I just sold a fishfinder on Ebay (or rather, a friend who has an account listed it for me). Someone bid $0.50 over the last bid in the last minute of the bidding. So I contact the guy and he says that someone has hacked his ebay account and is bidding under his name (and that he has had several complaints from other sellers, and has contacted Ebay about the problem). Then another guy (or maybe the same guy at another email address?) emails me and says that he is the guy that won the bid, but that he doesn’t want it now.
I ended up relisting the item (it closed two days ago for $10.00 less this time, and I have emailed the buyer but I have not yet heard from him). My friend with the Ebay account says he contacted EBay with the information and the forwarded the correspondence to them, but I don’t think there was any substantive reply.
My questions are: Are these common problems? If this was an attempted scam, how would it work? Nobody got anything for free from me; all they did was mess up the bidding. Is this probably the same guy? Or is it likely that someone’s account was hacked? Or possibly just a SNAFU at Ebay where two people got assigned the same id? What would be the advantage of using someone elses ID unless you could get them to pay for something you wanted? Perhaps he was hoping I would send the item before receiving payment? If that is so, he would have had to give me an address, and this never happened.
As an eBay buyer and seller I am constantly amazed at the number of things that go on out there.
Do a search on completed auctions using the id of the guy that won. One stunt I have seen pulled several times is where a buyer will bid in several different auctions for the same type of item. If they win in more than one they take the lowest priced one and come up with some excuse not to go through with the others. That may be what is going on here.
The vast majority of eBayers are on the up-and-up but the remaining small minority can really foul things up for the rest of us. Just like everything else, I suppose.
The guy’s excuse is, for lack of a better word, bullshit. Report him for non-payment, and let him argue his case with the ebay cops.
You might want to consider leaving him negative feedback, too – however, he might leave neg. feedback as retaliation, so take that into consideration. (By the way, despite what they say, ebay WILL remove negative feedback from your profile, if you have a very good reason AND you bug them about it. )
Can you believe? the guy who won this time is copping out too. Says “my wife bid on the thing for me but I don’t want it.” I know nothing about ebay cops or how they would be accessed, and I guess that would be the schtick of my bud who listed this for me (and I don’t want to put him out any more.) He’s not very confrontational, and I doubt he will do anything at all.
But this is not making me feel like I want to go out and get an ebay account for myself right away. Maybe the guy who was second in the auction will want it. I guess Hal can contact him? I don’t think I can. I tried clicking on his name and it asked for an account. Or maybe I should either get my own account or just forget it. It’s already too much headache for fifty bucks.
Most of the people that have bid on the fishfinder (including the winners) have none or few other auctions in which they have completed a transaction. (I think that is what that number means by the name?) What do you do if a buyer has negative feedback or no other transactions, since you can’t choose the buyer?
I have seen some sellers state that you need a certain feedback level to bid (no negatives, more then 10 pos., email me if you have any neg., etc.) the seller can somehow refuse such a bid.
Twice, I’ve bought stuff, and, while the auction is in progress, I’ve found the item much cheaper locally, to my suprise.
Both times, I’ve done the honorable thing, and offered to :
Buy the item at the bid price, but the seller can keep the item (A small dollar amount, say, under $4)
Offer an amount to “Back out” of the auction". I paid a seller $30 to back out of a $200 auction once. We were both happy, as I found the $200 item at a garage sale for, I think, $15.
Neither of those cases is happening with you. Obviously, you’re being screwed.
I’d try being rather forceful in your first reply, indicating that their bid IS a contract.
Personally, I think this guy is a SELLER of Fishfinders, and is screwing around with your auction.
On a personal note: Email me at phil@commandperform.com I have a sneaky idea, if you decide to list it again.
eBay offers a listing option to pre-approve bidders. You might try that if you list the item again.
Before taking that step you might contact the second place bidders and offer it to them.
A bid is a legal contract to buy. Ten days after the auction closes you can file a non paying bidder report with eBay. You can find this under the fee refund link on the site map. After a few days you can follow this up with a fee listing refund application. This gets some of your money back. eBay places nonpaying bidders on indefinite suspension after three offenses.
To follow through with the NPB process and help get this guy suspended, follow the links on this page. To see if the second guy would like to buy the item you can make them a “personal offer.” Regarding bids from possible shady buyers, the seller does have the right to cancel any bids they are not comfortable with and permanently block people from bidding on their auctions. Finally, to clarify donnerteaparty’s post, you can file to get your Final Value Fee back, but you cannot get your insertion fees back.
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