Suing for loss of bargain?

Mistral001

I used to do a lot of buying and selling on ebay using the auction facility, but very little now. I generally only use it for Buy it Now items.

I used to assumed that normal auction rules applied. ie. if you were the highest bidder for a Rolls Royce with no reserve, then you got the item even though your bid was £10 and the Roller was worth £100,000. Of course in practice in a auction house the auctioneer would not start the bidding a such a low value but at say £30,000 and if no bidders started to bid he/she would use their discretion and either lower where he/she started the bid or withdraw the item.

Ebay being an automated system where there is no auchioneer using discretion, means that you are not really entering a "real" auction but one which has its own rules to suit cyber trading.

Unfortunately, ebay is saturated these days with many buyers and sellers who know these rules back to front and know what they can and cannot get away with.

It is little wonder that the proportion of auction items to Buy it Now items have dropped dramatically over the years and Amazon has become so popular.

QuackQuackOops

Invalidation wrote: »

You also failed to mention that your knowledge of Contract law was ZERO.
You CAN sue. Whether you win or lose is of course up to the Court.

Hmm...well if we are being pedantic then Yes, of course you CAN sue. Anyone CAN sue for anything they like.

But that doesnt exactly answer the query does it? The query could be said to have asked "Do I have a chance of winning?"

So OP, yes, you CAN fill out all the paperwork, file a claim, pay your cash, waste court time, petition the seller, waste their time, go to court, take your evidence, be heard by a judge, have your say, let the seller have their say if they bother to turn up and wait for a ruling.
The chances that a judge would agree that you have suffered a loss is likely to be near to 0 but in the unlikely event that he thinks you may have suffered a loss of even a tiny amount you then have the problem of actually getting the loss from the seller, which is another ball game altogether.

Any private seller selling their own used items is entitled to change their mind about selling it at any time.

Invalidation

QuackQuackOops wrote: »

Any private seller selling their own used items is entitled to change their mind about selling it at any time.

Yep........right up untill the second the auction ends. Then the contract is formed. Offer and acceptance, old son.

Crowqueen

soolin wrote: »

Crowqueen , we all agree that under the DSRs a buyer has a right to cancel. The only point we disagree on is whether the seller can then do an NPB if buyer doesn't pay, and as that is allowed on ebay that is all that matters.

The law states the right to cancel, it makes no mention of sellers not being allowed to block buyers from buying again, or recovering losses from a third party.

However as usual all that comes with a disclaimer that seeing something on an open forum is not the same as it being 'law', only a full judicial process can establish a precedent for that. So if a buyer I have done an NPB on decides to sue me through the courts for daring to do an NPB I will let you know what happens.

Sorry, Soo, but if a buyer has a legal right, then it has to be able to be exercised without prejudice. That includes not sanctioning their buying account: it's an offence under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Practices. So a buyer exercising their legal rights cannot then be punished, however frustrating it is for a seller. I'm not sorry about holding this opinion. It's only happened to me once - and there were additional circumstances which made it reasonably unfair to raise a strike rather than cancel - but rights are rights. You can't punish someone for having them. eBay cannot put themselves above the law in this regard and thus provides the ability for a mutual cancellation so rights can be exercised without prejudice. It's your job, arguably, as a seller, to uphold those rights.

As I keep saying, I've made mistakes a couple of times but always reversed the sale immediately. Usually when I make a mistake on an item I receive I can't be bothered to send it back and eat the cost. I'd much rather the cancellation route was within the buyer's power to initiate so this situation can be avoided as much as possible; they made an easy returns system for this purpose as well. Presumably you don't make buyers go to dispute if they want to exercise that part of their rights (mainly because it rebounds on you) - so why prejudice them even before they've paid and it's still relatively easy for you to relist the item within a couple of days? It's not about being scared of buyers, it's much more efficient for me to allow a cancellation.

I'm sure we can both hold our separate opinions without prejudice to each other - I doubt I will convince you but you don't really convince me. I DO think it was stupid of me to be passive-aggressive about it, which is my mistake. I'd delete the post, in fact, but since it feeds in to this discussion, I'll leave it in.

soolin

Crowqueen,

I have absolutely no issues with your views at all and in fact welcome the opportunity to have a sensible debate about it with an intelligent person. I believe all debate is useful as it allows all parties to explore the reasoning behind their views, and I would rather debate with you on this matter all day than deal with posters elswhere on the site that believe if they just keep saying the same thing in larger and larger sized font that they are somehow giving a reasoned view.

You and I see this from different viewpoints, yet I like to think we can both appreciate the others point of view.

QuackQuackOops

Invalidation wrote: »

Yep........right up untill the second the auction ends. Then the contract is formed. Offer and acceptance, old son.

Not the case at all, young lady.

Invalidation

QuackQuackOops wrote: »

Not the case at all, young lady.

As I said in another post, your knowledge of contract law is sadly lacking.

forgotmyname

But ebay is not a proper auction. Otherwise they would have to offer more protection.

QuackQuackOops

Invalidation wrote: »

As I said in another post, your knowledge of contract law is sadly lacking.

lol you can dress it up anyway you like.
If it makes you feel better to attempt to make me look like I dont know what Im talking about, then thats your choice.

It doesnt make you right though. :rotfl:

Invalidation

QuackQuackOops wrote: »

lol you can dress it up anyway you like.
If it makes you feel better to attempt to make me look like I dont know what Im talking about, then thats your choice.

TBH I dont have to attempt anything, youve done a fine job yourself