I bought 4 items as " Buy it Now" on eBay. The seller's site had a pretty outrageous shipping fee (UPS), but they claimed to discount multiples. I paid $33 for all 4 times combined and was charged a whopping $60 for shipping..that included the "discount."

Each item claimed to weigh 5#. I calculated shipping on 24# and a box that would hold the items. (I have been in business for over 35 years and use both UPS and Fedex to ship often very delicate items.) It came to under $40. I contacted the seller and asked for a more reasonalbe shipping rate. I got no response and called with the same results.

I then sent an email asking for the sale to be cancelled, per eBay policy for BIN. The seller did not respond and I figured they were mad at the cancellation.

Weeks later a box arrived at my door. It came FedEx (not UPS as the auction claimed). The shipping lable indicated that it weighed 17#. I weighed each individually packaged item on my postal scale. 1@less than 4#, 2@ less than 3.5#, 1@ less than 2#.

I opened my online UPS account and scheduled a shipment, 17#, the exact dimensions of the box from my address back to the seller's. The shipping costs came to $24.51.

I called eBay and was told by the rep that they did not allow gross padding of shipping costs. Later that night I got an email from them siding with the seller.

I spent over $4000 last month on eBay. I cancelled almost every one of my watched items and will not use them in the future.

I have had several other unpleasant expereinces with eBay in the past. I will not do business with them in the future, and althought I had planned to vote for Meg Whitman, my husband and I have changed minds.

The items form The Art Of History are cheap easy reproductions using molds that are very common. Two of the pieces are duplicates of one that I bought locally about 10 years ago. With a little effort I could have found them locally. I bought them this way because it was convenient and I thought that they would be honest about shipping.

Never again!