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eBay Shipping Weirdness Continues...


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Has this happened to anybody else?

Last week on eBay, I bought a set of decals for the Sox '63 Chevy drag car "Good Ole Mr. Wilson."  That's one sheet of decals. The seller is in Illinois, I'm in South Carolina, and the package weighed 3 ounces. It arrived in a small envelope, with a label saying "USPS First-Class PKG."

And when it arrived, the fe-mail carrier knocked on my door and told me I owed $3.34 Postage Due.  Say WHAT?  The shipping envelope had 2 hand-written notes on it in pencil, from somebody at the Post Office:

Note 1: "This should be Priority, not a Package."  Note 2: $5.95 - 2.61 = $3.34."

So the seller had already paid $2.61 and total shipping was a whopping $5.95 for this small, light envelope.

I emailed the seller and asked for a refund of the $3.34. To his credit, he refunded the whole price of the decals ($6.50). He apologized and said this had happened before on other decal sales. He was contacting the Post Office to try and figure out what's going on. 

I'm guessing there's some obscure USPS rule about a "First-Class Package" versus a "Priority envelope" or something.  But I'm only guessing, and this struck me as really weird.

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Something he's doing is preventing it from being machine sorted. An item that size sould be able to go First Class with no problem.  If it has to be hand sorted it will be considered Priority.  Could be the size & shape of the envelope or even the way he's addressing the envelopes if they're hand-addressed.  Did the envelope have a metal clasp?  That's a no-go for machine sorting. 

Edited by Brett Barrow
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Were there any Priority stickers on it? Even tape? Or a Priority envelope? 

When you use one of those free priority shippers from the Post Office you can't ship it any other way (eg 1st Class Package) just by printing out a different postage label on one of those home postage printers. 

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I've mailed bubble envelopes with decals in them sometimes it costs $.52 and some times it's $2.56 just depends on who's working at post office that's rediculios why the difference in price and exactly the same thing. Also just sent a box the size of a model kit no bigger to Canada didn't even weigh a pound and they whacked me $32.50 that's just crazy to ship a $15 kit.

vince

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 They've killed the Ebay biz between the U.S & Canada; the rates are so ridiculous...

Mainly if you like to waste money on the global shipping. I've found an average kit gets to me first class for 15 bucks US and to send one anywhere south of the line is a few bucks less, actually cheaper than to eastern canada. Of course, tracking, priority etc are where it really gets obnoxious but I haven't lost anything through first class yet. 

 

mike

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Thanks everybody. I think Brett and Niteowl are close.  It's a small, unstapled envelope. But it looks like he printed his own "USPS First-Class Package" label. Maybe he did that without checking the USPS rules for that shipping method.

The decals look good. I want to try them on an AMT 63 Chevy upgraded with the more detailed 62 Bel Air chassis and engine.  I've seen that swap done on this board by others and it looks fairly easy. (Famous last words...) 

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Thanks everybody. I think Brett and Niteowl are close.  It's a small, unstapled envelope. But it looks like he printed his own "USPS First-Class Package" label. Maybe he did that without checking the USPS rules for that shipping method.

The decals look good. I want to try them on an AMT 63 Chevy upgraded with the more detailed 62 Bel Air chassis and engine.  I've seen that swap done on this board by others and it looks fairly easy. (Famous last words...) 

I think James has got it.   Did he use a Priority Envelope?  White with red stripes on 2 sides?   Those have to go Priorty, the USPS workers look for the red stripes and pull them out for hand sorting. Priority gets hand sorted, First Class gets machine sorted, that's the difference.  USPS will ding the recipient for the balance.  Tell him to use plain yellow envelopes for First Class and he shouldn't have any problems.   

Image result for priority flat rate envelope

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Did he use a Priority Envelope?  White with red stripes on 2 sides? Tell him to use plain yellow envelopes for First Class and he shouldn't have any problems. 

Thanks. Well, that's strange. It is a plain yellow envelope.  Here's a scan of the envelope, with addresses and Tracking Number blacked out:

Decals2a.jpg

Edited by Mike999
error
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Priority Mail is most indeed machine sorted. Unless it's something so heavy/bulky that it can't ride the belts. Those NMOs (Non Machineable Outsides) are the only thing that get hand sorted at this point. There's also a difference between First Class Metered Mail (stuff with just stamps on it) and First Class Packages which go into the same sort stream/facility as Priority Mail.

It also doesn't need to be the entire envelope, if it uses Priority Sealing tape, or one of those self adhesive Priority address label it automatically makes it a Priority package.

Edit - what are the dimensions? There is an envelope size maximum to 1st Class Package. If it fits, I'd go raise a ruckus at your Post Office (not sure it's worth it being you got refunded) to find out why they tried to kick that up a rate.

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Edit - what are the dimensions? There is an envelope size maximum to 1st Class Package. If it fits, I'd go raise a ruckus at your Post Office (not sure it's worth it being you got refunded) to find out why they tried to kick that up a rate.

Thanks for the info. Dimensions are 9x6 inches.  No "Priority" markings, tape or anything else that I can see. 

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I think the reason it got kicked out in the first place is because he shipped as 1st class package and not 1st class envelope. It would be considered an envelope as long as the contents didn't make a bulge larger than 1/4". There is no reason for it to be considered Priority. I think the postal worker is the one who decided to charge for Priority, I think they are wrong. Would at least have a conversation with your Post Office about this.

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Has this happened to anybody else?

