Half.com Fraud, Rude Customer Service, Scam San Jose, California

To begin, I have been a member of EBay for over 4 years and have 100's of positive feedback.  I decided to try half.com, a website owned by EBay to sell a school textbook.

I purchased the textbook for $250, and figured I would list it at $125 and give someone a great deal.  Well the book sold almost instantly, and as always I shipped it the same day along with delivery confirmation. 

Half.Com gives you a fixed shipping price... which for this textbook they gave me $3.07.  By the time I paid for the padded mailer, media mail, and delivery confirmation I had spent $8.67.  (One ethical problem I have is, I noticed that half.com charges the buyer $4 for shipping and handling... then takes 93 cents off the top as profit.)

But the real problem came when USPS "lost" the textbook in the mail.  I e-mailed half.com and said they need to make this right.  They gave me $3.07 for shipping... and expect me to pay for the insurance as well?  That would have cost me about $12 in all to ship.  So now they are telling me I have to refund the buyer's money 100% and I am out of the book. 

I said that is crazy and they either need to charge the buyer for insurance or give a fair amount of shipping money.  They sent me back the rudest e-mail basically telling me tough crap if I don't like it don't use them.  I responded and haven't heard back in a week.

Meanwhile I feel terrible for the buyer... and the post office told me to hold out "hope" that my book is found and delivered before I refund the money.

Half.com is extremely rude and unprofessional.  They make billions a year and nickle and time every user.  Especially someone who has been as loyal as I have.