Ok here is the scenario - I won these coins, seller says postage isn't enough to England, it was $2 originally but he's asking for $11 now. What should I do? He says I can cancel or pay the extra cash. Are these coins worth paying the extra $9 ??

Please examine the pile of coins and let me know what path you would choose.

Pile of coins



I have time.. **drums fingers across table**

If buyers are bound by their bids, aren't sellers bound by their listings?

It's very clearly stated that postage to the UK is US$2.

If EBay won't enforce it's rules, then money back if it were me.

I'm not sure that batch is worth $9.

Doubtful that the coins are worth it but there's really no way to tell. It's obvious the composition of the photo was carefully staged. If it were me, I would probably call his bluff. A deal's a deal. If he refuses, you may have saved some money.

Stick to your guns. Let him know that you bid the amount you did taking into account the quoted amount for postage.

OK he now says $8 (as I expected he might reduce it) so what now?

After leaving this overnight (of course it was very late when made this post around 2 am) I am thinking the coins are very flashy and worth maybe about the amount I won them for or perhaps a slight bit more. Calling his bluff

Just tell him no, he agreed $2, you bid on that basis, $18.49 total.

If he doesn't fulfil you will report him to ebay.

A couple of weeks ago I got cut short after making bids on items about 6 or 7 days after the first round of wins I had with the seller. At the exact point in time I had just won another item making it three (I think) wins in total - picking up bargains - and was prevented from gaining any more of this seller's items. We had discussed that the airmail would be around $4 but he made a different tune when he sent me the later invoices. His reasoning when I asked him what made him cut me short on my final day of bidding (he went to his preferences area and banned me from making any bids) was that I wasn't responding to these invoices ($4 at first but later he asks for $15?!) and when I told him it was going to be my final day and I would pay straight after the day's listings were over please alter my invoice as I thought the airmail was much lower he said forget the items you've won, I have already resold them you are now exempt from payment.
When I said that I would report him he said I'd be reported for non-payment. It wasn't long enough time for an unpaid item strike?! I was quite tired at the time and so I let it be, but the seller seems to have been trying to cut me off from bargain hunting all his items

I believe you have a case of where the seller did not factor that anybody in Britain would bid on his coins, and that he most likely would sell them to somebody in the USA and not have a shipping hassle. Frankly this is a situation where a bidder might have been proactive and contacted the seller prior to bidding to clarify his shipping, especially since the amount he quoted for the USA was $4, but when I selected Britain, $2 pops up, and that is obviously not right. He is ultimately responsible for the mistake though, however if I was the buyer I would ask him for an "Actual postage amount" and pay it, it would just be the right thing to do.

On a couple of auctions over the weekend that I bid on and one, the postage charges added up to double what they should have been, but I contacted the seller right away and had him send a corrected invoice and I paid accordingly. Curiously whilst you are buying from the USA, most of my purchases come from the UK or Ireland.

He was trying to get more money for basically junk coins. I've gotten nearly EVERY coin in that photo from the $0.10 bin at my local dealer. Even the 10% silver peso can be had for like $0.70 or so. The few coins that are silver in the photo are small, and many not 90% silver, so it's not worth it. I would report him to eBay, who knew very well what he was trying to do.

He is at fault and you should not deal with someone as shady as him. If I were you, I would report him in a very detailed well thought out email to ebay and avoid him in the future. Just remember it was not long enough for him to give you a non-paying bidder strike OR for him to resell the items.

Hehe.. a good job I slept on it, as I've now pulled out of that one and got a refund... maybe I was tempted by the Mexican coins which I haven't seen many of, and look quite opulent but happen to be a bit plastic and low value.

But are you referring to the first or the second shady dealer when you mention reporting to ebay?

There are two different shady characters I've dealt with recently...

I meant the one who sold your items before you could pay and whatnot. I thought it was the same person however.

I suppose I meant half about one and half about the other. The first one certainly was selling you common coins and trying to get more money by raising shipping, the other seemed to not be happy with you for some reason or another and sold your items you rightfully won. I don't feel either seller was in the right, so I think you can assert your rights.

In either case, avoid both of them in the future.

