Oversea Ebay Mafia fees

General
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Hello everyone !

Not my kind of thing to be sour but if there’s really something that pisses me off are the Ebay Oversea fees, a.k.a. mafia fees, a.k.a. Pitney Bowes Limited imaginery custom whatever fees.

For some reasons, when you are a foreign customer and want to pay on ebay an object, for instance a Team Rocket’s Mewtwo PSA 9 for 250ish $, you are gratefully rewarded with a 100$ “custom” fee. I once made the mistake to pay an extra 50$ on a 150$ ebay’s deal here in the US, and tried my best to get fully reimbursed as this custom fee is a seperate bill on your paypal debit listing. What was my surprise to learn about “Pitney Bowes Limited”, an ebay subsidiary with a ghost customer service that cashes in all ebay’s “Custom” fees. Of course, if you buy that Rocket’s Mewtwo for example, and didn’t see those Timmy “special” fees, then you have absolutely no mean to contact “Pitney Bowes” shitty fake customer service, for their imaginery “service”.

In fact it is even greater than that. When you buy your Rocket’s Mewtwo, the day after due to jet lag or the same day if he is super awake, your extraordinary seller is packaging everything and going to his/her’s closest post office. The seller is then checking the fees for an oversea shipping and the beautiful lady working at the post office is telling him the amount to pay regarding what is inside the package so it will have no problems at cutsoms. Two great and honest individuals; the seller and the beautiful post office employee, are doing a great job at avoiding any problems with customs, for me, Timmy French Mc Donalds buyer 1st of its name, and the great Rocket’s Mewtwo to get no issue with shipment.

Do you see the brilliant magic show coming ? On one end; the buyer paying extra for customs fees, on the other end; the seller getting 0$ from ebay for this fee but still paying full charge at post office to avoid problems ? In the Middle of god knows where the Mesmerising Pitney Bowes Limited show making money disapear ? Yeah it hurts…

So please understand us, Timmy foreign Poke your mom lovers, sliding into your Ebay DMs to go direct transaction. At the end of the day we both are fooled through ebay…

That’s my take on it, from my unhappy customer experience, wishing you to avoid those fees as much as possible, idk your country’s customs laws but here in France for such low value items there is no such things as “custom fees”.

Stay positive fellow foreign buyers,

Pierre

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Rudy?

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This man is totally unfit for mod, this is on par with police brutality in our ongoing struggle against the oversea ghost maffia that is making life in this hobby miserable!

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Yeah kind of inspired by him :grin:

Damn my post is like a meme for you guys ! Btw love your Efour Bingo book xD

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I gather that you have used a translating service from French to English, so your point is very unclear from this.

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You sound just like him haha. And yes the bingo is priceless almost every thread is a bingo. Sorry the overseas bullshit fees happened to you. I’d be pissed as well. I try my best not to buy from over seas for stories like this. Nothing worse than a mystery charge your not expecting. Especially if you already spent your budget on item before hidden fees

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Sorry but no translating service has to be blamed here just my bad english lol

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Thanks man, tried to use his tone and vocabulary to make my post funnier haha. Yeah I feel the Bingo xD

Exactly, you are getting ripped off by this fee and after some research/trying to get my money back you learn about all this bullshit going on. If just one person is avoiding this thanks to my little post I’ll be glad :grin:

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Just another example of why America is the best place to live. You want to take our cards away from us and into another country?
Pay like 1/3rd more buddy

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Bingo would be more effective with embedded links. Since each square has 10+ examples, it could be like roulette. You never know which thread you’ll end up on. The free space could just link to @trainofthought 's account. He’ll understand.

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Totally accurate, you killed me xD

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Definitely the best place for collecting Pokemon cards, or maybe that is Japan? But luckily there is more to life than Pokemon…

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Yeah, like sports. America has everyone beat there too.

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I agree the Pitney Bowes GSP thing is plain bs and I honestly hate it as well. But, it’s not exactly hidden from the buyer side of view. When I order something on eBay, it already mentions the additional fees if GSP is involved (although it will rise the higher the price of an auction goes, so keep that in mind). Tbh, I kinda prefer those BIN auctions where the import fees are already added beforehand, since then I know there won’t be any additional surprise import fees on arrival. It still sucks I would have to pay 40-50 USD on top of the product for import + shipping, even when it’s just a 15-20 USD card, but then I at least know to just try to find it somewhere else. In the past I usually just sucked it up if I couldn’t find it anywhere else and paid the ~50 USD, although these days I simply ask a friend in the US to buy it for me, since it will have 0-4 USD shipping and no import fees to his place. And my friend at least knows how to ship internationally through his post office, and doesn’t need GSP…

Anyway, I could write an entire paragraph why it’s mostly the fault of the seller and the US mentality in general (no offense), but I won’t. Instead, let’s just look at it on the bright side: without the GSP option, that seller most likely wouldn’t even have shipped outside of the US to begin with and you wouldn’t have been able to buy the product. ¯\_😊_/¯

Greetz,
Quuador

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I bought a 900 usd card once and had to pay 500 usd fee in customs, so yeah…

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I guarantee if international buyers are willing to absorb their own risk (pay bank wire) sellers will work with you.

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This is literally the main issue. Lets say you buy a $500 card and you just want me to ship it to you on the cheap with tracking. Tracking often ends when it leaves our ports or hits yours. After that, it’s a crapshoot on if you get it or not. Usually you do, sometimes you don’t, sometimes it sits in customs for 2 months. You guys have NO ISSUES demanding a refund if the card doesnt arrive by x amount of days, or if the card is lost in the mail. Then sellers are not only out a $500 card. They’re also out the $500 sale. Fuck that. It’s not worth it. You can’t bitch about gsp fees when you’re demanding gaurantees and essentially 100% insurance. But you do allllll the time. To the point where it’s easier to just click “gsp only” or “us only” The card will still sell, the risk is infinitely lower, as is the hassle of filling out customs forms or dealing with “where is my card” and “i hate to say this but if it doesn’t arrive soon I’m going to need to file”.

You guys want to put on your big boy pants and handle your own risk since you want to pay less? Pay Friends and Family with e4 members you trust or pay for your own insurance. You get your tracking number and then its out of our hands.

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I do not mind paying more for shipping to be honest, especially for more expensive items. The most annoying extra fee for me is the excessive +25% VAT which now often gets added automatically by eBay. However, no matter the prices I am generally just happy that I am able to buy otherwise unobtainable cards from all over the world. I accepted a long time ago that it is more expensive for me to collect than for someone residing in the US, but will still sympathize with others that have not come to that conclusion yet.

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