Quote:
The seller is responsible for determining the shipping and handling charges on listings, and eBay encourages sellers to clearly describe the item and terms of shipping and delivery in their listings to avoid possible confusion. Before bidding on an auction or buying in a fixed-price listing, bidders/buyers should contact the seller about any questions they might still have that are not directly answered in the item's description.
Sellers may charge reasonable shipping and handling fee to the final price of their item, providing that this fee is disclosed up front in the listing. A shipping and handling fee can cover the seller's reasonable costs for mailing, packaging and handling the item. Shipping and handling fees cannot be listed as a percentage of the final sale price.
When a bid is placed, the bidder is entering into an agreement with the seller to purchase the item, which most often means incurring shipping charges that may also include handling fees.
In the case of disagreements between buyers and sellers regarding shipping charges, eBay encourages the parties to try to work the matter out. Usually these situations can be amicably resolved.
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This statement from eBay's excessive shipping/handling policy would leave me to believe that they don't want to deal with shipping disputes, but buyers may have a case if the excessive fee (or any substantial, additional handling fee) is not "disclosed up front in the listing".
Aso, on a semi-related note, PayPal used to not allow sellers to charge an additional amount to cover their PayPal fees, but this appears to have changed... does anyone know if this is true? I checked both eBay and PayPal and could no longer find anything to prohibit this practice. I still wouldn't do it in my own auctions, but I can see where it might be nice for other sellers, especially on high dollar amounts.