An ebay seller

Fruitcake

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A friend of mine in the USA asked me to get him a Battle of Britain 70th Anniversary ₤5 coin depicting a Spitfire on the front.

As I am going to the USA next week I thought it would be nice to buy one and take it with me as a present for him. There were several options available, but a lot of them would only guarantee delivery within 28 days, not necessarily in time for my visit.

So last week in order to speed things up, I had a trawl through ebay and found several for sale including one with a reasonabl "buy it now price." I did just that...or at least I thought I had. A week later and nothing has arrived so I contacted the seller only to be told that he had had a run on them and was waiting for new stock to arrive. He would send one out when they arrived, in about a month's time, or he would refund my payment.

WHAT? I thought buy it now meant just that, not order it now and I'll send it to you when I eventually get them delivered to me but in the mean time I have deducted the money from you Paypal account.

Anyway, I have cancelled the order and placed another one elsewhere at a better price. No guarantee I will get it before I leave the country unfortunately but I can always post it at a later date if it doesn't.

Meanwhile I shall be leaving suitable unpraiseworthy feed back for the original ebay seller.

MothballsWallet

Be careful - from what I understand, eBay doesn't like negative feedback any more (or at least that's how I read what's happened).

System

As the item was on a buy it now open a case against the seller for failing to deliver-it wont get your goods but it will make ebay aware that he/she is selling goods they dont have.

MothballsWallet

CHRISSYG - Hopefully eBay'll listen, but do they really care what happens to their users any more?

cyberbob

MothballsWallet wrote: »

Be careful - from what I understand, eBay doesn't like negative feedback any more (or at least that's how I read what's happened).

Of course a buyer can leave negative FB for a seller. Although bad Detailed Seller ratings will effect an ebay career more

The OP should have opened an item not received case. I'm confused as the OP states they have cancelled the sale? How did you do this as it's not really possible to do this? Or did the seller send you a confirmation for a mutual cancellation? This lets the seller off the hook and refunds them their FVFs.

If you didn't do this officially you have still purchased the item and the seller could open a non paying bidder for payment on you and still send the item

Fruitcake

cyberbob wrote: »

Of course a buyer can leave negative FB for a seller. Although bad Detailed Seller ratings will effect an ebay career more

The OP should have opened an item not received case. I'm confused as the OP states they have cancelled the sale? How did you do this as it's not really possible to do this? Or did the seller send you a confirmation for a mutual cancellation? This lets the seller off the hook and refunds them their FVFs.

If you didn't do this officially you have still purchased the item and the seller could open a non paying bidder for payment on you and still send the item

I contacted the seller who offered to cancel the order and refund payment to my paypal account. This is what I subsequently asked him to do and the payment was duly refunded.

I am just annoyed that the seller didn't actually have enough coins in stock when I "bought" one. Had there been any indication of this I would not have dealt with him in the first place.

Widelats

Fruitcake wrote: »

I contacted the seller who offered to cancel the order and refund payment to my paypal account. This is what I subsequently asked him to do and the payment was duly refunded.

I am just annoyed that the seller didn't actually have enough coins in stock when I "bought" one. Had there been any indication of this I would not have dealt with him in the first place.

Items usually have a "amount left" number in the description field, if he said he already had them then he is hoping you will wait for the delivery instead.

Sellers will try anything to make you buy from them instead of the competition.

wary

Not sure whether "Buy It Now" necessarily means "Send It Immediately". There's usually a "Delivery" section detailing how long it will take them to send it, and it is more a case of whether they are in breach of that.

I've found that complaining to eBay is a waste of time. I once had an issue whereby the seller refused to send the item as it had sold too cheaply. Although the eBay blurb says they take a hard line on this kind of behaviour, they didn't want to know, saying they can't force him to complete the transaction. True, but as I pointed out, there are various sanctions they could threaten to apply such as suspending his account unless he honours the transaction. "Oh what a good idea. I'll suggest that as being something that we could consider in the future." As if they hadn't already thought of that themselves; basically they don't consider it to be within their financial interests to suspend a power seller. I just wish they could be more honest up front rather than coming up with these powerful words then refusing to act.