What's with sellers claiming postage at "buyer's risk"

zerog

In the ebay sub-category where I buy, more and more sellers are writing in their description that "postage is at buyer's risk" unless you pay them for a more expensive postage option.

As far as I know, this is not enforceable, and I've only ever had 1 package go lost from a seller with this "condition", but he didn't try to get ebay to enforce it and just refunded after a bit of email arguing. So if he knew that he was writing rubbish, why bother writing it at all?

It didn't use to be like this, but now maybe 1 in 10 listings has this "condition" and it is a range of sellers doing this from completely new sellers with only buying feedback, to business sellers with 10000+ feedback.

It kind of puts me off buying from these sellers, but only a little.

RFW

zerog wrote: »

It didn't use to be like this, but now maybe 1 in 10 listings has this "condition" and it is a range of sellers doing this from completely new sellers with only buying feedback, to business sellers with 10000+ feedback.

There's always been a few who have put it. There was a crackdown on it a while ago, I'm assuming Ebay have given up or just not that bothered.
It is, as you say, utter nonsense. Perhaps some sellers believe it's true, it isn't. The only effect it would have on me as a buyer is to not buy fro that seller, in my eyes they're telling me if I don't pay inflated postage they might not bother sending it.

mrcol1000

I really think that things like this is not always ignorance on the sellers part but they hoping the buyers are ignorant of their rights.Unfortunately some buyers do think they are at the mercy of the sellers self imposed terms and conditions.

martindow

If these buyers ridiculous terms and conditions put people off you could get things at lower prices in auctions than they would normally sell for. Regardless of what they say, you are protected as you would be buying from any other seller.

forgotmyname

Just sellers not knowing that they are in fact liable or hoping the buyer thinks they are not liable if anything goes wrong.

I had a seller that hinted that to get my refund i must do this and that, i opened a case and got my refund. They did have a bit of a strop and left everything to the last minute, responded to the case on the last day and refunded on the last day etc. Who cares as long as my refund comes back.