Post office cracking down on shipping costs

I buy a lot of coins on eBay, sometimes getting five or six shipments a day. Four times in the last month or so, I've gotten a "postage due" slip instead, and had to go to the post office to pay the postage and pick up the coin. This has happened maybe once or twice in all the time up to now that I have been buying coins, but now it is almost a weekly occurence. I know from shipping coins that I've sold that the post office's fees are a bit of a mystery. I find that if I have coins in a padded envelope and I take it to the counter, they'll charge me $1.95 minimum, which I guess is the parcel rate, but I can go to the automatic machine and usually pay a little more than a dollar. I haven't had a problem with this yet. So why the different rates for the same package? It all goes together. It seems like lately they've started charging a lot more things as "parcel" that they used to allow at a cheaper rate, and all of the items I've been getting "postage due" were charged as parcel but the person shipped them cheaper. All of these shippers are veteran sellers who do this all the time, and they're doing the same thing they always did, but all of a sudden it isn't working. Today's example I thought was particularly ridiculous. It was one coin, wrapped one time around in bubble wrap and placed into a regular envelope. The shipper used a 45 cent stamp, and the post office charged me an extra $1.50. The evelope barely weighed anything and didn't stick out much, but I guess it stuck out too much for their exacting standards, at least according to the clerk. I was wondering if anyone else is noticing this or if it's just my local post office that is getting more strict?

 

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There is no reason, whatsoever, that you can't ship just about any coin for the price of ONE stamp. Just put the coin in a 2 x 2, put a layer of thin foam around it, put it in a regular envelope, and send. Shipping charges on ebay are a scam. When I see a 2.99 shipping charge for a penny, I laugh. If I see someone pay it, I laugh harder.

 

The post office coming after the recipient for extra postage seems horribly inappropriate.

As for shipping rates on ebay, it really does not matter what they charge in my opinion. I simply take the shipping charge into account when I bid on a coin. If I am willing to pay $100 for a coin and shipping is $2 then I bid $98, whereas if the shipping charge was $25 then I would bid $75. Same difference.

Now, if they charged $5 to cover $2 worth of shipping costs and the post office expected me to cover some remainder then that would be a different story. Personally, I believe that I would let the package be returned to sender. I would then instruct the seller to either reship the item with the correct postage or refund the entire transaction.

 

This is no joke but earlier in the last decade I received a little green slip in my mail box telling me that I owed the post office around 10 cents for something I bought on ebay. They still delivered whatever it was that I ordered but I got a laugh they would bother asking me, the recipient, to pay this additional 10 cents (or however little it was) for something that was shipped to me.

 

You have no idea what you are talking about.

 

If these are packages with a label that the seller prints off of Paypal, you are getting hosed. When you create these labels you have to enter the weight of the package, that determines the cost of postage.
It sounds to me that this seller is fudging the weight and sticking the savings in his pocket. You might get by with it but if it's discovered by the PO somebody has to pay the difference.
If that happened to me I would refuse delivery of the package and make a copy of the postage due notice. I'm sure ebay would be interested in this practice.

 

Yes you can do that for one or two stamps (depending on weight). But the problem is how Ebay works. If you do that you will get hundreds of buyers saying you never sent them the item. I know, I have had it happen to me a few times. Eventually I begun to only send stuff with tracking because without tracking any joe shmoe can rip you off by saying they did not get the item and ebay will take the money from your account and reimburse them.

 

Agreed! People who ship like that are just cheap. They don't care if the "fat" envelope gets torn open in the post office machinery which happens quite frequently.

There are two ways to cure the cheapskate sellers who overcharge for shipping and end up leaving postage due to the buyer. One is to contact the seller for a credit or refund, and the other, if the first fails, is called feedback!

Chris

 

A simple explanation for the Post Office descrepancies. A normal thickness letter or postcard can be processed through automatic machinery that cancells the stamp, reads the zip code and sends it to the appropriate bin. Bulky "flats" cannot be run through the same automatic sorter and must be handled differently and usually involves a clerk having to do at least some of the work that the letter sorting machine does. Therefore a bulky flat that weighs the same as a normal letter must require additional postage.

As for the sellers overcharging for postage or underpaying it, it's another story.

 

1.95 for bubble envelope? I just use paypal shipping labels, and can get a 3 oz package for under 1.90?

 

One possible reason the Post Office is doing this is because they are losing billions of dollars and could be bankrupt in the near future. Re-cooping lost revenue may be a way to put them back 'in the black' (though I doubt it).

@OP.....This has happened to me in the past and seriously ticks me off, especially when I pay 'X' amount of dollars for shipping and see much less than 'X' postage on the package. I grudging pay the extra postage and immediately contact the seller to voice my displeasure. They always make up the difference. This may seem petty, but to me it's just the danged principle off the thing......

 

Try mailing a slabbed coin in that envelope and see what happens!
Actually happened to me once and the slab was smashed to pieces!
I daresay you don't have too much experience shipping coins sold on eBay.
First of all, you'll need a padded mailer, which can be had for around 75¢ to $1.00.
Then there's postage, which for a single slabbed coin would be around $1.25-$1.50.
So, already we are up to $2.00-$2.50 and that doesn't even account for other packing material, trip to the Post Office, etc.
When selling on eBay Delivery Confirmation is a MUST and I don't think you can get that on a regular envelope and, if you could, it would cost you 85¢.

 

*making note to never buy from this person because of the cheap shipping advice quoted above*

:thumb:

 

Not so. I tried sending a dime I gave away to a member here, in an air tite, wrapped in a sheet if paper. I put it in a regular envelope with a stamp and dropped it in the mail box. It got sent back. Said it weighed too much for the postage. So I wasted that stamp and had to use two stamps on the next envelope. Thats a dime, an air-tite and a sheet of paper!

 

I got a "postage due" note for an item that was 2 cents short once. It probably cost more to print and deliver that note than the amount they collected from it.

 

Was the stamp cancelled? Seems odd. I thought you could just add the additional postage and re-send.

 

They put a large "return to sender" stamp on the envelope. I needed to use a different envelope. I might have been able to cut the stamp out and re-use but I didnt. I dont think they like to see stamps taped and I had a lot of them anyway.

 

I think if the envelop is more than a quarter inch thick you have to pay more. At my post office they have a cutout and if the letter doesn't go thrum you have to pay different rate. Probably post office is using this and that is why. The sender didn't think someone would do thatin transit.

 

I don't object to people shipping it cheaply as long as they do it correctly. I intentionally buy from people who have low shipping costs, and there were never any problems until recently. To clarify, this isn't happening on pre-printed Paypal packaging but usually when they use stamps. I always contact the seller when it happens and often they offer me a refund of shipping costs or even the entire purchase price. I don't want to return to sender because I'd rather have the coin. I just wish the pricing didn't seem so arbitrary. It's like it depends which clerk processes the package.

On the other hand, I purchased a coin that was 99 cents plus $3 shipping a few days ago, and it came yesterday in a package with signature confirmation and a $4.50 postage sticker on it. The seller lost money and there's no reason it needed to be packaged like that. That doesn't make sense either.

 

Correct me if I am wrong but e-bay is now charging a commission/fee on postage, also.