So what do you do when you win an auction & the seller then cancels the sale & relists the item?

[mikeandterri1987]

So i 'won' an open auction for a watch bracelet at a cost of GBP 2.00 from a vendor on the UK site last week. Got an email saying shipping cost would be GBP 8.00.  Responded within 2 hrs with a no problem, just send me an invoice with the shipping costs included so that i can pay for the item.  Next day, seller cancelled the sale & relisted the item with a minimum price of GBP 20.00.  The seller (Margo5415) wont complete the sale claiming she "didn't think i wanted the item" ?   I protested but to no avail as it seems obvious to me that the seller felt the item would (and should) sell for far more than GBP 2.00.

Matter & vendor were reported to ebay but as usual, ebay wont do anything about the sale nor penalize the seller. (Hey they make $$ off these sellers and the more it sells for the more $$ they make).  Ebay simply told me they would 'investigate' but to leave negative feedback for the seller which i did. I wont go into how many times i had to re-explain the situation to the help desk person and had to listen to them say  'dont worry, we are here to help you'.       Is there no other recourse here at all?

[mikeandterri1987]

I have all of the emails to support my statements Pierre. There is only one side to this coin.

[pierrelebel]

To be candid, whenever I read a "he said - she said" thread, I often like to get the opinion or perspective of the other party.

In this specific case, I have communicated with the British seller and invited her to address this thread.  She has declined to do so since negative feedback had already been posted and she could not see any benefit in discussing the matter here.

Posting rules do not allow me to quote from her correspondence.

However, it is my understanding that there was more to it than a simple and polite "please advise cost of shipping from the UK to Canada" and I will be pleased to pay it.

[momcqueen]

Very good, pierrel. Thank you for doing so. 

[mater721]

Are you saying you have more information and are not posting it due to privacy issues?

Or you are assuming ("it is my understanding")?

Of course only the buyer and seller know all the facts but... I tend to give more weight to posted info than to complete silence.

IF a buyer responded affirmative to my query about selling to Canada, gave me a price, and the I went on to win the auction - I too would be upset and leave negative feedback if the seller cancelled and re-listed.

[mater721]

Did the seller give you a reason as to why the auction was cancelled?

[pierrelebel]

" I too would be upset and leave negative feedback if the seller cancelled and re-listed."

So would I.  Most buyers would.

[pierrelebel]

"are not posting it due to privacy issues?"

That is correct. 

Posting rules prohibit quoting from private correspondence.  We all often see posts edited or deleted by the monitors when that happens.

[marnotom!]

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@mater721 wrote:

Are you saying you have more information and are not posting it due to privacy issues?

Or you are assuming ("it is my understanding")?

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Pierre doesn't assume, remember?  

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@Pierre wrote:

Posting rules do not allow me to quote from her correspondence.

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He's read a message from his seller and that's his takeaway from it, that's all.  He's likely making allowances for the fact that he's human and may have misread or misinterpreted the points made by the seller.

I mean, look at how many people posting to this thread initially missed the OP mentioning that they asked the seller about shipping costs prior to committing to purchase the item.

[mater721]

Is there a drop-down list to choose from when cancelling an auction after bidding is over?

Have had that happen to me in past - I think it was "Item no longer available"... at least it seemed like a pre-selected option-list.

[momcqueen]

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@mater721 wrote:

Is there a drop-down list to choose from when cancelling an auction after bidding is over?

Have had that happen to me in past - I think it was "Item no longer available"... at least it seemed like a pre-selected option-list.

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There is. But it is a minefield of optional choices if a seller cancels for a reason penalized by ebay under the defect system. 

[mikeandterri1987]

The seller responded (after they cancelled the sale & i asked why) via email that "they thought i no longer wanted the item".  Either they did not read my response about agreeing to the cost of shipping prior to the end of the auction, did not read my request for an invoice with the shipping cost included once the auction concluded or simply chose to ignore my emails.  All this was done within 12 hrs of the auction ending.  The vendor had the option of coming back to me and saying it was an error on their part but they chose to simply go silent and accept the negative feedback.

[mikeandterri1987]

Here is a more complete reply as this system timed me out before i could finish editing:
The seller responded (after they cancelled the sale & i asked why) via email that "they thought i no longer wanted the item". Either they did not read my response about agreeing to the cost of shipping prior to the end of the auction, did not read my request for an invoice with the shipping cost included once the auction concluded or simply chose to ignore my emails. The vendor did send me an email after i had asked for a revised invoice (to include the postage amount) saying they were 'having difficulty sending a revised invoice" to me. I sent 2 responses; one suggesting how to do so & another suggesting she contact ebay for help as per advice given by one of ebay's help desk staff. The next response i got from the seller was that they had cancelled the sale & the item was then relisted. All this was done within 12 hrs of the original auction ending. The vendor had the option of coming back to me and saying it was an error on their part but they chose to simply go silent and accept the negative feedback.

[femmefan1946]

I don't think eBay should have brought in this new one-sided cancellation service, because it always leaves one person unhappy,

but I wonder if the seller didn't look at that feedback and decide that making an exception and shipping overseas to a customer who is evidently very hard to please was the better path.

Eight negative, neutral or soft positive feedbacks left in the first 25 on your feedback page.

In the over 1400 fb I've left on this ID, I have left only 2 negs and no neutrals.

Although a typo that left an item selling for £2 that was intended to list for £20 was probably another factor.

[mikeandterri1987]

You have a choice of leaving honest feedback or you can leave that 'fluffy feel-good' feedback that so many people do just to make it look like one big happy site. I choose to leave honest feedback in hopes that it will improve some of the **bleep** that occurs on ebay. Apparently that approach doesn't appeal to you.  I doubt it was a typo.  There was no 'minimum' price of GBP 2.00

But now we're getting sidetracked from the issue and there is nothing further to be done about it. It's over with people, let it go.

[mater721]

"Although a typo that left an item selling for £2 that was intended to list for £20 was probably another factor."

This could very well be the case.

IMO, the seller should accept this as a learning experience and take the loss.

When stores "miss-price" their items they have to sell for the lower cost too.  They can't claim "mistake". They just take the loss.

[momcqueen]

The seller has no choice but to accept the mistake (and its consequences) as a learning experience.

I expect he/she has learned: (a) get to know your buyer (b) it's easier to cancel a bid than cancel a sale and (c) doublecheck your details before hitting 'submit' or 'send'.

[mikeandterri1987]

 Agreed.

[reallynicestamps]

I agree that the seller should have sold the item at the listed price. Been there and done that.

Oh. BTW, coins have three sides. Not two.

[northerngamer]

I've been running into a handful of sellers that do this.  Some claim they're cancelling for a legitimate reason, others not.  I had one guy come out and say it's because the bid price didn't get high enough, I was kind of shocked at that one.  Giving them negative feedback is really all the recourse you have.  Too much negative feedback makes it exceptionally difficult to sell items for a decent price.

If it was for something really expensive I'm sure a lawyer would tell you to sue the seller for fraud, but I believe you'd have to be able to prove they made the listing with the intention not to ship the item under a certain bid price. Unless you can prove intent then really you have no case. Plus it's the internet so you'd have to get a court order to have eBay give you the seller's personal info.

Ebay has made giving feedback on cancelled auctions exceptionally difficult lately by the way.  The most recent time it just dropped off my ebay dashboard entirely.  I had to go find the auctions from the cancellation message, then feed in the item ID manually into the feedback page. I'm sure it maybe shows up somewhere in the dashboard but heck if I could find it.