are ebay bids legally binding?

Hammyman

pinkgem wrote: »

so you can't sue for the amount of the winning bid then?

You CAN sue for the amount of the winning bid PLUS your costs for doing it. As a buyer you agree to terms and a contract is formed.

GabbaGabbaHey

Morse_67 wrote: »

" I got the ebay buyer's postal address from eBay and went to Moneyclaim Online " ... that's a breach of the data protection act and the other guy can bring an action of his own on that one.

In what possible way is this action a breach of the Data Protection Act 1998?

There is already an established relationship between the buyer and the seller, and I am sure that eBay's Terms & Conditions oblige you to share your contact details with the counterparty to a transaction - it would be impossible to conclude the majority of transactions without this information.

Legal_Academic

terra_ferma wrote: »

there was a case of a buyer suing a seller who pulled out of a sale and winning, legal papers were on line as evidence.
obviously I don't have the link (where is a link when you need it....?)
It was posted on the ebay forum a couple of months ago.

Was it this one?: http://e-sue.co.uk/recent_work.htm

revere148

I have a buyer who refused to pay because he said I refused to accept a credit card payment. I told him I did not have the facility to accept credit cards. I looked on my 'items for sale' and the buyer is indeed correct, some of my items do list credit cards as a method of payment. This is in addition to the pay by credit card through PayPal offered by Ebay. This must be a glitch with Ebay. I will in future check to see that in all my future auctions the payment by 'credit card' is unchecked.
My query is 'if' I took the buyer to court for not paying could they argue that I did not keep to the conditions of the auction by not accepting credit cards when it stated in the auction 'credit cards accepted' and get out of the purchase? There is still the option of paying by credit card through PayPal.
I think that the person is obliged to buy if they win the auction. The method of payment is surely their responsibility. The buyer did say that he could not use Paypal as he was over his limit.

lovinituk

revere148 wrote: »

I have a buyer who refused to pay because he said I refused to accept a credit card payment. I told him I did not have the facility to accept credit cards. I looked on my 'items for sale' and the buyer is indeed correct, some of my items do list credit cards as a method of payment. This is in addition to the pay by credit card through PayPal offered by Ebay. This must be a glitch with Ebay. I will in future check to see that in all my future auctions the payment by 'credit card' is unchecked.
My query is 'if' I took the buyer to court for not paying could they argue that I did not keep to the conditions of the auction by not accepting credit cards when it stated in the auction 'credit cards accepted' and get out of the purchase? There is still the option of paying by credit card through PayPal.
I think that the person is obliged to buy if they win the auction. The method of payment is surely their responsibility. The buyer did say that he could not use Paypal as he was over his limit.

I don't see the problem! As you said yourself, the buyer can pay by credit card via Paypal, even if they don't have a Paypal account. At the end of the day it doesn't matter how the card payment is processed. You send him a Paypal invoice and he pays by card without having to log into a Paypal account!! Where exactly is the issue?!

If he still won't pay then raise an unpaid dispute, block the buyer, relist and move on. Not worth getting any more stressed over it.

GabbaGabbaHey

revere148 wrote: »

My query is 'if' I took the buyer to court for not paying could they argue that I did not keep to the conditions of the auction by not accepting credit cards when it stated in the auction 'credit cards accepted' and get out of the purchase?

What would you take them to court over? You can only sue them if you have suffered a loss, and you still have the item that you were trying to sell, so (unless it was time limited - e.g. a holiday, or concert tickets) you haven't actually suffered any loss.

Oopsadaisy

Surely they've lost the 'profit' on the item??

GabbaGabbaHey

Oopsadaisy wrote: »

Surely they've lost the 'profit' on the item??

No, that's not a real loss, as there is nothing to stop the seller from selling the item again.

They had their item before this all started; they still have their item. Therefore no material loss has occurred, and they have nothing to sue over.

DonnySaver

I've recently had two items I 'sold' on ebay and then the winning bidders decided not to pay.

I informed Ebay and the most they would do is place a non-payment mark against their Ebay Id.

RFW

GabbaGabbaHey wrote: »

No, that's not a real loss, as there is nothing to stop the seller from selling the item again.

They had their item before this all started; they still have their item. Therefore no material loss has occurred, and they have nothing to sue over.

If an auction house takes someone to court for non payment they usually claim for the shortfall between first sale and subsequent resale (if any) and their time and seller fees. It rarely happens but has done occasionally. Whether going after someone who either wouldn't or couldn't pay for an item in the first place to try and then get money from them through court could be throwing more money away.

Quite a few years ago we had a non payer in our auction house for around £1800 the goods resold for about £1200. We did have a deposit of £50, so lost £550, we looked at going to court but there was no one at the address they had given, turns out he'd emigrated a week after our auction and had been looking to export our stuff with him.

There are quite a few reasons why an item would sell for less a second time, a gift item for example would be more likely to get a higher price two weeks before Christmas than two weeks after.

As for Ebay they can't really do much more than put a strike against someone, I've had an odd one or two genuine non payers over the years, where their non payment was unavoidable so a strike in that case was probably the fairest thing rather than booting them off, there isn't a way of making someone pay up, especially if they haven't got the money to pay.