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You can do this on ebay?
Posted: Fri May 21, 2021 12:59 pm
by Sidewinder
in ebay france was a nice horn that I bid on early and kept an eye on over the next week. I bid just before the close and won it. I paid immediately.
2 days later I get a payment reversal and an email from the seller claiming that ebay made a mistake.
Unfortunately this french person and I share some acquaintenances in common and in chatting I learned that the person had cancelled the sale because he had expected a better price.
I gave ebay a call. No there was no issue with ebay falsely listing / relisting items for this person
To the question to the laws of contract - if a person can just unilaterally cancel a sale if they are not happy with the outcome, the reply was the french version of "pff, whatever"
Great that ebay is eroding their own business model and alienating buyers as well.
A lawyer friend in Paris owes me a favour and says we cannot loose a breach of contract claim, costing the seller over 1000 euros in legal fees. I am tempted!
Re: You can do this on ebay?
Posted: Fri May 21, 2021 1:12 pm
by 52089
Yes, this happened to me years ago with a pair of boots on ebay. I was the winner with a below-market bid. The seller then claimed the soles were cracked and canceled the sale. I asked for pictures of the cracks, but of course they never came. The seller then relisted the boots with a buy it now price. When I called them out on this, they didn't just end the new sale, they edited it to be another completely different item so there would be no trace of the original listing! I have no idea whatever happened to "my" boots.
I did tell ebay all about this, but under the system they had at the time, this went nowhere fast. I didn't lose any money, but I didn't get something I won, either.
This goes on the the antiques world too, albeit somewhat indirectly. One well-known dealer had an auction where he stated something like, "This is a no minimum bid auction. However, I reserve the right to ignore unrealistically low bids." Well, which is it?
Re: You can do this on ebay?
Posted: Fri May 21, 2021 4:21 pm
by pallophotophone
Similarly...
I won a disc of Eric Coates' music that I didn't already have in my collection. Paid for it immediately. Time passed with no response from the seller. More time passed.. Then they finally replied that the record had been "cracked" while in their warehouse and they refunded my money. Neve asking me if I still wanted it first. I told them that I wanted it anyway. They responded that it had been "smashed to pieces".
I strongly believe that they sold it to somebody else for a great deal of money more than I paid and didn't want to fess up.
Re: You can do this on ebay?
Posted: Fri May 21, 2021 4:30 pm
by Steve
pallophotophone wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 4:21 pm
Similarly...
I won a disc of Eric Coates' music that I didn't already have in my collection. Paid for it immediately. Time passed with no response from the seller. More time passed.. Then they finally replied that the record had been "cracked" while in their warehouse and they refunded my money. Neve asking me if I still wanted it first. I told them that I wanted it anyway. They responded that it had been "smashed to pieces".
I strongly believe that they sold it to somebody else for a great deal of money more than I paid and didn't want to fess up.
Lol. "Look, I have my own glue. Now please kindly send me the go***mn record!"
Re: You can do this on ebay?
Posted: Sat May 22, 2021 5:58 am
by soundgen
Sidewinder wrote: Fri May 21, 2021 12:59 pm
in ebay france was a nice horn that I bid on early and kept an eye on over the next week. I bid just before the close and won it. I paid immediately.
2 days later I get a payment reversal and an email from the seller claiming that ebay made a mistake.
Unfortunately this french person and I share some acquaintenances in common and in chatting I learned that the person had cancelled the sale because he had expected a better price.
I gave ebay a call. No there was no issue with ebay falsely listing / relisting items for this person
To the question to the laws of contract - if a person can just unilaterally cancel a sale if they are not happy with the outcome, the reply was the french version of "pff, whatever"
Great that ebay is eroding their own business model and alienating buyers as well.
A lawyer friend in Paris owes me a favour and says we cannot loose a breach of contract claim, costing the seller over 1000 euros in legal fees. I am tempted!
Go for it , it will get publicity and may stop some other sellers doing the same thing !
Re: You can do this on ebay?
Posted: Sat May 22, 2021 12:53 pm
by epigramophone
At least we now know that eBay are fair. They treat buyers and sellers with equal contempt.
Re: You can do this on ebay?
Posted: Sun May 23, 2021 1:22 am
by AZ*
Last year, I bought some shelf brackets from UK ebay seller
directdiy. Listing said free shipping to USA. It seemed almost too good to be true, because those brackets are HEAVY. Sure enough,
directdiy cancelled the sale, reversed the payment with the excuse "item no longer available." Since it was cancelled, I couldn't leave any feedback. It was as if the transaction never existed. However,
directdiy continued to list dozens, if not hundreds of these same brackets for sale -- even now. I have had lots of success buying on ebay, but there are some bad apples wherever you go.
Re: You can do this on ebay?
Posted: Sun May 23, 2021 3:17 pm
by gramophone-georg
The reality here is that eBay cannot force a seller to sell any more than it can force a buyer to pay.