It's not a joke. The seller can demand a pickup fee. He doesn't need to state it in the auction. If he lists the costs for shipping and does not mention a pickup or a fee, then he's not obligated to allow a pickup. If he does allow the pickup, he can charge what he wishes. You have the option of refusing the pickup and having the item shipped at the stated shipping cost.

I went through this scenario with the W126 wheels (of which you own one).

Got quite ugly when he demanded $60. to pickup $60 worth of wheels.

This guys name wouldn't happen to be jason bergstrom... Would it?

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Current Stable:
01 ML55 AMG
92 500E (a few mods)
87 300E (lots of mods)
00 Chevy 3500HD Diesel Box Truck
68 18' Donzi Marine
06 GT i-Drive7 1.0 Mountain Bike (with GPS!)

PREVIOUSLY OWNED:83 300SD, 87 420SEL, 88 420SEL, 90 420SEL, 86 560SEL, 86 190E 2.3-16V AMG, 94 E320

Forget him!


Tell him it's $60 only or you'll negative feedback him. Also tell him his reputation is sinking fast over here in the mB community.


Now, if you really want the wheels, pay the 110.

FWIW, I wouldn't pay the weasel the extra 50.00. Yep, it's the principle!

Question, can someone sign up on ebay and then bid rediculous bids to effeectively end someone's auctions...with no intention of ever paying up? How does ebay guard against this?

Of course. But, once you do it three times, and have a feedback rating of -3, you might be history............

Additionally, a seller might cancel your bid if you have a negative rating.

Pick up in person on wheels is often refused, because it implies an inspection before payment. At least it would in my case. If I bought wheels and went to pick them up, I wouldn't pay if they were damaged in some way that was not in the pictures or description.

When you pay and they ship, you get what they sent and have little recourse compared to inspection before purchase.

I do my EBay cars that way too. Never have them shipped, but go to see and ride in them first before paying. I call it verification of the validity of the EBay ad, to include verification of the VIN. An honest seller has no problem with that.

You are dealing with someone who doesn't want you to see the wheels before you buy them. My opinion anyway.

Ken300D

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1982 300D at 351K miles
1984 300SD at 217K miles
1987 300D at 370K miles

I confeses I didn't think of the seller cancelling the bid.
Been a long while since I bought on ebay.

Still, tacking a pick-up charge on top of a shipping charge without clearly stating it in the payment terms is sleazy biz imho.

For what it's worth, IMHO it's never a good idea to explicitly threaten negative feedback.

EBay has it's own weirdnesses, and this includes a list of behaviors that they've specifically identified by name. One of those is called, "feedback extortion". If the seller is savvy enough to report this to eBay, they may choose to hammer the "extorter".

I'm not suggesting that thorsen should agree to pay the seller's invoice as initially offered. IMHO, it's at best a case of sloppy work on the seller's part - at worst, a case of the seller trying to pull a fast one. In any case, it won't strengthen thorsen's position for him to do something that is easily identified as an "offense" by eBay. Remember that eBay is huge; don't expect a great deal of deep thinking from their personnel involved in handling disputes!

I'd first try to settle things amicably, explaining truthfully to the seller that I never would have expected that the "pickup fee" would apply in addition to the quoted shipping fee, and then see where the seller takes it from there. Sometimes it's difficult to distinguish malice from incompetence.

If things can't be worked out, and the transaction never takes place, then keep in mind that some sort of procedure must take place if the seller is to get his final value fee back from eBay. I don't think eBay offers a completely neutral, polite way for the participants to "call the whole deal off". So, even if you've mutually agreed not to do business, the seller may need to initiate an "unpaid item process", during which he'll have the option to offer to mutually agree with the buyer not to carry out the transaction - he gets the final value fee back, and you don't get an "unpaid item strike".

The seller could also try to stick the buyer with a UPI "strike", but IMHO, he'd be smarter not to open up that can of worms.