Seller accepted offer with free shipping, then sent invoice with added shipping charges. Advice?

[anniearcane]

Hey hey!

Would you fine, experienced folks mind giving me some advice, please?

The seller had an item listed for $75 o.b.o. plus free shipping. I made an offer of $45, which I know is pretty low but it's been up for a while so I thought, what-the-hey?

- The seller accepted my offer of $45 but then immediately sent an invoice with an additional $23.55 in shipping charges, for a total of $68.55

- I thought it was a glitch/mistake and asked the seller to adjust the invoice so I could pay

- He tells me free shipping is only for items purchased at the auction price (I assume he means the buy-it-now price) but he always adds shipping after accepting offers (???)

- He says I have 2 choices: Pay the invoice or he'll wait to cancel and give me a non-paying strike

I've never failed to pay for anything and I would very much like to pay for this as well. So I contacted customer service multiple times, both via chat and phone, and spoke to 5 different CSRs.

- Every CSR confirmed that the seller accepted my offer of $45 plus free shipping, and that him sending an invoice with additional charges was "violating ebay rules/best selling practices"

- However, they also all agreed that the seller can't be forced to honor our transaction (which makes sense)

- 2 CSRs suggested I just pay the invoice and then open a case to request a refund of the shipping charges (this seems like super suspect advice that I don’t feel comfortable following lol)

- The other CSRs suggested I just don’t pay and then call back to have the non-paying strike removed

Obviously, the seller doesn’t have to honor the free shipping in his listing. But do I really just wait for him to cancel and give me a non-paying strike, then try to appeal it?  It’d be different if I’d already paid the $45 and he demanded extra for shipping afterwards. But since he sent an invoice with extra shipping immediately, it just looks like I’m refusing to pay now. I know one strike isn't a big deal but it still bugs me for some reason ha! 

Anyhoo, sorry for rambling. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks in advance for your help!!

Ann

[femmefan1946]

Shipping is not a part of any Best Offer agreement.

At best, a seller can counter offer, leaving the Shipping as is, and reducing your offer by the amount of shipping.

Yes - that means the seller's counter offer is lower than your Best Offer.  Life's funny that way.

The accepted offer will include the original shipping and the seller can't change that because shipping is not a part of any Best Offer agreement.

However.

Since the shipping was included in the original price (which is what Free Shipping means) and the seller raised the cost of shipping from "free" to $23.55, he is in the wrong.

I am surprised that no customer rep realized that.

Ask the seller to cancel the transaction. He can do that.

When the transaction is over, leave appropriate feedback.

The most effective  feedback is calm and factual. "Accepted my Offer then raised shipping from Free to $23.55."  for example.

[anniearcane]

Hey, thank you for the reply.

Every customer rep agreed the seller was in the wrong.

Problem is I hadn’t paid yet and he didn’t want to cancel the transaction straight up. Since he sent an invoice immediately after accepting my offer, the total when I went to checkout included the additional shipping (which only the seller could remove). There was no option for me to just pay the $45. He said I could either pay the invoice or he would wait 4 days and “cancel due to nonpayment” so I get a strike on my record. But today I woke up to see…

The seller cancelled this order due to the following reason: ‘Something was wrong with the buyer’s shipping address.’

So I think he was just trying to scare me into paying the extra shipping. And, well, I mean, I did come here asking for advice so, it kinda worked 😅😂

Thanks again, I really appreciate your time!

[ypdc_dennis]

A Seller accepts or rejects an offer -- it is the Seller's responsibility to make a decision if the price+shipping offered is too low.  Sounds like a lazy seller who does not have automatic rejection of low offers set up.

Seller is definitely violating ebay rules with this bit in the description:

185062263144

"USA AND CANADA BUYERS FREE SHIPPING accepting the Auction price... please consider this when buying if you make a low ball offer than shipping fees will apply."

...

I also notice that the seller in question has already relisted the item.

[anniearcane]

Thanks for the reply, Dennis.

And yeah, the seller relisted after cancelling my purchase because "Something was wrong with the buyer’s shipping address", which is totally untrue but...

Meh. Whatever lol

[femmefan1946]

It'a a cheap way out-- Problem with Address and Buyer Request cancellation have no penalty for the seller, while any other reason leads to a Defect.

The note about Shipping which dennis pointed out is a blatant flouting of eBay rules on shipping costs.

[lotzofuniquegoodies · Accepted solution]

@anniearcane 

Under normal circumstances you would receive an automatic invoice from eBay with the 0.00 amount for shipping as per their listing. Sounds like they clicked send an invoice to override that invoice as soon as they accepted your offer to allow them to "upgrade" the shipping which is not permitted as per other posts. Unfortunately some sellers are creatively sneaky. 

-Lotz

[anniearcane]

@femmefan1946

Ah, makes sense. He actually told me the reason he's NOT violating ebay rules is because he includes that note about shipping in all his listings and... I didn't try to argue lol

@lotzofuniquegoodies

"Creative sneaky" is the perfect description! Guess I gotta respect the hustle, eh? 😂