DVDs on Ebay - all free delivery?

Tea3

Well I received a friendly email back saying

Hi Mate
thanks for your email as you can see from our rating we have been ebaying for quite awhile. When you go to the post office to post an item if it does not fit through a standard letterbox it is considered bulky, and can not be sent normal post as a single, double or small boxset can (we send these out recorded for free) the boxset you have bought is 7 discs and is what would be classed by the post office as bulky it would be sent recorded delivery as to cover its worth which is more than the £3.99 you got it for and will cost more than £3.00 to send. Hence the £3.00 postage charge which we consider fair. The cost of the postage should have been in the delivery section of the ebay invoice as it was in our other bulky boxset auctions and the same template is used for all of the bulky boxset listings I am sorry it was not in there for you when the invoice was sent. For me to send you an invoice now I would have to refund you the first one and send you a new one or I can send you a request via paypal for the money. The choice is yours let me know and I will do as you request,
If you do not want to pay for the postage I can refund your payment and we will leave it at that. Let me know what you want to do.

So I guess I either stump up the £3 postage or forget about it and get refund. The price is not so much the issue here as its only £3, I just get annoyed that he can get around ebays rules that way - I am assuming he is wrong in saying this boxset cannot be sent by normal post - its about the size of a vhs video box with 7 cds in it.

ADDED - this one is in the dvd category and the seller always messages me directly and not through ebay so I think he knows he's trying it on and wants nothing 'on file' so to speak.

Smart_But_Casual

If it were me, but I get arsey with sellers like this, I'd insist that they posted and if they didn't then accept the refund, but not do a mutual so they still get the fees, and I'd give them 1* across the board and neg' them.

soolin

The thing that surprises me most on this thread is that the seller hasn't realised he has got caught out and started to back track.

It takes a lot to be so stubborn when you know you are wrong, a neg and FVFs on a failed transaction are going to cost him..

I suspect I will be up against this sort of seller in October as well in my book categories the problem is that once a buyer has a problem with one seller he may well give up on ebay entirely. I don't want other sellers to annoy book buyers, I want them to hang about and buy my books as well.

Tea3

Well it looks like i'm paying the postage.... spoke to ebay to confirm the 'larger than a letterbox size is bulky' info he said and they more or less said its nonsense, however they said if I pay the £3 postage in this instance they will credit £20 to my account that can be spent over the next 10 days!! I'd be crazy to say no lol. As I am paying the postage I think a neg would be wrong however I will leave a neutral I think with a note of what happened re postage - also dsr's marked down as £3 postage when should be free is not a 5/5!

ADDED - forgot to say although it works out in my favour I dont see that this method of ebay dealing with fee avoidance will put off many sellers from adding on postage - especially if the buyer gets paid to keep shtumm and just pay the postage lol. I'm happy with end result financially as for a £6.99 total cost I get a £20 voucher but morally it seems the seller gets off with it.