eBay win cancelled; how best to handle it?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I bid on an item on eBay and won. From the number next to the seller’s name, he appeared to be reasonably experienced. I paid for the item within minutes of the auction ending thru PayPal.

Next day, I receive an email thru legitimate eBay channels, claiming that the seller had posted the item for a friend who didn’t understand how this works, and the friend sold the item on Craigslist. The seller seems genuinely contrite, and offered to refund my payment if he could figure out how.

So should I just accept the refund and go quietly into the night (it was a pretty good price for an item I can really use)? Or should I file a complaint with eBay for this seller?

I did suggest he could buy another item of equal or better value from any source and ship it to me, avoiding a black mark on his record. Is this being too harsh?

2

Just accept the refund and go quietly into the night if you believe his story.

3

Wait a minute he’s experienced and doesn’t know how to refund a paypal payment?

Here’s the short course. He goes to his paypal listing record for the sale clicks on “details”, clicks on “issue refund” and fills in the blanks with the amount of the refund and sends the refund. It’s literally 30 seconds. If he’s already taken the money out of the paypal account it’s not a problem. Paypal will issue an echeck to your paypal account which will take about 4-5 days to clear but it will be back in your account within a week.

It’s annoying but I would not leave negative feedback. You can leave neutral feedback which expresses your opinion, will be visible to others, but will not effect his seller rating. Get your full refund first.

4

Once everything’s done, definitely leave neutral (NOT negative) feedback, detailing what happened. It’s important for other potential buyers to be aware that they might not get what they won, especially if it’s part of an ongoing pattern.

A gut feeling tells me that he may have cancelled the auction because the final price was far below what he wanted – this happens all the time on eBay.

5

Yes. But I disagree. Neg him. Neutral or no FB would have been OK, if he had refunded fast, but a delay is unacceptable.

6

What delay? The OP doesn’t mention any delay.

7

I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt, but only if this hasn’t happened before and goes on his record for future bidders.

He does now, after a few emails. I think “experienced” is relative; I have bought and sold on eBay (mostly bought), but I never had to do a refund so I don’t automatically know how it’s done, either. Maybe he was just being honest?

Agreed. eBay makes it quite difficult and tries to discourage members from leaving negative feedback, but neutral would do the trick.

Could be.

The auction ended Sunday night and the seller cancelled it on Monday. No delay yet, although I imagine PayPal will introduce one that neither of us can control.

8

Being “unable” to figure out how to do the refund.

9

Shouldn’t do - refunds should be pretty prompt, unless he does something boneheaded like sending you the refund as new/separate payment transaction.

10

Just an FYI-in eBay parlance, a neutral = a negative. It’s counted as a negative by eBay as far as Top Seller status goes. “Bad buyer experience”.

As a fellow eBay seller who understands that sometimes sh!t happens, as long as I got a refund and he doesn’t seem like a sheister, I’d let it go.

11

I’d say that pretty much defines my experience. I bid, I win, I expect delivery and instead, I get an excuse. How is that not a “bad buyer experience”?

12

I agree with others. Neutral or neg. the longer the refund takes, the harsher the feedback. Longer than a week, pull eBay into it.

I had a seller once tell me she couldn’t ship me the items because they wouldn’t fit in the box she wanted to use. All kinds of stories in in big city. If he doesn’t fix it, other buyers should know…

13

I’ll cut the seller a little slack, but not a lot. It could be an innocent mistake, or a deliberate screwup. Let’s see how long it takes for the refund, compared to my instant payment of, oh, 60 seconds after bid close.

14

I would file a complaint and give negative feedback.

15

Right. I have had this happen, the seller said he was packing it and he found it was defective, but the refund was already on it’s way. Any delay calls for poor FB. The “I don’t know how” is a bad excuse on top of a bad excuse.

16

We had this happen with an item located in Alaska- it sold for less than what it would cost to ship, and the seller had put on a ridiculously low shipping cost (didn’t use the calculator). It was bought and paid for within the last few minutes. Seller begged for no negatives, delayed refund for two weeks, and her excuses kept mounting- starting with she thought the item didn’t sell and sold it to a local who stopped by, and then claiming not to know how to work the PayPal. I filed a complaint, and left steaming feedback. In other cases, when an item arrives broken due to poor packing, we leave positive feedback with details about good communication…if it was so.

17

I have never bought or sold on eBay. I’m having trouble understanding why some are being so adamant that there be no negative feedback given.

The OP is apparently supposed to just suck it up, pay for his doodad which he will never get. And hope some dood gives him his money back. I don’t get it.

18

eBay has no police, courts, or government powers. The system relies heavily on the opinion of the crowd. Many good ratings suggest that future dealings with this party will be honest; bad ratings, the opposite. Would you bid on an item if the seller was known to be dishonest?

And many people have noticed that eBay is biased towards the seller, perhaps because the fees are paid by the sellers. Long ago, an occasional negative comment wasn’t treated as all that important; now eBay seems to go out of their way to avoid even one.

It’s for sure that if I get no refund in a reasonable time, I will give the seller a black mark, and possibly start a dispute procedure which could result in a banning of the seller, ending their career on eBay. That’s not the worst outcome in the world, but one most sellers would like to avoid, especially if they’re not One-Time Johnnies.

I’m still waiting for the refund.

19

Negative feedback is quite harmful to a seller - it will demote that seller’s listings from any search results, for example - or it may result in eBay introducing timed delays into their cashflow. Negative feedback is sometimes appropriate, of course, but should really be a last resort.

No. The OP is supposed to get a refund and move on (maybe report the transaction if this is seller’s remorse or something like that). Nobody is expecting anybody to write off the money.

20

This has not been my experience of eBay. Sellers:
[ul]
[li]pay all the fees, including a fee on postage[/li][li]can’t leave negative feedback for buyers[/li][li]are penalised in respect of any bad feedback or ratings given by the buyer (for example, if you give 4 stars out of 5 on a detailed seller rating - that’s a penalty against the seller)[/li][li]are often the losers in complex/malicious disputes (for example, buyer falsely claims a new item of clothing smells of smoke and returns it worn/dirty, or returns a box with a rock in it - eBay will often refund on the basis that the buyer returned something)[/li][/ul]

Despite what might appear above as bias toward the seller’s side (it really isn’t though), I suggest starting a nonperforming seller dispute as soon as the eBay system will let you. This will galvanise the seller’s response and you can cancel the dispute as soon as you get your refund (not before, though).