posted on January 21, 2002 09:32:01 PM new
I the Seller have a large number of highly sought after items which I have sold, standard auction two at a time. They bid out 30 to 65 dollars each.Two auctions have reached 29.00 and 30.00 - I start listing new auctions for 30.00 buy it now and 35.00 buy it now - I sell 8 to 10 items over 3 days - near the end of the standard auctions Mr Bidder (in the last few mins of the auction), Lays a 40 dollar bid ,beating the competition by pennys with mins to spare, The Day after - Seller, Moi - Gets an email complaining that bidder has been shafted by sellers listing similar lots for a buy price lower than his winning bid. Demands that Seller give the item for the lower Buy it now price on the other Auctions instead of the high bid - Otherwise he would not pay and take a neg. I thought about it awhile and decided that If I were in his place I would feel obligated to complete the transaction and do so.
I Told him that If he wished -I would agree to mutually void the transaction,would not leave feedback, Good bad or otherwise- The only condition being that he not bid on my auctions again. I also mentioned that I would offer the item to the bidder next in line and not sell to him for a lower price.
I havnt had anything like this happen before - have you ?
posted on January 21, 2002 11:02:37 PM new
ok4leather,
I've had that happen and have done exactly what you did. I think people get caught up in a bit of a bidding frenzy and look around later and see what could have been - Of course it's too late after auction but still, the buyer feels a neg would be worth it.
posted on January 22, 2002 03:42:54 AM new
I'd have done a FVF credit and neg'd this guy (after getting your credit)and blacklisted him as well(immediately). No one forces a bidder to bid and every bidder will make bids they regret. It's called life and there are consequences to bad choices. Bidders who are unwilling to live up to their actions do not belong on eBay.
Once you let a bidder dictate auction terms, it becomes much harder to run your business.
posted on January 22, 2002 04:15:27 AM new
I agree with MBALLAI. I would have nailed this one. Yes, some buyers do have regrets and bid before they think about it. However, with the email this one sent it sounds to me like he/she has pulled this before and gotten away with it. There's a difference between buyer regret and a cheat. I would block this person immediately-file a non payer alert-then an FVF request and nail him/her with a scathing neg. I have been selling for quite awhile and will go to great lengths to satisfy a buyer but when they try to rob fom you the gloves should come off.
posted on January 22, 2002 10:40:07 AM new
Honestly, I was highly irritated at this person, He actually had the gall to insult me wow "what stones". Any way I suspect he had used a snipe program and squeeked a victory in the last seconds of my auction thereby causing the price to exceed my other listing buy it prices. He pretty much got tangled up in his own snipe program hehehe - I get a chuckle thinking about it. When something really gets my goat I try to be as professional as I can manage. I let him off and blacklisted the ID , but I suspect he has purchased another item using a different ID - Im just going to forget an move on. Thanks for the input - keeps me on the right path.
posted on January 22, 2002 11:47:42 AM new
Well Guess I was wrong on this one, The bidder had his wife do an instant purchase on another of the same items. Different ID same last name on the email header - Im not sure what to do here - I really want no part of doing business with these people provided they are the same household. Jeez
posted on January 25, 2002 08:39:41 AM new
I am thinking that you have probably already dealt with this situation, but I was in the EXACT SAME position last year (it was the first and only set of auctions on which I used BIN - I usually sell fairly low-cost items but I came across some fairly pricy things at a killer deal and I was passing them on.)
When I realized the second bidder was either the first in disguise or a close relative, I sent the original bidder the following email:
"When I agreed to let you out of your previous bid, it was with the understanding that you weren't going to bid on any of my other auctions. I now see that someone with a very similar address and email domain has used Buy It Now on another one of the palettes.
"It seems to me that you're attempting to circumvent the agreement we previously had. Please remember that I had agreed to withhold a negative feedback (which in actual fact, you deserved for not controlling your bidding and then getting cold feet) Now, I believe you've put yourself and/or a family member at risk of getting negatives to two accounts. I understand that you may feel free to leave me a negative in return. However, I'd like to point out to you that I have 2000-plus positive feedbacks while your two accounts combined have less than 35 (including the previous neg on the first account.) Your email also indicates that you are in Singapore, which will make many US sellers even more reluctant to sell to you.
"Because both accounts are new, however, I'm going to assume that you didn't understand the significance of the concession I made the first time around. And I'm also going to assume that you didn't realize how much your behavior was costing me. At this point, I'm out more than $6 on placement fees and end-of-auction fees. Despite that, my decision stands. I am not willing to let you off a previous auction, then sell you the same item at a lower price when you've already cost me more than the profit on this item.
"I don't want to be unkind. But surely you see that you are not treating me fairly."
I can't find the email I sent to the "second bidder" but it was fairly short, essentially, "I believe you are actually person X, residing at address Y in Singapore. Can you prove to me you aren't?"
I never heard from her again. I did FVF (the "mutual agreement" kind) on both IDs and relisted one item without BIN, decided to keep the other for myself. If she's still registered, she's under another ID and email address now because neither ID is a registered user (though she never incurred any more negatives.)
Good luck with your situation! I'd like to hear what you decided to do.
(edited because I chopped the last graf of the email)
[ edited by msincognito on Jan 25, 2002 08:45 AM ]
posted on January 25, 2002 08:58:23 AM new
msincognito, I think the sting of the guys insult (without having earned it) bothered me most. He has a 200 fb rate with no negs - I thought that perhaps he'd had one of those bad hair days. When I saw the Buy it bid under another ID It really torqued me off - I Blacklisted both Ids and Contacted Safeharbor - They had me forward all the emails for investigation. Im going to complete the second transaction unless I hear from ebay. It would be easy for me to escalate this to a small war but thats not good business - Ill complete the deal and move on. I can sure taste that neg but Id be getting the same in return and mabe one from the other ID too.
Take care
posted on January 25, 2002 10:09:20 AM new
I didnt want to request Personal info and tip them off that I may be up to something. The IP info and email headers were good enough for me to bump it up to ebay support - I thought that they would instantly reject my complaint if the users were not related in some way. They asked for lots of info and are looking into it- So I believe I was on track.
