I don't know if this happens to anybody else and it doesn't really matter but it chaps my hide.

I've had several sales on ebay in the last year where buyers have dinged me on the Shipping and Handling charge feedback. The real annoying part is I charged them less to ship than it cost me yet they dinged me for it like I over charged them, I didn't even charge them for the boxes, tape, etc.

But it does matter. Those star ratings directly effect your ebay and paypal fees and PayPal can even hold funds if your star rating goes low enough. The problem is this... anything less than 5 stars is HORRIBLE in ebay's eyes. You see this all the time in other places (Hotels who are BEGGING for a "10" rating... car dealers that get in trouble from the manufacturers if they get ANYTHING less than perfect ratings from buyers)

The problem is with the system. And ebay and PayPal would LIKE you to fail.... so they can charge you higher fees. The same way banks and credit card companies LOVE to charge for overdraft and late fees... they count on it. The same way Police departments would shut down if they could not write tickets. A city near me is having a problem. The parking authority is going broke. The problem... not enough people are getting tickets. So they are trying to find ways to CAUSE people to get parking tickets to generate revenue. I am not kidding. Of course they always say "but that is a good thing that people are parking correctly... but..."

What about smoking, drinking? The taxes they get on that (sold as a means to discourage such activity) are now DEPENDED ON.

So bottom line is... LOTS of things are designed to "fail" leaving YOU holding the bag... or the bill.

Back to ebay.....

And the thing that sucks about the shipping charges feedback is that most likely they are not commenting on YOU anyway. They are just upset how much it actually costs to ship something. Ebay has determined that shipping charges are one of the biggest complaints buyers have. After all who wants to pay for shipping. So they have been trying to encourage sellers to offer "Free" shipping. Or in other words to add the shipping costs to the price of the item. Which has a nice little benefit of creating more final value fees. Oh darn...

It sucks...

(BTW I think that if you offer Free Shipping on an item you should get an automatic 5 stars for the "reasonable shipping charges" feedback. Otherwise you can (and will) get a low rating on that when you didn't officially charge ANYTHING for shipping. That REALLY sucks...)

Good points spud.

I am offended since I took care of the buyer damn good (out of my pocket) and they still ding me, really pisses me off.

I meant it doesn't matter to much because I'm clearing out all my excess toys and don't plan on buying and selling for profit anymore unless I stumble into something, as it was I was only turning a few items a month for a few hundred $$$. Takes to much time, effort and expense to be a good seller. He!! I've been dinged unjustly even while trying to be a damned good seller.

Spud, you have a definte on the mark point about the shipping being jammed or "hidden" in the price.

Think about this:

A seller would normally list something at a .99 opening bid, but knowing he may get "dinged" for shipping charges, the bid will now always open at $9.99 or higher. This gives the seller enough to offset possible "extra charges" when ePay or Pay the Pal comes calling.