If you buy coins on ebay, please read this

I just noticed something interesting today. Recently, eBay has shown your shipping costs on "Calculate Shipping" items in your Watchlist. I had a seller today where the shipping had been calculated as $2.50 on a number of items all week, and now in the last 36 hours of the listings, they're all anywhere from $5.00-$7.50 shipping. The listings don't even show that the description has been changed! So, beware of calculated shipping, it appears that sellers are allowed to change the calculated weight without the bidders being notified.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide this ad.

calculated shipping is based on a seller's shipping prefernces settings wich can be changed (for all auctions) without modifying any listings, resulting in the phenomenon that you described.

 

Which mewans in essence, you can place a bunch of auctions up with calculated shipping at about $2.50 First Class per lot, then just change it if all your lots together don't amount to what you thought it would. So you can gain an extra $4 - $5 (and still be First Class) on each lot (say 20) and come out an extra $100 ahead. Meanwhile, you as the bidder really have no idea what hit you on that one or two lots that you calculated your overallbidding on that initial calculated shipping price.

And thus, the beware of calculated shipping.

 

I tend to be very careful when buying coins on Ebay. I've been collecting off and on for almost 30 yrs. and like to think that I know what I'm looking at when it comes to coins (for the most part). I stay away from spending alot of money at one time on Ebay because of all the scammers. Unless its a seller that I've had alot of purchases from and get to trust. I too very much dislike high shipping + handling charges. I've brought this up before in here. A seller will put a coin on Ebay with a starting bid or "buy it now" of $1.99 then charge you $10.00 or more for S&H because Ebay cant charge their sky high fees on S&H, only on the winning bid amount. I think Ebay should step in and regulate how much a seller can charge for S&H, of course, it would also depend on the weight of the item being sold but theres no way it should cost $5.00 to ship a few dimes.

 

Well, eBay and PayPal are part of the problem. No one likes the eBay fees so they charge in places eBay can't tax. eBay has mentioned they would start cracking down on some of this.

Also, with PayPal, you are required to ship to the confirmed address and have proof of delivery. If you don't do that, the bidder can simply claim he never received the item and PayPal will rule in his favor every single time. So that means you have to stick delivery confirmation on there. In many cases, the easiest way to do that is with Priority mail ($4.55 with delivery confirmation).

 

My Red Flags

There are some kind of descriptions that say to me "Skip this one!"

1. The word WOW
2. a couple of @ signs
3. The word RARE

 

I buy and sell on ebay often. I usually buy bigger ticket items so that I don't have to pay my local sales tax. I love my local coin store but shelling out another 50 bucks in tax hurts after awhile ..so I don't mind paying the $5-9.99 for S&H.

When I sell, I usually charge $4.99-$9.99 S&H depending on the value and location of the item. I usually add in insurance for my own protection; I add in my listing fee and I also include a dollar or two to offset the paypal fees which are outrageous. I mean if I sell a coin for $500.00 ..I want $500.00 for it not $495.12. So, I think it's fair that the buyer and I share that burden.

It all evens out. People who charge more for S&H are not getting rich on it. It all evens out in the end. At least it has from my personal experience.

 

scary

Reading all this is a little bit scary, but I guess one really needs to do there homework.
One thing I can offer is when checking feedback when buying or selling, is to look at feedback left for others. I found one recently that had 100% but left a lot of negatives and nuetrals. As a seller you would want to leave feedback only after they are happy.

 

I wouldn't even try to give advise on ebay purchases. My suggestion for buying and selling coins, use forums like this one, there are many, and try to entise people to have more coin clubs. At such coin clubs stress for more local coin shows. If there are sufficient coin shows and clubs locally, it is a lot safer than ebay however, much limited to local whereas with ebay it's the world.
With me I never use ebay for anything. In this area we have about 3 coin shows a month, gun shows about every other month, camera shows once a month, flea markets everywhere and many have coin dealers. Then there are knife shows, train shows, antique shows and on and on and on. With the coin shows though there are numerous ones with dealers from all over the country so no shortage of access to coins. Also, with coins there are a lot of reputable coin dealers on line with their own web sites. Recently on another coin forum someone asked for a list of reputable coin dealers and the list became very extensive.
Instead of ebay, try that.

 

here is another pet peav, look at the attached image.This is an actual image form ebay. how the h. e. double hockey sticks am i supposed to determine a grade from this???

 

I just don't use Ebay anymore. That solves a lot of problems.

 

I guessed that
i usually stick with only purchasing slabbed coins on ebay (but i still want good pictures)

 

Note, this is for sellers only, but it's about time!

 

I'd like to see them do away with private auctions more than private feedback. I could care less about private feedback. Who's gonna buy from some schmuck who has to hide his feedback. When you see a private auction though, you know the guy is trying to prevent someone from warning anyone who bids that they are bidding on crap.

 

I agree with you, but that isn't going to happen since the reasons for private auctions are valid and it needs to be retained for those reasons.