Oh bother, broken scales

soolin

I use digital scales to get an accurate postage rate for my auctions and a few weeks ago I noticed that I was getting some silly weights so I changed the battery. I was still getting silly weights sometimes so I thought I was being carefuly by double checking them before listing.In the end I dumped the scales and bought new ones.

Unfortunately though it looks like I had a batch go up that finished Thursday all with the wrong postage. I've sent 5 or 6 packages today all undercharged by around 60p (basically one weight band) and I had one foreign one that was undercharged by almost a £1.

Bother bother, I really needed to do well with that last batch as well because I am going on holiday and they were almost the last lot to be posted. I'm having to go through all my stuff on Turbo lister now to double check it all.

EDIT: I just hope that charging less for p and p than the stamp cost actually makes my p and p stars go up...what's the betting it doesn't?

robinson79

Oh dear

What are your stars for P+P at the moment?

I rely on my trusty Argos Value plastic scales :rotfl:

soolin

I'm currently 4.9 for p and p on that account but it does drop to 4.8 about every other week and then back up again.

robinson79

Oh that's not bad...does anyone ever get up to 5?

cyberbob

I use some very ancient mechanical (balance ones) ones (they were my grandmothers), They are really accurate ive never had any problems and I dont have to worry about batteries

flipper_2010

Weren't EKS ones were they? We had the same problem, changed the battery, same problem, left them for a few weeks and they seemed to sort themselves out. I use old ones now too, no battery expenses then.

soolin

The ones that went odd were Swan ones, it was almost like they were haunted. I would put a book on for instance and it would register 10g..so I would take the book off, shout at the scales a bit and then try again and get 500g..yet I knew this was a book likely to be around 250g. I can usually have a fair idea with books, which is why I noticed they were wrong, but it is the odds and ends that caught me out. Then sometimes it would look about right, 250g..then start to drop 240g, 220g 187 g...then go up again without anyone touching the book at all.

My new ones are Salter scales cost me about £10 in Argos. As a gramme or two makes a lot of difference with a book I needed digital to be sure, the manual ones really only suited me for larger objects where the odd gramme or two made no difference.

sunnysea83

makes me laugh when a seller only offers free p&p yet their postage cost stars are still not 5

i have 5 for description and communication

philgee

Nuts isn't it? I have 5 stars for Item as described, and 4.9 for everything else, yet nearly all my items since the stars have been in place have had free p&p!

kprigg

I got my digital ones from a freebie listed on the freebie forums a few months back. I didnt think they would be much good, but the are great (as long as I dont have anything over 3kg!)
Before these I was using salter manual weight ones & I was useless at getting the right weight.

Your probably right about the stars though. Im listing with free p&p, but cant get my stars above 4.9. Perhaps the only answer is to hand deliver within 1 hour of purchase

martindow

Maybe it is a good idea to have a few items, get them weighed at the PO and keep these to do occasional test weighings (or frequently if you suspect haunted scales).