake on terminology. The quotes were for the basic 4.95 priority mail small box but eBay was quoting 2.00, 7.01 for Canada when the minimum charge was 10.88 - etc, etc.

I used software to post all my auctions at once so they all had the same settings - yet some auctions quoted the correct amount and some didn't.

As for the add on charges for shipping confirmation, if they require it they should put it in the shipping quote. Last I checked, they require it for "protection".