Bought an item on eBay and it arrived with Postage Due!

Well, after 12+ years on eBay this is a first for me...

I bought something on eBay, and instead of getting the item delivered to my front door, I got a pink slip in my mailbox from the Post Office saying that there was $10.64 worth of postage due (!) on an item that cost me a total of $13 (including supposedly the initial/full shipping fee, of course).

I know I could have just paid the extra $10.64 postage to get the item, but I didn't need the item all that badly so I am instead returning it to the sender and filing a claim with eBay to get my initial payment refunded to me (I have told eBay what happened, and that I am returning the item to the seller since I don't want to pay any more for the item than I was supposed to in the first place).

So I will get my $13 back, and the seller will get their item back and they can try to re-sell it to someone else.

Has anyone else ever had this happen as an eBay buyer before? Did you pay the postage that was due to get your item or did you return the item to the seller?

 

Your seller probably tried to ship something which is not allowed in Media Mail that way. Pound for pound Media Mail is much cheaper, but if you're going to do something stupid you'll get caught. When you buy Media Mail you agree it can be opened for inspection, and if it's bogus they slap on Priority Mail to be paid by the recipient.

 

Ah! Okay, that's interesting. That explains why the shipping price listed in the auction was unusually low. I'll keep an eye out for that in the future. Thank you!

 

Oh yeah, I receive items in the USPS system and often wonder, How in the eff did the seller pay that postage? (Apparently, your seller did NOT get away with it.)

 

It happened to me once, the seller used the "priority envelope" to ship a small cd box using their own printed label for "media mail" - the mail man knows me , so gave me a heads up to ask the seller if they would refund me the difference or he would return the item back to the sender. The seller agreed to partial refund me after I sent him a picture of the package. What the mailman said was that the sender should have covered up the "USPS priority mail" logo prior to dropping it in the mail.

 

Nope. If you use Priority Mail packaging from the USPS, then they will change the shipping to Priority Mail even if you cover up the Priority Mail annotation. That's the rule: Priority Mail packaging CANNOT be used for any other class mail.

As for the OP: Refuse to pay the postage due and let the seller suck on it.

 

Done!

 

Sometimes I think the seller uses their "office" mailroom to ship their ebay packages.

 

This is one of the craziest stories I've ever heard.

 

I would actually report the seller to eBay as he is a) defrauding the post office, which is illegal, and b) he's taking a cheap way out and imposing the real postage fees on the buyer. You didn't particularly need this item so you were able to return it. Then there are other buyers desperate for whatever this schmuck is selling who will be forced to pay the postage, and then good luck getting the money back from the seller.