@myangelandmyprincess wrote:
"Most sellers do this as a way to save on eBay fees - sure, you're only paying $10 for a $100 item but the seller tacked on $100 shipping so eBay only treats it as a $10 purchase for what they charge AND for what taxes they report.
Now if a seller charges you $20 for overnight shipping and then sends it by $2 3rd class parcel post and you don't get it for two weeks then you can contact customer service to get the difference refunded as well as leave negative feedback letting others know the seller is scamming folks on shipping"
The only thing correct in this post is that negative feedback can be left
If a $10 item has $100 shipping eBay charges fees on $110. It's been this way for years many states charge tax on the shipping as well. And eBay does not issue partial refunds for shipping overages. They don't issue partial refunds at all. A seller can give one but eBay can't force a seller too.
And personally I wouldn't leave a negative even though it can be done a negative complaining about shipping costs looks worse on the buyer than it does the seller.
I will reply to myangelandmyprincess for my final reply since what they said is altogether the most accurate, though what onlinecentral said ended up being quite relevant as well.
For everyone who said that a case cannot be opened against a seller due to overpriced shipping and handling since there is no such option to do that, you all were wrong: I spoke to an eBay representative using the chat box (which could have been done over the phone if desired), and they told me that being overcharged on shipping actually falls under "Item Not as Described" if it indeed is discovered that the seller misrepresented their S&H cost in violation of eBay's Shipping Policy (consistent with what myangelandmyprincess said).
But that is not what I discovered upon receiving the package in this case, after having waited for over 3 weeks to receive it. The reason that the seller's shipping cost was so high is because the seller unwisely chose to use an oversized (unnecessarily large) shipping box through USPS Retail Ground (formerly Parcel Post). This caused the USPS shipping fee to be 3 times as much as it would have cost to ship the same item using a free Priority Mail box, which is not a heavy or large item and thus would have weighed about half as much in a smaller Priority Mail box, though still large enough to have plenty of space for newspaper packaging (akin to what onlinecentral said in regard to amateurish shipping, as occurred in this case, versus fraudulent shipping, as I originally had suspected).
However, if the seller indeed had overcharged me for shipping and handling as I originally thought, then eBay eventually would have stepped in and made a decision in my favor for a partial refund from the seller, for which I had plenty of documentation under the assumption that a non-oversized box had been used.
And thus, in this particular case, it ultimately arrives back at what myangelandmyprincess said in regard to the issue of feedback: Negative feedback still can be left, or neutral or positive feedback, which is at the buyer's discretion...end of story. To be clear one last time though, eBay's Shipping Policy can be enforced if the buyer is able to show that they were grossly overcharged for shipping and handling, and according to the eBay representative, this falls under returning an item (seeking a partial refund) due to the item not being as described (with the S&H charge counting as part of the description of the sale of the item).
