Sean, I'm afraid my 3 years of high-school French didn't stick so I can't help you compose a letter in French, however, I think the issue is that the seller is giving the post office the value of your item, i.e. what you paid for it. If they do that the shipping will include a hefty tax on the item. The shipper has to tell the post office that the item has zero value, that's it's old and used. If they do that they will only pay a flat shipping fee and no taxes on the value. That's my best guess based on recently having the same problem with a French eBayer and being forced to pay $30 shipping for a head badge!
Hope this helps, Jim in sunny Santa Cruz
More fun bike talk on my blog http://www.jimlangley.blogspot.com
Jim Langley | Bicycle Aficionado http://www.jimlangley.net ------------------------------
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 23:43:49 -0800 From: Sean Flores <seaneee175@gmail.com> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Subject: [CR]A little French Help (again) Message-ID: <41A4242B-BD34-434B-BCE8-D271407EE947@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed; delsp=yes MIME-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v915) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Precedence: list Message: 7
I'm trying to communicate with a French ebay seller and I'm having little to no luck. My lack of French and his of english have proven to be, well difficult. I purchase a chain guard from him and he is asking for 21EUR shipping. A bit high. I've tried to explain to him that something like this should cost no more than 5-10 EUR by surface mail. Can someone help me put together a few sentences asking him:
"21EUR for shipping seems quite high. Can you please quote shipping costs for economy (surface) mail? I am in no hurry to receive the package and would like to save some money on shipping. Thank you"
I'm also tempted to tell him that I recently bought a lot of 6 chain- guard from another seller in france who's shipping quote is the same amount for his single item.
Thank in advance.
Sean Flores
San Francisco, CA
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