FedEx took $261 Out of My Checking Account!

[sandandtone]

So I was shipping a golf bag recently to Kansas that I sold on ebay. Printed a label through ebay at a cost of $38. I then took it down to a FedEx Office and Print Center who accepted it. It delivered a couple days later and all was well until I noticed a $261 FedEx charge to my bank account! No contact from FedEx so I contacted my bank and asked what the charge was for or a contact number. They gave me a phone number associated with the transaction for which when I called the number had been disconnected! I asked the bank to investigate and they provided me a new debit card to protect my account. The next day I get an e-mail from FedEx saying I did not pay enough to ship the bag and that they were taking $261 more than I already paid out of my account!  AFTER THEY ALREADY HAD!  This is theft!  They accepted and delivered the package! They did not have to accept or could have returned it but to charge me $299 to ship a golf bag! I am owed an apology and a phone call to explain why this was all handled so poorly! I can assure you this matter is not going to go away and it will cost FedEx in the long run more than $299! The $261 they took was unauthorized and I may look into criminal charges against them or at the very least file a complaint with the BBB and take them to small claims court! Ridiculous! 

[sg51]

I'd seriously like to see the line entries for those charges - there is no $15 FedEx charge, and as I keep saying, they don't/can't just make numbers up.

All right bp.  I've researched, and found....

1. The charge was $14.50.  Not $15.

2. If I were to ship today, the charge is quoted as $11, not $14.50.

3. But....the dimensioinal component of the shipping has gone up a lot.

4. But...I now get a better discount, so it comes back to being a very similar charge.

Find two screenshots.   One is from just now.  One is from last summer.

[berserkerplanet]

Thank you for taking the time to dig that up.

(as you have probably figured out by now, I like numbers, and dislike guessing and incomplete handwaving "it's unknowable and too complicated" explanations 🙂

 
The current one looks fine. You are shipping tubulars and the $11 Additional Handling (AHSC) is correctly applied

Over 48" and tubular: Either one incurs the SC, but the eBay label flow doesn't know anything about the tubular condition (there is no checkbox or option). If you shipped a 36" tube you wouldn't be charged the $11 at label time (under 48"), but FedEx would probably hit you with it on your eBay invoice after delivery for the tubular criterion. (I think they don't like tubes because they roll off conveyors and trucks, don't stack well, and are generally harder to handle)

 If your listings are set up correctly (not saying they're not) and your buyers are NOT being charged the $11 then something is broken, and you might want to alert Trinton. (I don't ship much FedEx Ground, and rarely anything that incurs AHSC so have no personal data - all I know is the calculator does handle it when a mockup is done)

You could fix that by adding an $11 Handling fee for those specific shipments - should be transparent to the buyer, and can't see a downside (unless it's intermittent, or it gets fixed and the buyers are then charged the $11 twice.)

 
The other one from last summer raises some questions. The FedEx AHSC was $10.50 in 2016, so there is $3 to account for. Another surcharge (SC) that was $3 in 3016 was the Delivery Area Surcharge (DAS), and the DAS show up lumped in the 'other charges" line item along with AHSC and OSSC.

What were the zipcodes on the 20116 shipment?
        (Betting the destination is on the DAS list and that extra $3 was just that.)


Dimensional Weight:
Nothing has changed since 2015? on that. EVERY* FedEx shipment is judged on dim wt (even 2" x 2" x 2" pkgs). There is no 1 cu-ft threshold like USPS has.

6x6x6 pkg via eBay labels: Dim wt = 6x6x6/166 = 1.30lb --> ships at 2lb (a reason why FedEx Ground is usually a poor option for lightweight pkgs)

You must be thinking of 3 or more years ago when dim wt only started applying to over 3 cu-ft pkgs.

*except some FedEx provided packaging cases I think

 
If you have been paying attention to the other other FedEx threads here this year:
    eBay extended the full deep eBay FedEx discounts to ALL eBay users - not just those in the FedEx Advantage Savings program (don't know when that happened)
    eBay negotiated with FedEx to retain the better 166 Dimensional Weight divisor for FedEx shipments (instead of the actual 139 divisor you'll see using FedEx.com and I assume other places). That means that on eBay the dim wt of a given pkg calculates about 15% lower than it would elsewhere - saves a bit mo money.

[sg51]

 If your listings are set up correctly (not saying they're not) and your buyers are NOT being charged the $11 then something is broken, and you might want to alert Trinton. (I don't ship much FedEx Ground, and rarely anything that incurs AHSC so have no personal data - all I know is the calculator does handle it when a mockup is done)

The reason I had the screenshot from last year was because it showed what buyer had paid, vs what I was going to have to pay.  I was annoyed. 🙂

It could be that there was some 2nd charge. It went to S. Dakota.  But those additional charges were not included in what Ebay charged buyer (you can see from the screenshot).

