eBAY & CONFIDENTIALITY: ADVICE URGENTLY NEEDED!

codger

Apologies for the length of this post but I've been asked to help the daughter of friends of ours about an eBay-related matter. . .

But I'm stumped! If anyone with a lot more experience than I have of eBay can help out here, that would be appreciated because the issue seems worrying.

Our friends' daughter decided to sell her car on eBay. She made it a Private Listing, with the car available for inspection before the listing’s end. The winning bidder never inspected the car. The first time she saw him was when he turned up to collect it. He then tried to force the price down, claiming the car had all kinds of faults. Our friend’s daughter thought he was making it up so as to force her to accept a lot less. She refused, so he refused to pay what he’d bid, and off he went without the car.

She then contacted her next highest bidder with a Second Chance offer. The car was still available for inspection but the Second Chance buyer didn’t bother and instead paid the offer price by BACS.

Unfortunately, the only day he could collect the car was when our friends’ daughter was in an exam. She explained this to her buyer but he said that didn’t matter. So she left the keys and documents etc with her boyfriend, who gave them all to the buyer when he turned up, and that was that.

The buyer lived a long way away. After driving the car home he rang her to say it had various faults which would cost him money to put right, and he wanted her to pay for that. He said most of the faults were obvious when he first saw the car and would be obvious to anyone else -- but of course, she no longer had the car and she couldn’t travel all the way to the buyer’s home to argue the toss. She didn’t recognise any of the “obvious” faults he was talking about and believed she was being unfairly pressured.

Some time later, her buyer again contacted her to say he had located her original buyer who had told him that the car had so many faults that were so costly to put right, he had refused to take it. Her buyer also told her that he would use the information from that original buyer in any legal action against her.

But as noted above, her auction had been a Private Listing.

Only she and the winning bidder had access to the ID information. When she made the Second Chance offer, she certainly did not disclose the ID of the earlier Non-Paying Bidder (NPB).

She asked her buyer how it had been possible to “locate” any other bidder on her Private Listing. In response, she eventually received copies of email correspondence from him demonstrating that eBay itself had revealed the information.

The correspondence she received showed this sequence of events:

1 The Second Chance buyer of her car emailed eBay, asking to be put in touch with the Non Paying Bidder of her car. (NOTE: She didn't receive a copy of the email her buyer sent to eBay.)

2) eBay then emailed the NPB. This is a copy of that eBay email:

Re eBay contact information

Hello: The eBay member below would like to discuss your eBay transaction (xxxxx details). If you are interested, contact the member on email address (member details). I trust this information is helpful and wish you all the best for your future trading on eBay. Kind regards, Ian Harrison, eBay Customer Support.

The eBay email looked authentic and even had this footer text:

As a valued eBay customer, we want to make sure you get help when you need it, so we’ve extended our phone support hours to these times: Monday-Friday 8am to 9pm, Saturday-Sunday 11am to 5pm Our number is XXXXXXXXXX This number is only available to members who’ve been invited to participate so please don’t share or forward this number. (Note: I have deleted the number in this post.)

3) The Non Performing Buyer then emailed her Second Chance buyer to say, hi, I've just been contacted by eBay, how can I help you?

4) The Second Chance buyer wrote back to the NPB, and the NPB then replied to the effect that he hadn't bought the car because it had so many faults, and the seller was a liar. The NPB's email expressed the hope that the Second Chance Buyer would sue her. . .

Our friends’ daughter is totally confused.

She thought a Private Listing was just that – Private. She also thought that if really was the case that eBay had involved itself here, it would have emailed her.

Yet eBay never did. Instead -- seemingly -- eBay brought together two people who under the T&Cs of a Private Listing shouldn't actually have been able to know each other's IDs and email contact details at all.

She is now worried for two reasons:

(1) that the eBay email she has been copied in on is a forgery, and that the two individuals involved have somehow got together to scam her, or:

(2) that the eBay email is genuine, and that eBay will hand out details relating to someone’s trading activity to any bidder who asks -- whether or not the auction in which the bid was placed was a Private Listing -- and will disclose this information without the seller's knowledge or consent.

She has emailed eBay Customer Support but received only some pro forma babble which doesn’t relate to anything at all.

Obviously, she would like to get to the bottom of all this but I have to admit, it’s all beyond me. So. . .

Does anyone here know if this is standard eBay practice?

Or does it look like some kind of fraud?

Even more importantly: isn’t there a question of Data Protection here? And if so, is there the equivalent, say, of a Data Control / Data Protection officer at eBay?

Advice would be appreciated, especially if anyone here knows the name of the person or persons at eBay UK involved in data protection / user confidentiality who our friends' daughter could contact for an explanation.

