Knockoffs?

[tonyb]

^^^^^
An outfit called therealreal sells, as its name suggests, genuine name brand stuff, used. I was intrigued by a large Nelson bubble lamp, the one shaped like a flying saucer, on offer there for a steal of a price. So I was set to buy it, entered my name and address and was about to get to the part where you enter the debit card number when I looked to shipping costs, which they listed at 900 and some bucks.

It annoyed me they they would waste my time that way. That shipping cost was as absurd as it was obviously an underhanded way to get the price the seller wanted.

 

[Edward]

^^^^^
An outfit called therealreal sells, as its name suggests, genuine name brand stuff, used. I was intrigued by a large Nelson bubble lamp, the one shaped like a flying saucer, on offer there for a steal of a price. So I was set to buy it, entered my name and address and was about to get to the part where you enter the debit card number when I looked to shipping costs, which they listed at 900 and some bucks.

It annoyed me they they would waste my time that way. That shipping cost was as absurd as it was obviously an underhanded way to get the price the seller wanted.

This used to be a common practice on eBay with a lot of bulk-sellers in the Far East. eBay bumped it off in the end after lots of complaints. Obviously, it's a good way of ensuring that even if a buyer does return something you don't have to shell out more than pennies, because the rest was paid for shipping.... It's basically fraud in many instances, though the kicker for eBay was that it was also a way of getting round eBay's fees, as those are charged as a chunk of what is paid for the item, not postage.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
If history has taught us anything, it’s that if there’s a dishonest buck to be made, someone will give it a try.