Aw, my self-gift from eBay arrived, but it's broken :-(

[GrrlGoalie33]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Legally; it is supposed to be the value of the item. Of course the arguement could be made that the true value was what you paid for it. But because eBay is an auction site; it is often taken that the item was sold for lower that what its real value was.

The bottom line was you asked the seller to do something illegal; and he refused. Now some might see this illegal act as being parallel to going 10 km/h over the speed limit; but the law is the law.

What I do; is if the item is under $20 I ask the seller to please put the final auction price as the value; so that I don't get dinged with customs. If the item is ~$30- then I might say something like "If I could ask a favor, could you please be sure to not put a customs value higher than what I paid for the item? We get dinged by customs on anything over $20, and I just don't want to have to pay too much for customs."

At that point I have told him that putting a value of <$20 helps me out, but doesn't ask him to do something that may be beyond his moral compas.

Agreed with all of this. I guess my point was the guy overreacted in the first place. Then I think he deliberately screwed me by putting a price much higher than what I paid for it. IIRC, I paid $30 for the item and he put a declared value of $120 on it.

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by Frankster

Every other US seller I had dealt with quoted what I had paid for it and not the market value of it.

Good for them. Sadly they are becoming a minority now and more and more people won't even ship to Canada. There reasons? People asking to decrease the value on paperwork and others requesting they call the item a gift.

[GrrlGoalie33]

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101

That's great, except you said you paid $30 and asked him to put $20 as the value.

You're right. It was the first thing I had paid over $20 for.

I didn't at the time realize how big of an issue it was. The company I worked for at the time, a large world-renowned manufacturer, did this all of the time so our customers didn't get screwed. Especially if we were shipping overseas.