EBay Extortion

This is a peach.

Today I'm listing an enormous truck part on eBay and want to offer flat rate shipping. The thing is huge and will go oversize-3. Being that I am located in the absolute NW corner of the country I charge $79 because without fail, the buyer will end up being from New Jersey and it will cost me a fortune to ship it. I click the submit button and this pops up:

		Attention Seller! We noticed your shipping cost looks high compared to other listings in your category with similar shipping services. . We've found that buyers are sensitive to shipping costs. Items with high shipping costs may be less likely to sell and may get less visibility in search results. Listings that violate the eBay Excessive Shipping Charges policy may be removed from the site. Please review your shipping costs and make changes if necessary. For help, click the Research rates link in the shipping section.

Its like the eBay Nazis were watching the Sopranos when they wrote this little gem.

"We're not sayin' you're cheatin'. It just seems a little high is all... You ain't cheatin' are ya' Tony? Right. Good. 'Cause we'd hate to have to come back here if we found out you was cheatin'."

How the hell do they know what this thing will cost to ship? Better yet, do they send out a helpful notice when someone doesn't charge enough for shipping? "Uh, excuse us sir, but are you sure you only want to charge $25 to ship that car engine? You know it's probably gonna cost a lot more than that. We're just sayin..."

Hell No they don't.

This is just good old fashioned mob-style extortion. They want you to lower your freight charges so they can get a bigger piece of the final value.

Well eBay, guess what. I've seen some gangster movies too...








Sleep well.