posted on November 19, 2000 06:55:40 AM
My daughter won an auction on ebay and not hearing from the seller she emailed them. The response was, I just received payment from another buyer. I forgot I had sold the item and relisted it. My daughter thinks and I agree, that she got the item for less than the seller expected and now she's backing out. I've never had this happen. Any ideas how to handle it?
posted on November 19, 2000 07:19:00 AM
I would email the seller with the seller information from ebay that says refusing to sell to the high bidder will get the seller removed from ebay. Then, if the item is not forthcoming, send the email to safeharbor.
The seller should either have used a reserve or started the bidding higher.
posted on November 19, 2000 07:19:25 AM
Post negative feedback to warn other buyers. The seller had his chance to cancel auction long before the auction ended. Fair is fair.I would do this and what London4 suggest.
[ edited by msykes on Nov 19, 2000 07:21 AM ]
posted on November 19, 2000 07:40:53 AM
I agree with, contact Safeharbor and also NEG this person. But be factual, not emotional.
I hope this isn't a new trend in online auctions.
Ain't Life Grand...
posted on November 19, 2000 07:55:56 AM
Expand the headers of the email (eBay needs to be able to see the tracking info so they can verify who originally sent it), then forward it to [email protected] with a note that the seller was engaging in fee avoidance. (The seller obviously didn't pay eBay their final value fees if she "forgot" it sold through official eBay channels.) Otherwise, they'll likely send a response back that they can't force a seller to actually sell an item.
posted on November 19, 2000 08:26:28 AM
For a different point of view, it's not unheard of for a seller to actually make this mistake. I do believe we'd had AW members who've admitted to having this happen to them.
I made this mistake once. Was swapping over inventory systems & mistakenly entered a 1 instead of a zero in a category & listed the item. After the auction ended & I went to pack it, realized my mistake.
I immediately emailed the buyer & openly admitted what happened & offered a more expensive similar item instead. They declined (& graciously didn't give me a neg for my mistake which would have been perfectly deserved).
Sellers DO make mistakes. If you have solid PROOF that the seller sold it to someone else for more money, then I'd be one of the first to say turn them in to ebay & NEG em.
But if it's only a "feeling", please realize mistakes CAN & DO happen, even to the most organized of sellers.
posted on November 19, 2000 08:48:42 AM
December3, Just run a search on the sellers closed auctions. That will show if they had listed it and sold it the first time, as they say.
If you find it was an accidental relist, I’d let them off the hook. Mistakes happen.
If you don’t find it in their closed auctions, rip them a new one!
posted on November 19, 2000 09:18:41 AMEventer one point you brought out was that you tried to make up for your mistake, not just leave the buyer hanging. A slight difference.
posted on November 19, 2000 09:28:07 AM
Most deadbeat sellers are newbies who can see that something went wrong, and they're unwilling to accept the "loss".
Irresponsible, maybe.
But unagressive, and based on lack of understanding rather than deliberate intent to benefit from irresponsibility.
I just let them go. I know what happened, they screwed up their listing and I found their screwed up listing, but ethical business is not based on sticking people with their mistakes.
posted on November 19, 2000 09:42:01 AM
This could be a honest mistake on the part of a seller as well we all do make them.
How often is it a seller feels they have a dead beat files NPB after sometime on the buyer feeling safe to relist then receives payment out of the clear blue you ship the item now to late you realize the item is still relisted with a new winner.
I cant count the times after auctionrover started there auto relist unsold Items I would forget I had the feture turned on auto relist manually at yahoo and have two of each item listed a day or so before findingthe error and closeing the extra auctions.
this could be a seller trying to back out but there is as much a chance that its an honst mistake.
posted on November 19, 2000 09:46:04 AM
twelvepole,
I realize I did 2 things differently than this seller when I realized my mistake: I contacted the buyer IMMEDIATELY & offered profuse apologies & I offered alternate items. I also told the buyer than if they wished to leave a negative, I would assure them I would not respond in kind. It WAS my mistake & therefore, the negative would be deserved. (YES, there ARE deserved negatives in this world).
This seller appears to either be hiding a higher sale or just plain ignorant of the way to properly handle a LEGITIMATE mistake.
If they are the former, they deserve to be hammered. If they are the latter, they need to learn the proper way to handle things so that buyers don't feel the way december3 does.
posted on November 19, 2000 09:59:10 AM
I would check out the seller's story by double-checking her closed auctions. If she has really listed and sold the item before I would let her slide on this one since she's a newbie. But definitely let her know that the next bidder might not be so gracious.
I just made a colossal mistake myself on an auction that ended a couple of days ago. I sell (give away?) several small "How To" computer guides that I have written on eBay and Yahoo. I list them at a really low price in dutch auctions and send a flyer with other products along in the package (which is where I really make my money).
Well, I thought I would try a 1 cent sale to see how it went. I figured that the bidding would drive the price up higher than usual. The mistake I made was in entering 1000 in the quantity field instead of 10. The quantity is really no problem as I produce these myself on the fly. The problem is that there were 21 bidders and I didn't catch the error until after the auction ended. So I had 21 winners at 1 cent each (ouch)!
Oh well, we live and learn. I of course honored all of the bids and left glowing feedback (so far) but with only one exception, all of the bidders have paid with PayPal so far. Here I am paying PayPal fees on 1 cent transactions. I have had NO problem getting people to switch to ExchangePath, but not this time. The good news is that I've learned a very valuable lesson. Don't allow complacency to ruin an otherwise great week.
posted on November 19, 2000 12:10:01 PM
Thank you for the response everyone. The seller has feedback of 17 with 2 negs. One is for the same thing my daughter is complaining about. The only closed auction showing that item is the auction my kid won. She really needs to have another negative added to her list. I've only been on ebay a little over a year and hadn't run ito this before. I've done more buying than selling but everything has been fine so far.
