[OT] Cheap postage

Rather less than they should be, sometimes. There's been a long thread on a Pistonheads forum alleging that a well-known ebay seller was taking advantage of RM's less than 100% checking by sending more items, and of greater weight, than they declared to RM. It is even suggested that the seller had "influenced" RM staff to turn a blind eye.

This may all be malicious fabrication, of course, but the seller has stopped trading and is said to be under investigation by RM, HMRC, and Uncle Tom Cobbleigh.

Others have suggested that, for a new business, it's a sound investment of a few hundred quid to sell items at a loss to get a rapid high ebay feedback rating.

Kevin wrote

I've bought a couple of shooting sticks from Britain. The official postal charge is pretty high because of the length of one. One of them was about half the postal cost of the other and I wondered why. When it showed up fine it was clear that he had deliberately understated the length and RM hadn't bothered to measure it.

Yeah, that must have been what the ebay seller in china was doing selling very decent solid stainless steel nail clippers for just 1c, post included. I was suspicious but at that price wasn?t actually risking much. The first one was defective, the jaws didn?t close parallel. I told the seller more out of interest to see what the response would be, expecting to be ignored. He sent me a new pair for no charge and the second pair were fine, perfect, just what I wanted.

Call me suspicious but I sometimes wonder if a giveaway price is a cover for some dodgy orientals who want your credit card details.

I recently had a weird discussion about this with someone who was saying that dealing with China was as safe as dealing with someone in your own country.

Subject: Re: What are amounts for credit card liability? Message-ID: Date: 08 December 2015

Rod Speed scribbled

Do us all a favour and sit in one that's upside down.

They don?t get that with ebay because you are free to pay with paypal and when you do, they don?t get to see any credit card details.

I did have some reservations with aliexpress because you can't use paypal there, but know that the card I use there has a very gung ho approach to misuse of my card details. I took the risk and have never had any problems with the use of my card details by aliexpress sellers.

Not clear what happens with the aliexpress sellers, whether they actually see my card details or not, but regardless, have never had any problems.

I wouldn?t go as far as that when you can't use paypal.

That doesn?t work for me in groups.google, either the whole Message-ID or just the stuff before the @. What group was it in ?

I have bought books for 1p from Amazon registered sellers. But they always add on the full postage, usually a few pounds (as you'd expect). They have to do that.

Three points:

2) Some products, such as printer ink cartridges, normally sell as sets, so the per item price may not cover the cost of posting one item, but the price of the set will. It is probably easier in such cases to take a hit on the odd time that somebody orders just one.

Not if they're selling via AliExpress or similar, they don't get to see your credit card details.

I try to use Paypal but you can't use it for Amazon purchases.

It was in uk.legal and also uk.finance.

Probably, the seller has, but then who has not used a post paid reply envelope with a label over the original address? Brian

That's a new one on me. What will the criminal classes think of next? :-)

On 06/03/16 09:28, Nightjar 3) The people sending the goods may not be the ones you are ordering

This is called drop shipping, and some big online sellers make it very clear that it is a service that they offer.

Even re-using an unfranked stamp is illegal, although I doubt there are many/any prosecutions.

Cheers

Only Amazon see your cc details when you buy through Amazon Marketplace.

Where did you get that operational detail from ?

AliExpress do an escrow service so the payment is taken and held by AliExpress not the supplier. When the buyer is satisfied then Ali Express release the payment to the seller.

Are you sure? That would be great news.

I thought the merchant got all info for the transaction. They get my phone number and stick it on the address label, so everybody between here and China can see it.