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Silly online shopping question

Hi TK - 

I bought an engagement gift for my recently engaged friend on amazon. I got her a customized cutting board with her and her FI's to be married name and their wedding date (recently booked, woohoo!). She loves to cook so I'm hoping they'll like it :) anyway.....

the problem - I ordered it from an individual seller on amazon. It was about $30 with $7 shipping. I got a notice that it shipped, and then the seller emailed me to let me know that shipping was actual $14 because of the weight of the item, and that they would have to invoice me on paypal for the excess. The thing is though, it shipped. i have a tracking number and everything - it's set to arrive on Friday. I also can't provide my real email address without being "crafty" - i.e. listing it vertically because amazon doesn't allow you to trade personal email addresses via messaging. I kind of feel like amazon should invoice me the extra amount or else it's no go. Also, if I had known it was $30 with $14 shipping, I may have chosen a different cutting board - there were lots of options. I just kind of feel like I'm being scammed.

does anyone have experience here? i need it to arrive before thanksgiving since I'll be seeing my friend over the holidays!

Re: Silly online shopping question

  • The reviews are all super positive (there's 300+ of them)!

    I don't want to cheat the guy $7, but I also don't want to be scammed $7 either. and like I said, there were lots of ~$40 cutting boards I didn't get because of the price. 

    I already have contacted amazon - just wanted to crowdsource if htis happened to anyone before.
  • Agreed- I think the seller should not have shipped the item without informing you of the increased cost of shipping.
  • Amazon is the one that usually estimates the shipping... the seller is not suppose to charge extra.
  • I've sold stuff on amazon before that cost more for shipping than amazon allotted. I would either run a quote before putting it up for sale and adjust the price accordingly, or I would just eat the few dollars difference. I would never have tried to go back and collect more money though. That's super sketchy. 


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  • the seller hasn't ship the goods before notify you , contact the Amazon customer service
  • agree on seeing what Amazon says and if not if the purchase said $7 shipping I would just say the price when you bought it and you're not now paying double 
  • I agree with the other PPs.  I'd either ignore the e-mail completely or, if I was feeling generous with my time, I'd e-mail them back that I would not have purchased the item if I'd known the shipping was $14 and will not be sending the difference.

    If it hadn't already shipped, I would cancel my order on Amazon and purchase something else.  However, in this case, since it already shipped, that is just too bad on them.


    It happened to me on etsy once and I refused to pay the higher charge.  Like you, I chose that specific item because the total cost including shipping was lower than the alternatives.  They don't get to come back after the fact and demand more money than you agreed to pay.  That's absurd.  If they had that right, what would stop them from saying that now you suddenly owe them $75 because they decided their cutting boards are really nice?  They offered an item for sale under certain terms and those are the terms you agreed to and those are the terms of sale to be executed.  Period.

    I will say that in the case of an obvious and serious mistake I would feel ethically bound to reassess the terms of sale.  For example, if I saw a $10,000 necklace listed by straight up error for $10, I would not force the merchant to honor that offer.  But if the seller realizes after the fact that they should have charged more money for shipping, well, that's on them.

    Doh!  I wish I could remember the circumstances.  There was some error (I think) Nordstrom's or Saks made on many customers' rewards accounts.  Where people, in error, had thousands of more dollars in rewards than what they should have.  There was a buying frenzy as people tried to use those rewards before the company realized their error.

    The company figured out what happened within a day or two, readjusted accounts, and cancelled all orders where customers now did not have enough credits (It was a LOT of orders).  But they did give $100 worth of credits to any customers affected.  

    Wedding Countdown Ticker
  • I've sold many things on eBay before, and sometimes you just accidentally underestimate the shipping.  You just accept he loss... it's how it goes.  You can't ask for more money later after the terms of sale.  I'm sure it's no different on Amazon.  I'm guessing this person is either trying to scam or just doesn't understand how these things work.

    SaveSave
  • monkeysip said:
    I've sold many things on eBay before, and sometimes you just accidentally underestimate the shipping.  You just accept he loss... it's how it goes.  You can't ask for more money later after the terms of sale.  I'm sure it's no different on Amazon.  I'm guessing this person is either trying to scam or just doesn't understand how these things work.


    I haven't seen it as much on Amazon, but there are a lot of Ebay sellers who will jack up the shipping cost and then sell the item for a low price.  Like the item is $1, but the shipping is $20.

    I'm not saying I would never use a seller like that.  But it is kind of scammy.  They are basically trying to cut Ebay out of the fee % for the sale.  However, it can also go bad for the consumer because, for a return, the vendor could have more "legitimacy" in saying they don't reimburse for shipping costs.

    Wedding Countdown Ticker
  • The reviews are all super positive (there's 300+ of them)!

    I don't want to cheat the guy $7, but I also don't want to be scammed $7 either. and like I said, there were lots of ~$40 cutting boards I didn't get because of the price. 

    I already have contacted amazon - just wanted to crowdsource if htis happened to anyone before.
    mini threadjack + honest question here.  Is crowdsourcing the same as brainstorming?  Is brainstorming no longer a thing?  What's the difference?  I have seen this term a few times on Theknot recently, and nowhere else, nor have I ever heard it before the past few weeks. I feel very out of the loop!
  • kaos16 said:
    The reviews are all super positive (there's 300+ of them)!

    I don't want to cheat the guy $7, but I also don't want to be scammed $7 either. and like I said, there were lots of ~$40 cutting boards I didn't get because of the price. 

    I already have contacted amazon - just wanted to crowdsource if htis happened to anyone before.
    mini threadjack + honest question here.  Is crowdsourcing the same as brainstorming?  Is brainstorming no longer a thing?  What's the difference?  I have seen this term a few times on Theknot recently, and nowhere else, nor have I ever heard it before the past few weeks. I feel very out of the loop!
    Crowdsourcing is more putting out a question to a lot of people to have a lot of people weigh in. So like brainstorming is coming up with a bunch of different ideas and crowdsourcing is more getting opinions from a lot of different people and see if there is a general consensus or pattern. Just my take. 
  • kaos16 said:
    The reviews are all super positive (there's 300+ of them)!

    I don't want to cheat the guy $7, but I also don't want to be scammed $7 either. and like I said, there were lots of ~$40 cutting boards I didn't get because of the price. 

    I already have contacted amazon - just wanted to crowdsource if htis happened to anyone before.
    mini threadjack + honest question here.  Is crowdsourcing the same as brainstorming?  Is brainstorming no longer a thing?  What's the difference?  I have seen this term a few times on Theknot recently, and nowhere else, nor have I ever heard it before the past few weeks. I feel very out of the loop!
    I guess to me brainstorming has sort of an in-person connotation and crowdsourcing has a focus on a wide range of participants online.  Like the marketing department might do a brainstorming session about what to call a new product, where they all sit down in a room and throw out ideas.  Or they might decide to crowdsoruce it by posting a contest on twitter to name the new thing.

    I don't know if those are universal definitions, but that is the distinction that I personally draw between the two.
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