Last week on eBay, I bought a set of decals for the Sox '63 Chevy drag car "Good Ole Mr. Wilson."  That's one sheet of decals. The seller is in Illinois, I'm in South Carolina, and the package weighed 3 ounces. It arrived in a small envelope, with a label saying "USPS First-Class PKG."

And when it arrived, the fe-mail carrier knocked on my door and told me I owed $3.34 Postage Due.  Say WHAT?  The shipping envelope had 2 hand-written notes on it in pencil, from somebody at the Post Office:

Note 1: "This should be Priority, not a Package."  Note 2: $5.95 - 2.61 = $3.34."

So the seller had already paid $2.61 and total shipping was a whopping $5.95 for this small, light envelope.

I emailed the seller and asked for a refund of the $3.34. To his credit, he refunded the whole price of the decals ($6.50). He apologized and said this had happened before on other decal sales. He was contacting the Post Office to try and figure out what's going on. 

I'm guessing there's some obscure USPS rule about a "First-Class Package" versus a "Priority envelope" or something.  But I'm only guessing, and this struck me as really weird.

I would have paid the $3.34 and got over it, you guys have no clue how good you have it on your side of the world.. 

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Im fed up with shipping as a whole lol. I live in Canada, thus cant get basically anything here... it all has to come from the states. Last week I ordered a 5 gallon tank and 2 compressors for my air suspension in my 67 impala lowrider 1:1 project...... Cost was $324.00 Cdn and shipping was $23.00 CDN,for a parcel weighing almost 25lb and 2.5' x 3' x2' box. I fully expected to pay brokerage/duty and taxes..... but nothing, no charges.  This week I ordered 4 air bags and brackets.... a box 1.5' x 1.5' x 1.5x and weighing only about 10lb...... cost was $167.00 shipping was $75.00 and I got hit with $66.14 in brokerage/duty/ and taxes...... seems like the game just changes daily, whenever they decided to charge you..... also BOTH boxes were shipped from the SAME LOCATION.

Edited by mademan
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Im fed up with shipping as a whole lol. I live in Canada, thus cant get basically anything here... it all has to come from the states. Last week I ordered a 5 gallon tank and 2 compressors for my air suspension in my 67 impala lowrider 1:1 project...... Cost was $324.00 Cdn and shipping was $23.00 CDN,for a parcel weighing almost 25lb and 2.5' x 3' x2' box. I fully expected to pay brokerage/duty and taxes..... but nothing, no charges.  This week I ordered 4 air bags and brackets.... a box 1.5' x 1.5' x 1.5x and weighing only about 10lb...... cost was $167.00 shipping was $75.00 and I got hit with $66.14 in brokerage/duty/ and taxes...... seems like the game just changes daily, whenever they decided to charge you..... also BOTH boxes were shipped from the SAME LOCATION.

Long story short, it's because things are shipped by weight AND volume. Chances are that first box was large enough it was in a different max weight class than the smaller box. If the smaller box weighed more than the max allowable for the rate, then you're stuck paying what amounts to an excess baggage fee on an airline flight.

Anyone who imports kits directly from Japan knows the weight by volume game where a certain number of kits will ship for a certain rate, but adding one more kit makes it go up a rate class and adds $25-30 to the shipping.  

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There no longer seems to be simple rules and rates for shipping things. Recently I bought 4 pairs of skis (over 6 feet long) on ebay that were new surplus. Cost to ship was more than the price of the skis. On a positive note, I needed some ski poles and ordered some sale items from Sierra Trading Post, good price and the shipping for 2 sets of poles and one set of ski bindings (heavy) was $7.95. They came in 3 separate boxes, and that had to cost way more than the price I paid. So, sometimes it works in your favor.

An envelope with one sheet of decals should not ever cost $5.95, I would take that envelope to the PO and complain. Worse they can do is tell you to go away.

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niteowl7710: "Long story short, it's because things are shipped by weight AND volume."

Yep, that changed just a few years ago. The change was adopted by all the carriers - USPS, FedEx and UPS.  They started charging by weight AND the amount of space that packages take up in the aircraft/truck.

And this just happened in January 2017: "The USPS 2017 rate changes take effect January 22nd across all shipping services. Overall, rates increased for most products, weights, and zones, but USPS has chosen not to increase rates for international services. We’ll go over changes to USPS’ most popular shipping services including Priority Mail, First Class Package, Flat Rate, and Regional Rate."

http://shippingeasy.com/usps-2017-shipping-rate-changes-flat-rate-priority-first-class-w-tables/

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The big issue is the inconsistency from clerk to clerk.  Then even once you are out of the post office, someone in the mail stream can pull it out and make it postage due as we saw above.

Last year when my daughter sent out her wedding invitations, not only did the post office absolutely ruin these $10 invitations with a way over inked cancellation machine.  Then people were receiving some of them postage due.  She had the post office where she mailed them from, do the pricing. They said it was two ounces for 80 cents, some receiving offices decided to add the non-machinable rate (even though the cancel showed it clearly went through the machine!) for a few dollars more.

At my own post office there are 4 clerks.  I noticed that if I get the lady, it costs a lot more.  Her interpretation of "machinable" is that she needs to be able to bend the envelope in half. I can give the same envelope to any other clerk and it's fine.

Back when eBay started, the original Priority Mail was $2.99 or $3.99 for up to 2 pounds  (if I remember correctly).  Today it's way more and almost like gambling bringing the package up to the counter.  I used to freely give away parts on the message boards when I could slap a stamp on an envelope and send it.  Last time I got hit for $3 to mail someone a hood!

 

 

Edited by Tom Geiger
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