Is there any chance that the postage due on that package was $3.91 instead of $3.93? The reason I'm asking is because I went to the USPS site and tried every combination of envelope and package size to come up with the $3.93. The closest I got was something called "Standard Post" which would have cost $5.60...so...if you shipped your package at $1.69 and the USPS deemed it (probably erroneously) to be "Standard Post", they might have asked your buyer for the extra $3.91 difference.
Buddy16cat: To your original question, where you asked if anyone had been having issues buying and selling coins on
ebay: I'll probably jinx myself, and I acknowledge that there are folks like Hesgut, who seem to live in the USPS equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle and who can't catch a break no matter what they do, but I guess I've lived a rather charmed life when it comes to
ebay. In well over 10,000 transactions I doubt that I've had even 10 instances of shipments going astray, legitimately or otherwise. And that includes an awful lot of shipments that did NOT have tracking numbers. Until
ebay made some changes in their TRS\Powerseller program, anything of mine that sold for under $10 was shipped in a standard envelope with postage stamps on it and NO delivery confirmation...and I sold a LOT of items for under $10.00. Right now, it costs .66 cents to ship a single coin in a regular old envelope (first class with "rigid object" rate) and $1.69 if you use eBay\PayPal's system and put it into a #000 bubble mailer. You can see that even if I ended up fully refunding 10% of all these shipments due to BS claims of non-delivery, I would not have lost any more money than I would have invested by using
ebay's system and "protecting" myself with Delivery Confirmation, to the tune of an extra $1.03 per shipment. I switched to $1.69 program only because not doing so was going to have a negative impact on my discounts/ratings/etc that I currently enjoy on
ebay.
If you're going to ship low value items in a standard envelope with no DC, however, I suggest the following:
1.) Unless you have flawless handwriting, print the shipping address from your computer on a number 5160 Avery (or equivalent) label. Just because YOU can read your writing, it doesn't mean anyone else can. My writing (and printing, for that matter) looks like juvenile scrawl! I don't trust that ANYONE can read it!
2.) Put a strip of clear adhesive tape over the label so it won't fall off. (I guarantee you that if you don't use the tape you can make that label lift up at the corners by flexing the envelope a few times. If it lifts up at the corners it can be pulled off by another piece of mail sliding across it in the USPS system)
3.) Put a strip of tape over the flap and also a piece at each of the upper corners...you know...at the point of the envelope where someone could insert a fingertip, or a letter opener or a pen knife.
4.) Proper postage for a 1 ounce standard envelope with a coin in it is 66 cents. Don't try to get away with using a single "Forever" stamp on it.
You should be striving to make that envelope difficult to open for your buyer...who has the luxury of opening it with a pair of scissors, unlike the run of the mill dishonest postal worker who would probably pass it over in favor of easier targets.
First Page
Previous Page
Posted 06/16/2013 12:06 pm
