Buyers Beware! Don't Be Involved. Don't Pay More $ for Insurance than USPS Actually Charges!

If buying VHS or DVD items, consider shopping at Amazon instead of eBay because all sellers at Amazon have a fixed price for regular shipping: $2.98. Their DVD and VHS prices are considerably lower than ebay sellers' as well. Their descriptions are much more reliable at Amazon. Amazon sellers do not rate buyers at all. Buyers rate sellers. This keeps the Amazon sellers honest & competitive. Thus, their merchandise arrives faster & is of better quality for a lower price.

One of the reasons eBay sellers are overcharging buyers is because they are allowed to make profits from shipping charges. Recently after contacting USPS about an item, I was informed by a federal employee that overcharging for USPS insurance is illegal. Shippers can only charge the exact insurance cost at USPS because if they actually used the extra money sent and were untruthful about the value of the item, they could collect a bundle of $ from USPS fraudlently.

It is not illegal to charge for handling fees with the shipping fee, however. Sellers need to cover their packaging & deliver to the shipper costs. They cannot make their handling fees from overcharging on shipping insurance, however.

All of USPS's shipping and insurance fees are located at their website online. Once a buyer knows the cost of the item they've bought and keeps the receipt for it, insurance can be easily calculated by the amount of money the item cost. Since sellers keep insurance receipts and usually sell more than one item, it would be quite easy to use a different receipt to collect on an insurance claim.