Thanks.

viktory

Wow. No advice, just didn't want to read and run.

I assume the person selling the car did offer a receipt stating that the car was sold as seen?

There are a few threads on here relating to the fact that some will buy a car and then try to demand money off etc. As far as I can tell, they rarely win.

Will be interested to see the advice given.

botchjob

Let the buyer beware. Any replies she gives to the buyer should be worded carefully and with a court-of-law in mind. But she has the cash and it is not her look out unless they decide to pursue it.

But assuming there isn't some sort of conspiracy going on, and that the two buyers were genuine, it does sound rather as though the car was poorly described....

lisawood78

Hmm, but I don't think the cars description is the issue here, more that it SEEMS Ebay are giving out information willy nilly.

codger

Thanks Viktory. I'm assuming she receipted this as a 'sold as seen' even though it never had been seen though that would surely be a buyer's responsibility (I'm not sure why anyone would buy a car on eBay without inspecting it first or getting someone to inspect it for them.)

I'm guessing that what has happened here isn't too unusual Bay (an NPB, so a Second Chance Offer).

But it's that eBay email that has me baffled -- well, if it is an eBay email.

(Incidentally, I can't remember ever having an email from eBay which incorporated eBay's telephone number and office hours, but perhaps the Non Paying Buyer has PowerSeller status and so is provided with that information routinely.)

The problem really is what can or should be done now because if the email is genuine, then I for one don't really understand what eBay is playing at: it certainly makes a big thing of the way it protects user confidentiality, so disclosing to a third party details of a seller's trading activity, without the seller's knowledge or consent, seems worrying (to put it mildly.)

If it's not genuine, and "Ian Harrison of eBay Customer Support" didn't send it, then there surely ought to be some way to get eBay to say so. So far though, no success.

meinni

An individual does not have the obligations of a business in selling any itams. Private sales are not subject to any laws unless fraud is intended. Aprivate buyer is obliged to make sure the goods are as he expects before purchase and has no come-back in law.

wheresmydoshat

selling cars on ebay can be a nightmare.

it is full of buyers who either want an absolute bargain so are not willing to pay anywhere near what the car is worth, or the bulk are dealers who buy first, view later.

i had one guy buy a van i was selling within 2 hours of the listing going up. on inspecting his feedback he'd "purchased" loads of vans in recent weeks but never gone through with it after viewing.

its an annoying way of them beating other dealers to the best vehicles.

to my surprise he did take the van, and when i asked for feedback he replied in an abrupt manner; "yes, once i find out why it didn't start when i went back to it the next day". serves him right, the price reflected the fault the van had, he thought he'd gotten a steal.

as for the OP, sounds like both buyers were trying it on. stand your ground, you did nothing wrong. try and find out if the buyer is a dealer, as the law is different if they are with regards returns etc.

codger

Sorry: just to clarify (hopefully!) for anyone reading this thread:

As lisawood said earlier here, the issue isn't about buyer's or seller's rights and responsibilities, or legalities.

The issue is about an email which this seller has been told was sent by eBay revealing certain details of her trading activity on a Private listing.

eBay is adamant that no-one outside the buyer and the seller of an item in a Private Listing is able to see the IDs of other bidders.

Yet here, this seller is -- in effect -- learning that all that's required to blow apart the notion of a Private Listing is for any bidder in that auction to contact eBay and simply ask to be put in touch with the winner.

Not only will eBay agree to that, it will set up a process whereby one ID discovers the identity and contact details of another ID -- without even telling the seller what's going on behind his / her back.

Hence the question:

Does that sound right to you?

(And looking at the email text: does that look right?)

Given eBay's stance on confidentiality, it doesn't to me. But. . . I'm no expert.

codger

Just wondered:

has anybody here dealt with "Ian Harrison of eBay" before??????

JCS1

have you tried googling the phone number to see if that comes up with anything?

Spanish868

Ok 1stly just ignore the 1st buyer.

They were in the wrong and tried to screw-you over and broke ebay's policies,
and so once they decided to not buy the car then you ended any sort of contract that you had with them,
and so have no requirement to every speak to them again.



2nd buyer

He turned up and to pickup the car, and so saw exactly what it was that he was buying.
He also had the option of inspecting it before purchasing,
which he decided to turn down.

So once he took the car away if it breaks down nd blowsup after 100meters thats his problem not yours.



He came and saw the car and so knew EXACTLY what he was buying.
If he was unhappy with it is was his responsibility to have said then and not purchased it.



Unless hes has both a receipt which specifies on it that theres a ''X number of days no fuss-full refund policy'',
then you have no responsibility to refund him or even speak to him at all anymore. :beer: