As a seller, I am extremely disappointed by this ebay policy. Ebay makes buyers too easy to back out from a winning bid. I recently experienced 2 instances:
1. A buyer won the auction but didn't make the payment. I opened an unpaid item case and then finally got the ebay fee refunded. However, once the case was closed, I was not able to leave a feedback on the buyer's account to warn other sellers. Also, even an unpaid item transaction was recorded on the buyer's account, it won't affect her ability to bid again until she has too many unpaid transactions cases (e.g. 2 in a month). Ebay is too generous on this policy. In my opinion, I think even one unpaid transaction case should immediately limit or terminate the buyer's account, because this is breaching the very basic foundation of auction based sales and seriously impairs the fairness and trustworthiness of ebay as an auction platform.
2. Another buyer used the Buy It Now button and bought an item. Then, 2 days later, I received an email from ebay informing me that the bid was cancelled due to "authorized use" of the buyer's account. I was like... pardon me, "unauthorized use"? How can the account be used without authorization if password is needed to access to it? Even if your kid places a bid without your knowledge, it is still your responsibility because you did not properly safeguard your password. In my opinion, the only reason to cancel a bid due to "unauthorized use" of account is that your account was hacked by someone. Also add to it is that the buyer even didn't contact me to discuss the problem. If she did and asked, I would have believed her and agreed to cancel the bid. Without even contacting me to discuss, I think it is more likely that the buyer was finding an excuse to back out the bid. While ebay very much encourages sellers to contact buyers to sort out any problems before contacting them, I wonder how ebay approved such a request even without any communication from the buyer to me, the seller. Again, once the bid was cancelled, I was not able to leave feedback to warn other sellers.
So, in brief, I think ebay makes these kinds of practices too easy and without much consequences. I will not sell anything on ebay anymore. These have closed all my dealings with ebay for good.
