Overseas buyer bought two items without contacting me and is now refusing to pay postage costs. What should I do?

[aswellasyou]

He's bought two items totalling about £8. I choose to only send parcels overseas using Royal Mail International Signed For Small Packets which is about £12 in this case. He's saying it's far more than he's willing to pay but he never contacted me beforehand to ask about shipping.
I don't know what to do now. I was happy to get rid of these items but I don't want to have to send them by post that isn't possible to be tracked at all.

Personally I would do that "mutually agreed not to complete the transaction" thing and re-list.

Thankyou. I've sent him a message saying he can either go ahead and pay or I can send a cancellation request. Why didn't he just ask first? I've had lots of overseas requests before bidding.

I always put in my T&C at the bottom of my auction spiel "overseas buyers should contact me for postage costs before bidding".

I did last time I listed things but I didn't think people would be stupid enought o bid on something without knowing the total cost. Interestingly, he has his feedback set to private. I wondered whether he might have something to hide in his feedback.

I'd send him a nice letter saying due to recent scams on ebay your policy is to protect both buyer and seller your only sending items signed for. Say you are aware the cost is prohibitive and are swallowing some in packaging yourself. Then state you understand if he wants to cancel the transaction.

I often send something along those lines when people ask me to post abroad and tell me what it should cost.

don't do a mutually agreed to cancel as he won't cooperate

open a non payer dispute on day 4 then on day 7 close it then relist.

Then block international and this bidder

I don't want to block international bidders. I will always put in the listing that they need to contact me though. I'd thought of opening a case but I'm worried that he will pay for the items and then either claim they were damaged/not as described to get his money back or otherwise leave me two negative feedbacks.

"don't do a mutually agreed to cancel as he won't cooperate"

How can you tell he won't cooperate? I've done this and had full cooperation. Perhaps I am too nice but I think escalating to NPB right away is rather heavy handed for what was a mistake on his part (not checking postage)

and if the buyer refuses to cancel the transaction the seller is left with the fees to pay

Up to you op - but I know what I would do. I have been stung in the past and been left with fees after buyer didn't read an auction properly.