Yesterday morning I ordered a copy of Sega Saturn - Nights into Dreams from an Amazon Marketplace seller. The listing included the optional analog controller that was originally packaged with the game. Later yesterday I got an email that said the seller had refunded the transaction because he had listed the item in the wrong category (I’m guessing he meant to sell it as “game with controller” instead of just selling it as “game” and mentioning the controller in the details), so the shipping charges were wrong.
Aside from the fact that that’s not my freaking problem, it’s also a lie. I know this because he’s relisted the item for more than twice what I paid. The shipping charge remains $3.99.
I’ve threatened to leave him negative feedback (with his current feedback that would NOT be good… he’d go from having none to having 100% negative) if he doesn’t reverse the refund and mail me my stuff, and I’ve also contacted Amazon asking them the same thing I’m asking here.
Do I have any recourse via Amazon.com beyond just a refund? As far as I’m concerned, we agreed on a price and he accepted the payment - that stuff belongs to me now. He’s got no right to force me into reversing the transaction by issuing a refund via Amazon without my permission. It would be one thing if he damaged it while he was packing it or something weird like that, but he basically just decided after the transaction was finished that he didn’t like the price I was paying.
Does anybody have experience with this type of situation? I’m not going to sue somebody over a stupid video game, but it would be nice to know that Amazon could “compel” this guy to mail me my stuff and take my money back. I haven’t heard back from the seller or Amazon.com yet.
He made a mistake. What do you want him to do? - Sell it to you at a loss?
Sure, he was a bit late in correcting that mistake - i.e. after you had tried to buy it, but even so, it seems like you’re making this into a bigger issue than it needs to be. Can’t you just buy another one from someone else?
I don’t think Amazon will be too interested in indulging you. They certainly can’t compel him to part with his property (I guess they could attempt it by threatening to close the account, but who would that benefit in the short or long run?), but I don’t think they will. It’s been a while since I sold anything on Amazon, but I seem to remember the dispatch instruction saying something like “If you cannot supply this item for any reason, you should issue a refund”.
He made a mistake and he can’t supply the item - maybe he lied about the reason to cover his ass - Amazon isn’t going to send someone to his house to verify his version of events - they’re going to take his word for it.
Yes, he had an agreement with Wheeljack to sell him the game at the listed price, he shouldn’t be able to change his mind after he’s been paid. It’s not like eBay where you can end up with less money than you want, he chose the price he wanted to sell it at. Hopefully Amazon will do something about it, I haven’t had much to do with their marketplace but I know that their normal customer service is quite good, certainly better than eBay. If you’re selling stuff online you just have to accept that sometimes mistakes happen, you just have to abide by the rules and make up for it elsewhere.
Of course, but am I right in thinking the seller is a newbie? (the fact he has no feedback at present?).
Sometimes it feels good to stamp your feet and demand your rights - and sometimes it’s exactly the right thing to do, other times, it just means you’re being an ass.
I think if you’re buying things online, you have to accept that sometimes mistakes happen and you can’t have your pie. Really can’t see the merit in getting worked up over it.
Normally though, its the person who made the mistake that should fix it, in this case by selling at the agreed price.
It’s not that the item can’t be shipped, it’s just that the seller has chosen not to. I can’t see that Amazon would deliberately allow that in it’s rules. The fact that the seller has relisted it shows that there’s no problem with the item, they just want to get more money for it.
It’s not being an ass to expect to pay the asking price for an item, if the item had broken or been lost before shipping then fair enough, but not just because he want’s a better rpice for it.
The shipping charge is a set number from Amazon. It has nothing to do with the actual shipping cost. Amazon’s marketplace takes a commission from every sale. The purchase price + the shipping charge - the commission = what the seller gets. The seller must pay for shipping out of that amount, and if it costs more to ship than the $3.99 Amazon ‘charges’, then too bad for the seller.
Well, OK, but it’s clear that’s not about to happen here. So is it worth getting worked up over?
The terms appear to permit it by not expressly forbidding it (maybe I just can’t find the relevant passage, though).
Interesting that the terms expressly define what should happen if the buyer gets cold feet immediately after a sale (and they’re quite lenient), but there doesn’t seem to be an awful lot said about seller performance - only that the seller should promptly refund if the item cannot be supplied. Choosing not to supply something is a subset of ‘cannot’ supply it.
No, that’s not being an ass. What might be though, is pursuing a newbie seller to the ends of the earth over a fumbled transaction caused by a dumb newbie pricing mistake.
Well, it’s hard to say what’s a loss, considering I have no idea what he paid for it or where he got it.
Not at that price, which I figured was because of the lack of original packaging, manuals and such. He’s got the only one I can find on Amazon, although I did find a more complete set on eBay for about ten dollars more. What I paid him was not an unreasonable price at all. I have no idea why he’s suddenly decided this stuff is so valuable.
The argument that I’m making here is that this stuff isn’t his property anymore. The transaction is over and done with.
This is my question, in a nutshell. Whose side would they take in a situation such as this?
