The Actual Shipping Cost Guarantee, simply put, means that you will only be charged for the exact amount that it costs to ship your order--period!

I am now using Stamps.com to print shipping postage labels online. They give a commercial base pricing discount on packages shipped using their service. Generally it's only 15 cents to $1 less than what I would charge for the actual cost to ship your order. The heavier the package and the farther the shipping distance, the higher the discount. For example, one pound packages charged $4.95 will actually ship at my cost of $4.80. The eBay shipping calculator does not take any of this into account and I am not about to apply it to every single order as I'd be on the computer 24 hours a day trying to keep up with it as orders come in. You can be sure that your shipping cost charged will be very close to the actual cost to ship when I send you the invoice.

It makes no difference if you order 1 or 1,000 of the same or different items, you will only pay the actual cost for shipping for your entire order. This applies to any of the home automation items I am selling regardless if they are store, buy it now, fixed price, or auction items. Unlike some other sellers, I do not charge $2.00 or $3.00 extra for each additional item you purchase from me. I do not charge any handling or packaging fees. Some creative sellers will charge you the highest shipping amount of all of your items and then give you 50% off on the rest of your items--wow some big savings! The end result is still the same--you're getting ripped on shipping. When you buy from me, shipping cost will only go up if the weight of the package containing your order goes up to the next pound (or in some cases the shipping carton box size).

I only use one eBay account for both buying and selling. Some other sellers actually have multiple eBay ID's (and eBay stores) so you don't really know who you are dealing with. This allows a seller to easily rip you off on shipping charges a multiple number of times without you even knowing about it. One seller in particular has at least 5 stores that I am aware of all selling the same X10 products. He uses different shipping and handling charges and different pricing structures to give the illusion that they are all different stores competing with each other. If you buy several different items from several of his stores, you will be charged a seperate shipping and handling cost for each order from each of his stores. So the total amount you are screwed on shipping could be incredible--and you wouldn't even know about it!

The stores I am referring to are all from a seller in Texas. His store names are The-Home-Automation-Store, X10-Express, X10-WAREHOUSE, x10-home-automation-shipped-free, and X10-Automation. They are all one in the same business! You can verify this by viewing the source code of the items descriptions, pictures, Flash Player inserts, links, etc. and in the items description where it states his seller location and sales tax. You can also verify some of his stores are the same seller by looking at his past and present eBay user ID's.

When you buy from me, you are dealing with just one eBay ID, eBay store, eBay seller, and eBay buyer. I have nothing to hide or conceal nor do I even need to.

I do not hide the shipping amount from you either. Some sellers will ship a package by printing the shipping label in such a way that will not show what the shipping cost is on the label. They actually have a name for this, it's called stealth postage. They do this so you can't actually see how much you are being ripped off by. There's really no other valid reason to conceal the shipping cost amount other than to hide the fact that they are ripping you off. When I ship a package, the shipping label on the box will clearly show the amount it cost me to ship your order. This way you will actually be able to see if the amount you paid me for shipping jives with what it cost me to ship your package. No secrets, no deceptions, no hidden charges, no rip offs, no foolin'!

The only exception to this is if you buy optional insurance. For whatever reason, Stamps.com does not show the insurance cost anywhere on the shipping label nor does it show having been included in the total cost. So if you buy insurance, your shipping label will be printed in "stealth" and not show the cost anywhere on the label. This is to avoid anyone thinking I just pocketed the insurance without actually including it. Just know for sure that if you buy optional insurance, your package will be shipped insured.

• Rule Number 1: You must pay for your entire order in one payment. Do not send multiple payments for each item as you will over pay on shipping if you do. Once an order has shipped, it can not be combined with other items. In short, a new shipping amount would apply to a new order.
• Rule Number 2: You must wait for me to send you an invoice thru eBay or a combined invoice if it's more than one item. If for some reason, the system is down and I can't send you an invoice, then I will send you the amount with the correct shipping amount via email. If you have purchased more than one item, I can only guarantee the actual shipping amount by sending you a combined invoice (or amount) with the actual shipping amount figured in. I figure your actual shipping cost by putting all of your items into the appropriate sized shipping carton and then weighing it. Also, some items (depending on their size) can be shipped in a Flat Rate Priority Mail shipping box. In some instances, this may offer you a cheaper shipping rate than what the eBay shipping calculator will show. If you combine your items together yourself and then send payment without receiving an invoice from me first, the shipping amount can easily be wrong. If you want to combine your own invoice and pay that way, it would be ok with me, but the Actual Shipping Cost Guarantee will not apply.
• Rule Number 3: Your order has been shipped via domestic United States Postal Service (USPS) Priority Mail. The Actual Shipping Cost Guarantee does not apply to International Shipping of any kind, First Class Mail, USPS Express Mail, UPS, FedEx, or any other shipping method. About 99.99% of my shipping is done thru USPS Priority Mail, so it should be rare that this would ever be an issue.
• Rule Number 4: If I mistakenly overcharged you for shipping (within $1), I will refund your shipping overpayment back to you thru PayPal regardless of the method you originally paid me. If I have not refunded your overpayment by the time you actually receive your order, then you are eligible for the Actual Shipping Cost Guarantee. You will need to email me within 30 days of your order having been shipped to claim an overcharge on shipping. If you choose to pay before receiving a combined invoice from me and end up overpaying, the Actual Shipping Cost Guarantee will not apply. In short, if the overpayment screw-up is my fault, then it's in your favor and you are covered under the Actual Shipping Cost Guarantee. If the overpayment screw-up is your fault, then the Actual Shipping Cost Guarantee will not apply.
• Rule Number 5: Be sure to save your entire shipping carton as I may need you to mail me back the shipping and postage labels from the carton your order was shipped in if I am unable to verify that I did actually overcharge you on shipping. This should be a rare occurrence, but if for whatever reason I can't verify that I did overcharge you, the actual address and postage labels will help to show that you did overpay. I can't be responsible if one or more labels fell off of the carton during shipment. Generally there is just one postmarked postage label, but sometimes the teller will mess up and then put on a second label to make up for the difference. So when these two label amounts are added together, it should be the actual shipping amount including insurance and any other possible postage fees.

The answer is because I hate getting ripped off on shipping charges when I buy something, so I will not do that to anyone who buys from. There's nothing more irritating than finding an item (or items) dirt cheap and then paying a shipping cost that's $5, $10, $15, or even more over what it actually cost the seller to ship the order for. When I see a seller who does this, I will not buy from them.

Another thing is some sellers will charge you for shipping UPS 2nd Day Air or Priority Mail and then ship UPS Ground or First Class Mail and pocket the extra money you paid for the quicker shipping. When you buy from me and pay for a particular shipping service, that is how your order will be shipped--period! I do not profit from the shipping charges. I only make a profit from the product that I am selling.

You can use the eBay shipping calculator located towards the bottom of each of my items to help get a pretty close approximation of what your shipping cost will be for one or several of the same item. However, it does not work very well at all for different items. Also, sometimes if you purchase more than one, even of the same item, it will quote you on the high side. This is just the nature of the beast in the way it works. EBay's checkout is not perfect in calculating shipping amounts because there are just so many variables to take into account that it is virtually impossible to list every possible combination of items, their quantities, shipping carton size, zipcode, (on and on and on) to be accurate every single time. Sometimes eBay's checkout appears to not even be able to add two amounts together, while other times it's dead on accurate.

In short, to insure you pay only the actual shipping cost for your order, don't pay until I send you a combined invoice so I can put in the correct amount for shipping. This should be no longer than 12 hours, or sometimes it can be in just a few minutes if I happen to be online at the time you select/win your items that you are ordering.