As always i am scouring ebay for Star Wars goodies and i have noticed lately that there is a flare of idiots that way overcharge for shipping.

I have seen some folks carge 41$ to ship a single loose action figure! Personnally i think this is insane. Do they actuallt think that people will buy in into their auction and pay 41$ for their shipping charges? I know that postage has gone up and all and you gotta make profit and factor in the packaging and eveything else but this is to the point of getting ridiculous.

I know Ebay as been trying to combat this in different ways but they should really have a system where you actually could report such behavior to them and the sellers could suffer the consequence of trying to be a little too greedy for their own good.

To begin with, if they dont wanna sell their product under a specific amount then dont try to get your money back on the shipping.

I know that waht i am saying is nothing new. But the sad truth is that some very desirable items on in the hands of the nutjobs and it makes it very hard to collect since you have to shell out more for postage than the actual amount for the toy. Ok some people would reimburse you if they overcharge you but that is pretty rare now. But i see that flare right now and it burns me. I wanna pay fair price for the item depending on its condition but i hate being ripped off on shipping.

my 2 cent rant for the day.

Theres always a few muppets out there trying to take buyers for a ride.
Curse the muppets

I think that Ebay was the cause, when they implemented the policy of tracking packages to non - US addresses. I think they were having a lot of claims about packages not getting to the buyers. So they implemented the tracking policy. Then people thought that they could make a killing on shipping to non - US addresses. What they didn't know was that the flat rate boxes came with tracking and was affordable. I'm going to make the assumption that there was a drop in the amount of non - US purchases because of it. I certainly know that I wasn't going to pay those kind of prices for shipping, so I have turned to other avenues of purchasing vintage SW.

The USPS now has tracking on first class mail, so hopefully shipping costs will start to come back down.

Bud, I know that you are somewhere here in the Great White North as well, so I feel your pain.

Clint

1st tracking is just bundled into the price (it was an add on) but it's still for the US only.

FWIW guys, if I ship a single figure and want it tracked outside North America it's almost $30. Canada is $19.95 for a flat rate small box (maybe 6-7 figures tightly packed)

Hey John, that would explain why the 1st class packages "disappear" when the packages get to the border. Up till then, I can usually see where the package is.

Bud, The other option that I have available for shipping, is that I have a post office box set up in Buffalo for out of country residents, so if shipping from sellers in the US is too expensive to me in Ontario, then I just have them send it to the Buffalo post box, using 1st class mail. Then the post office calls me when the package arrives. It usually cost me about $30 in fuel and about 4 hrs of time to go to Buffalo and back. It works great if you have multiple packages coming in at the same time. It makes the trip worth while.
If you are close to a border, this might be an option in your area.

it,s true about the fact that due to buyers not getting items or damaged one sellers now use tracking also the post office usally charges a lot even for domestic items it cost me to ship one figure to new brunswic in canad almost $16 without tracking unless I wanted to put the figure in an envalope which would have been cheaper but greater damage risk. I wont even mention what over seas shipping is like.

I always ask the sellers to offer first class mail for small shipment like figures , there is a size limit and after that it falls into priority mail category.

First class is dirt cheap and almost always gets to me faster than priority mail.

I know that some buyers are psycho about getting their stuff but some sellers are just unscrupulous and use the tracking excuse to over charge the buyer. I have no good solution to offer as to how to protect the package while in transit and make sure it arrives. But it seems ebay as shot themselves in the foot with this one and the buyers are paying for it.

Ebay is probably part of the scam also since i was charged once on my auction fees for part of the postage which i thought ebay did not touch but apparently did. so they are in on it i say.

I didn't know ebay took part of the postage also as for me I am signing up for a free canada post card basically it bumps you up to the next shipping option and you pay the lower one ie if you ship letter it will be sent priority and you will be charged for letter good deal in my opinion.

$41.....highest I saw was $28 with no tracking.......