Malicious £300 eBay postal return

[marmitetoastie]

I sold an item on eBay. I paid £60 to courier it to them (I only charged them £20 in the listing).

they wanted a refund, it went to a dispute, & they were refunded.

they packed the item (a bike), i instructed the courier to pick it up.

I noticed the box was much heavier, when it arrived. I’ve just got a bill from the courier for excess weight. It’s 59 kilos MORE than on the outward journey. I’ve been charged over £300 for the return postage. EBay refuse to do anything about it, bc they can’t claim the money back.

I reckon it's bricks in the box or stones

Ok I got the bottom of it.

The parcel is outsize (XL) so UPS calculate it on Volumteric weight not kg. Which is:
L x W x H
÷
4000

Which brings my huge box out to 100kg. So roughly what they've "weighed" it as.

Then they've charge us at a much higher rate as we didn't declare the correct parcel size. So I"ve done an appeal, as we used their "return parcel" click through; we didn't realise the buyer was using a larger box, nor did they ask. I requested if we can be billed at the normal UPS rate for this size, which is about £100.

I saw the link to the Parcelhero reviews, I've used them for loads of things, without problems. I had a swimming pool business in covid and shipped them out with PH. I'll just say that I never had any problems or anything go missing. But if I get charged £323 for this, for sure, I'll never use them again.

Thanks for all your supportive messages,

MT

xxx

So what @LilyGlobe said on Tuesday then.

An answer that made complete sense but you said that the cardboard box was so heavy you couldn't even lift it.

But you said you slid the bike out and still couldn't move the box as it was so heavy. That was nonsense, yes? Because we were asking if maybe the error/problem was with the delivery company.

You asked for advise on dealing with ebay as they wouldn't refund, and on getting the money from the buyer. We said you needed to check the box first as ebay wont listen until you can show them the malicious act and you posted too early as we couldn't advise without the proof. You got all stroppy. Maybe dont get stroppy at people next time.

Thanks for updating I’ve been checking to see what happened. I’m curious as to why a bike shop is buying a second hand bicycle and tghen shipping it back? I would assume there are lots available locally that don’t need shipping paid on top. My OH is a keen cyclist and shipping is always a massively expensive pain! I’m also slightly loling about you shipping out swimming pools during covid (I’m assuming you mean chemiclas or similar) 😅

I never get the "your box weighs this much because it's this size" myself . I seems just a way of conning more money out of the punter .

It's not. What happens if you send a huge box that fills a sprinter van, but the weight of it is very low, for example 10kg. I could send a cabin sized suitcase sized box that would weigh the same yet I could fit say 50 of those in the same space. Do you think the price to send both of these pieces should be the same?
Volumetric weight isn't a new thing.

OP are you sure they're using 4000 not 5000? I'm on ML but I used to use UPS through work and up until I finished in December they used 5000. Which should reduce your chargeable weight.