I’m not pursuing anybody to the end of anything. As I said earlier, the pricing mistake he’s making is the new price, not the old one. The reason I was interested in this listing in the first place is because I don’t care about the packaging and such. It was a good price but not unreasonably so. I’m not planning on chasing the guy over a cliff or anything, it’s just that I was really excited to find a game and controller that didn’t have the NEW IN BOX NEVER OPENED OR LOOKED UPON OMG premium attached to it, and if this doesn’t work out in my favor I do intend to neg him.
I did not know that. Thanks for the explanation. I wasn’t sure what the seller meant by that.
I’m still not hip to his excuse though… we’re talking about a CD and a video game controller. This is not a large or heavy package, and citing his concerns about an inaccurate shipping charge, I told him I would be happy to pay reasonable additional shipping costs so we could redo the transaction.
Except it’s not. You haven’t got the item, so it’s not over and done with. You entered into a contract with one another, he breached the terms (unless there are in fact get-out clauses for him too).
As I understand it, people can’t generally be compelled to part with something in these cases. although they might -if legally pursued - have to make amends for any damages caused by their non-performance (damages which amount to not much in this case).
No, OK. That statement wasn’t directed at you in any case.
I guess this is appropriate. I’d maybe hold back if I did think it was a case of a newbie being genuinely naive, but YMMV
It’s worth noting (not that I wish to excuse the seller or anything) that Amazon takes a wedge out of the Postage charge as well as the item price - for example, I sold a book back in January - Amazon charged the buyer £6.99 for the item plus £2.75 postage and packing. They paid me £4.86 for the item and £2.32 for postage and packing.
Yeah, I suppose I’m speaking in ethical terms, not legal ones. Hypothetically if I were to pursue some legal action it would probably come down to me walking away with my refund. But in my opinion what he’s done here is pretty dishonest, and I’m hoping Amazon is as unhappy about having this kind of thing going on with their name attached as I am. I know they can’t force him to ship the stuff, but I’d sure like it if they’d encourage him to, say, by threatening to shut down his storefront.
Again, if I thought this were an honest mistake I wouldn’t be so concerned about it, but I think I paid him a fair price the first time around. I don’t know why he’s suddenly asking more for this that the folks on other sites are for complete units in the original packaging.
Ethically it is pretty crappy if he’s hoping you’ll re-buy the item at a higher price, or if he’s just capriciously decided he can get more, somehow.
But the flipside to that has to be that ethically, it would also be pretty crappy to insist that someone follows through and undersells something due to an honest mistake in listing price. Sauce for the goose, etc.
But if you’re sure it’s not an honest mistake, I guess he deserves a slap.
I think it’s appropriate to leave negative feedback and the cynic in me wonders if this guy has set up a new account after having done similar stuff in the past. Not sure how easy that is to do with the Amazon Marketplace though, so I may be wrong.
Giving him the benefit of the doubt, it may well be that he got to the post office, found out how much it was going to cost to post and decided against it. He’s raised the price to take into account the fact that Amazon sets the shipping costs so any costs over and above the $3.99 get recouped.
Oh yeah, I looked at Amazon once and they take so many charges I don’t know how you can make a decent profit on anything. Perhaps he saw what the charges would be, and decided that wouldn’t leave him as much as he wanted. It’s still his problem, he chose to use Amazons services and he should have read the details properly.
I agree that there probably isn’t much you can do about it, but that doesn’t mean you should just keep quiet and let him carry on. I think negative feedback and a complaint to Amazon is completely fair.
I think it must be remorse-at-post-office, like sandra_nz says (either that, or just plain newbie innocence, or some sort of cynical ploy to re-sell to the OP at a higher price) - the system tells you at the point of listing how much you’ll get if an item sells, so it should never be a surprise.
It is likely that the Seller got to the Post Office and found he could not ship the game and controller for the Media Mail rate that Amazon’s shipping allotment is based on. So he re-listed it with the actual postage built into the price.
It was a newbie mistake, and a person just selling off a few personal items doesn’t care about long-term reputation or customer service expectations. You can give him a detailed negative feedback, but that will only get his account suspended and still won’t get you the item at the bargain price.
I’m a fairly serious part-time Amazon seller. (Over $10K/yr but not a pro…)
My take:
Amazon won’t get involved directly in this, but if it’s any consolation they have some performance guidelines that really discourage this behavior.
More than 10% negative feedback for more than 3 months straight?
High chance of getting banned for life.
More than 10% rate of order refunds [which this cancel counts as] for more than 3 months straight?
High chance of getting banned for life.
He can do what he just did, and he can continue to do it, but only if he has a whole lot of other sales to balance out his performance stats.
You think you got screwed?
I saw a $400 book I wanted… advertised at $25.
I emailed the seller to see if it had the one supplemental item that sometimes comes with the book.
The lady answered my question politely, and then raised the price to $400.
As I said earlier, the pricing mistake he’s making is the new price, not the old one. The reason I was interested in this listing in the first place is because I don’t care about the packaging and such. It was a good price but not unreasonably so. I’m not planning on chasing the guy over a cliff or anything, it’s just that I was really excited to find a game and controller that didn’t have the NEW IN BOX NEVER OPENED OR LOOKED UPON OMG premium attached to it, and if this doesn’t work out in my favor I do intend to neg him.