When I first read the post I though you had perhaps snagged them for one or two dollars, in which case I can see it be fair he wanting to at least cover postage, but if we are talking significant values then it's his problem, if its costing $11 to ship and your already paying $20 then it is more than covered and it is his error for misrepresenting the shipping costs.

Good call on telling him where to go, but you where more than within your rights to demand the item at the sale price.

Just an old scam. Sort of like when you go to buy a car. Here is the price, right? Wrong. that is when they try to sell you the extras for air in your tires, undercoating, shipping, preparation, testing and on and on and on. Many, many people try to add on extras for anything they can after the so called final price. It's just human nature. I'd tell the person it is either $2 or no deal. Then still report the scammer to ebay.

I'll have to play devil's advocate here, but first, to answer your questions.

What should you do? Re-read the auction to make sure you actually read it correctly and did not make a mistake. If you made a mistake, drop the issue and keep searching eBay for bargains. If not, consider if you actually did get a bargain or not. If you did, then demand the $2 shipping. Otherwise, drop it and don't waste your money.

Are the coins worth paying the extra $9? Absolutely not. You are already paying a large price for the coins, and I must assume have bid that amount based on the shipping costs. Paying more will only add that much more to your over paying, as well as the possibility that you will now not receive the coins expected and have even further problems with this seller.

Now for devil's advocate:

Always read the auction thoroughly! Understand everything about the auction listing because it is a contract. There are two things you must do before signing a contract: read it from start to finish at least twice; and, understand every item and term of the contract.

The seller specifically states, "International bidder DO NOT bid on heavy bulky lots (Note: s/h of 1 oz. – 0.9$)". Therefore, any auction that has a S/H higher than $0.90 is for domestic bidding only. Another way to read that is that shipping internationally will result in a $0.90/oz. charge, therefore a 10oz. lot would cost $9. Only the seller knows the true interpretation of that clause, but it's still part of the agreement. International do not bid unless you are prepared to pay high shipping.

Basically, you were not supposed to bid on the auction. I am assuming that the seller is either too lazy to set up shipping templates, and change shipping options on a per auction basis, or his listing software does not support varied shipping options.

To last reply I can only say "SELLER DO NOT GET AIRMAIL WRONG DUMBASS"

It is somewhat dumb of him to tell international sellers they'll have to pay x-per-oz since anyone who is not from the US would have no idea what an "oz" is.

You do realise that an unfortunate lot of people in the USA barely can find the USA on a world map, or know that the rest of the world doesn't automatically speak English, or use the Avoirdupois measurement system? Quite an unfortunate minority do believe that Canada is a state of the USA and that we are still "Fighting" the cold war.

The Swiss had quite a laugh when back in 2001 (?) CNN showed a map of Central Europe with the caption "Czechoslovakia" where Switzerland is.

Yeppers mate, I sure like my Czech cheese, and Swiss beer.

Hehe.. looks like I snapped a bit earlier -I find it a bit annoying when a seller isn't true to his sense of honour (?!) and sends the coins anyway as I would probably have done had I made such a slight blunder...well I think so, anyway.

The avoirdupois system eh? Oh yah... we did prefer that until recently, but I forget the way it relates with the more perfect linear metric system we use now. Isn't the US always the last to give up old fashioned things??

Of course, the old Google will tell you instantly what such and such amount of ounces is in grams if you type it into its marvellous search engine in the right way so there's no real problem - but when I see ounces, pounds being used for the weight of a package I get the feeling of an attempted aggrandizing effect, the old pound being much smaller than the Kilogram.

Wrote "pounds in a kilogram" in google

1 kilogram = 2.20462262 pounds

There ya' go....

Dontcha just love technology?

(especially the latter)

These guys make superb beers

http://www.brasseriebfm.ch/static/products

I thought everyone understood English if you speak it s-l-o-w-l-y!

Great, now what can I do with this bomb shelter and 300 tins of food?

Hey, thanks for the link! I hadn't heard of them yet.

There is actually one Swiss beer that I like: Ittinger Klosterbräu.
And there are some very good microbrews such as Appenzeller Vollmond (and the alcohol-free version, Leermond).

But I tend to stay away from the mainstream Swiss brews.