[sg51]

Dimensional Weight:
Nothing has changed since 2015? on that.

The other one from last summer raises some questions. The FedEx AHSC was $10.50 in 2016, so there is $3 to account for. Another surcharge (SC) that was $3 in 3016 was the Delivery Area Surcharge (DAS), and the DAS show up lumped in the 'other charges" line item along with AHSC and OSSC.

I think I found the $3.50.  ($14.50 last year minus $11 today).

It is a dimensional weight charge.

The same weight, but not over-dimensioned, ships for $3.50 less.

So there's still a $14.50 charge for the 50" tube, but it is now broken into two parts.

[berserkerplanet]

No. No. and No.

What was the destination zipcode for the 2016 shipment? That will (likely) show what is going on here.

There are no "dimensional weight charges". If dimensional weight is an issue, it becomes the shipping weight, superseding the actual weight, and the base rate in the transportation cost on the label page reflects that (you need to click the little black arrow next to the "transportation cost" on the ebay label creation  page to see a detailed breakdown of the cost).

Oversize, additional handling, and delivery area surcharges get lumped in and added together under the "other charges" line item entry on the label form (where your $14.50 appears).

Once again, the $14.50 IS NOT the additional handling surcharge. $10.50 of that $14.50 WAS the AHSC and I'm 99% certain the other $3 was a DAS, which we can put to bed if you tell me the destination zipcode (or go look it up yourself in the FedEx DAS zip code tables).

You most recent screenshot with the $15.77 total has nothing to do with the AHSC issue other than that there was no $11 AHSC. It is $3.50 less (less than what I can't figure) because when you reduce the dimensions down to 30" the dimensional weight decreases, and the base rate is less.

ALL these tubes of yours ship at dimensional weight - the actual 6 pound weight is completely irrelevant.

The 30x6x6 tube ships at 7 pounds because dimensional weight. The 50x6x6 tubes ship at 11 pound dimensional weight. The base rate for the 30" pkg would be $3.41 less than for the for the 50" pkg to a zone 8 destination.

[sg51]

There are no "dimensional weight charges".

You most recent screenshot with the $15.77 total has nothing to do with the AHSC issue other than that there was no $11 AHSC. It is $3.50 less (less than what I can't figure) because when you reduce the dimensions down to 30" the dimensional weight decreases, and the base rate is less.

The "transportation cost" is $3.50 less than the same weight to the same zip code.  $17.82 vs $21.33.  Both from today.

The only difference is that the package is 30" long vs 50".

If that's not a "dimensional weight charge", then maybe we can call it an additional weight charge based on dimensions.

[berserkerplanet]

Dimensional weight is NOT a surcharge, and is not a line charge. A package either ships at it's actual weight, or ships at it's dimensional weight (physical weight of weight adjusted for volume.) It has nothing to do with "other charges" on the eBay label page.

I'm trying to suss out the additional handling surcharge issue specifically, because I'm seeing that you (and most others) don't seem to have a handle on how that works, or what gets included in the "other charges" or why,  but we keep getting derailed with "dimensional weight charges".

Why won't you provide the destination zip code for that 2016 shipment? There are no real privacy issues in doing so, and if you think there are, then go look it up as I suggested and tell me if that zip was on the DAS list.

[sg51]

Dimensional weight is NOT a surcharge, and is not a line charge. A package either ships at it's actual weight, or ships at it's dimensional weight (physical weight of weight adjusted for volume.) It has nothing to do with "other charges" on the eBay label page.

Agreed!  I agreed with this all along.  What you call "dimensional weight" I called "weight plus a dimensional charge".  The important thing is about charges, and how they vary, not about names of charges, or whether they are "line charges".

What is clear: going past 48" adds $14.51 to my charges (before discount).

Peace.

[berserkerplanet]

I'm sorry sg51 but I can't drop this without pointing out that that attitude is part of the problem here in the forums with "fraud, ripoff, eBay and FedEx robbed me, etc"

I'm trying to explain the charges for everyone to understand, but you just want to hand wave and dismiss additional charges as "unknowable and mysterious". I don't understand how you can have a business plan where shipping is an unknown or is sort of known based on possibly incorrect guessing.

Anyway, I'm good now. Said my piece, and I don't want to feud with you (you are one of the reasonable one's around here and I value your inputs).

[tellmemama]

I think the most important thing I can take away from this thread is to throw out the item instead of shipping it with Fedex.

[ro_kashe]

Can you provide a # to call the Guts of FedEx.  I'm having a different but similar issue with shipping.  Thanks.

[kh-gary]

Hi everyone,

Due to the length of time that has passed since this thread began, we have locked it from future replies. If this is still an issue that warrants discussion, don't hesitate to begin a new thread here: https://community.ebay.com/t5/forums/postpage/board-id/selling-db.

Thanks.