1--EXTREMELY HIGH SHIPPING which is unjustified for the weight and/or handling requirements of the item. You'll usually see this like a $1 watch with a $100 shipping fee. Report it to ebay as fee avoidance or just avoid the auction altogether. Some ebayers don't list the s/h so you are obligated to email these sellers about the s/h. Most times i usually catch this on the seller's feedback. Read through all the seller's feedback and some buyers will complain on the feedback. Of course, the seller has to charge for handling and you have to distinguish between a seller that's a s/h scammer and a buyer that's just a tightwad, but a total rip off of say more than $15 for a small lightweight item that doesn't have a high insurable value is totally way off. For heavy or delicate things like glass items or delicate vases or small but extremely expensive jewelry justifiably have a high s/h.

------Some sellers will boost shipping/handling so that you pay more which is why you should read ALL feedback for that seller, not just the negative feedbacks since buyers will post a warning of shipping/handling in positive feedbacks. I had a seller in the UK who had me pay three times more shipping than what it was supposed to be to ship a used light book to me. Of course, i didn't give him a neg/neutral EVEN THOUGH I WANTED TO. I was pissed!!

2 COMBINING S/H COSTS: Most people don't know that if one auction lists a s/h cost of $X, then if you bid on more than one auction from that SAME SELLER, for every auction, you have to pay the total price of the bids + s/h of EACH SEPARATE AUCTION. Example: if i bid on 4 auctions with constant s/h cost of $5 by the same seller and even if all the items are small and light enough to fit in one small box, based on the seller's TOS, i'll have to pay the S/H cost of 4 times $5 so I'll have to pay the total bid price PLUS $20 for that one small box of 4 items the seller sends even though the shipping label only states $4.

Reasons for high cost of s/h bought individually or in multiples: (Most of these sellers will buy & sell for profit and not sell "out of their attic" like the ebay seller of long ago.)

• Some sellers "build" it as part of their business model into their starting auction prices which is why you have to pay high s/h for each auction including ebay fees, auction listing fees, finder fees, other auction related fees as well as s/h fees.
• The item may be fragile, expensive or big or heavy.
• The seller may live in another country.
• The seller runs an expensive s/h business model with overly high s/h and/or high auction fee costs.

  -Example: Jewelry analyst who charges over $50 s/h for a small item or items because his labor cost is more valuable than the s/h cost and he passes S/H duties of the item to be done by other people.
  -2nd Example: Seller uses outside agency like Mailboxes, Etc. which of course will add their cost.

• The seller may outright lie to make more profit.
• The seller may outright lie about s/h costs as a way to make a profit since the cost of the item is so low that it would be hard to make a profit on it otherwise.

Personally, if I don't see the total s/h listed on the auction ad or a way to calculate it based on an attached or online shipping calculator, I don't bid, not unless it's something I really want and is hard to find AND the seller's buyer feedbackers state NO s/h problems--You MUST look at the Positive feedback also since sometimes s/h comments are listed there.

CLICK HERE FOR SERIOUS ILLUSTRATION ON S/H

3 INSURANCE -What I feel about insurance is if you follow my advice on how to find a good seller who knows how to ship, you shouldn't need insurance. I don't buy unless required by the seller. 99% of my purchases (not counting the rip off artist scammer sellers) without insurance went fine. The 1% that didn't get to me were just an act of nature and God, nothing you or I could do about it. If I were to buy Insurance for all the purchases I made, it would be in excess of $200 all to guarantee that 1% failure which was a low cost item anyway which makes no sense to even insure.

Also, if you buy insurance, the shipping carriers will just blame the seller if they can find anything wrong with the shipping and so you end up with nothing anyway OR the shipping carriers can label it an act of God or nature which means you still end up with nothing. But as I said, if you're doing your homework regarding researching the particular seller, you should already have an idea thru the feedback of what type of shipper he is. Do the negs/neutrals mention bad shipping or shipping damage? Do any of the positives mention bad shipping or shipping damage OR avoid even mentioning shipping or shipping damage? Those are clues the seller may be a bad shipper. So...... unless the item is expensive, to me it is a waste of money. But again, if it's required by the seller, you MUST pay it.

4.--SELLER PULLING THE AUCTION: unfortunately, the seller can pull his auction at any time per ebay policy for any ebay approved reason like breaking it by accident, cat tipped it over and clawed it, etc even if it's a baldfaced lie and the true reason was the seller didn't like the price. yeah, you get pissed especially wasting your time on it but nothing you can do. nothing i can say except just avoid this type of seller once he's pulled it on you.

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