Can seller refuse to complete sale to buyer?

Tojo_Ralph

Mother and daughter act? ...... my butt cheeks ...... ...... The email content (typos, spelling, upper case) matches the listing, and all other listings the seller has now, and in the past.

To coin a phrase, "the seller is simply at it"......... Fingers crossed you get a result, and goods do arrive safely .......... Then you can leave suitable feedback.

MarkyMarkD

Alt

What you say is complete rubbish.

An auction is not an invitation to treat. Offer and acceptance occur when the auction ends at an agreed price. At that point there IS a legally binding contract.

I can't see why you believe otherwise.

And, spo7y, I'm not sure what the relevance of the daughter is meant to be as SHE listed the item incorrectly and it's HER who's the supposedly experienced power seller, not her daughter.

spor7y

She's probably using the cliche used by NPB that their son/daughter/neighbour's dog placed a bid without their consent.
Instead she's saying she listed it for her 'mum'.
I've looked at some of her past listings and she has violated the reserve listing policy on many occasions, fortunately for her the bids have met her required price.
Looks like she starts with a low price to encourage bids, but states in her listings how much she wants for the goods.

soolin

Actually was altarf says is correct, despite what ebay say on their winning emails, buying an item is not completing the contract and a claim would fail in the British Courts. This comes up over and over again on the ebay boards and the answer is always the same.

It's just like buying from a shop, they can advertise something and you can take it to a till and get it rung up, but you can't force them to sell it to you if they choose not to.

The only thing I am not sure about though is whether the paypal transaction could be treated as 'claimed' if it went into their account. Although, several online shops have charged me for items which they later said were mispriced and just refunded my money without any compensation.

What is interesting is that this also applies to all sorts of auctions. There is a house buying one on the TV in the morning where recently a guy bought a plot of land. After the sale the seller found out that planning permission could be obtained which increased the value of the land considerably. All he had to do to stop the sale was fail to complete,and the land reverted to him. In that case the buyer was out several hundreds of pounds as he had taken out a bridging loan and instructed solicitors to act on his behalf on the purchase of the land.

Soo

soolin

spor7y wrote:

She's probably using the cliche used by NPB that their son/daughter/neighbour's dog placed a bid without their consent.
Instead she's saying she listed it for her 'mum'.
I've looked at some of her past listings and she has violated the reserve listing policy on many occasion, fortunately for her the bidding have met her required price.
Looks like she starts with a low price to encourage bids, but states in her listings how much she wants for the goods.

Report her for soliciting offers outside of ebay..the 'price' in the auction could be construed as a deal price.

Soo

Altarf

MarkyMarkD wrote:

Alt

What you say is complete rubbish.

Don't hold back there, just say what you mean...

MarkyMarkD wrote:

Alt
An auction is not an invitation to treat. Offer and acceptance occur when the auction ends at an agreed price. At that point there IS a legally binding contract.

Ebay is not an auction. The format of the sale may be similar to an auction, but that doesn't make it an auction, it is a marketplace advertising goods for sale. Therefore the listings submitted by sellers are an invitation to treat.

MarkyMarkD

Alt

I apologise and don sackcloth and ashes. I'm all disillusioned with eBay now having operated under the (somewhat reasonable in my opinion) belief that their auctions were enforceable.

My opinion of eBay unfortunately goes downhill all the time.

Firstly, feedback is a waste of time as it becomes a pathetic game of tit-for-tat and nobody ever wants to neg anyone in case they get neg'd back.
Secondly, everyone seems to think it's OK to defraud eBay by inflating delivery costs and this leads to misleading price comparisons on the listings.
Thirdly, half the bids are from Nigerian fraudsters.
Finally, the auction contract is now not a contract at all.

Woe is me!

And apologies once again for being completely wrong.

spor7y

hi Marky and all

I strongly agree about Ebay's feeble feedback scheme. I'm sure everyone would agree that members who have had disciplinary action taken against them, because of their actions against a fellow ebayer, should not be able to leave feedback for that particular transaction.
That would make it a much more fairer for those who have been a 'victim' of NPB's and dodgy sellers etc.

Altarf

Marky, I couldn't agree with you more about ebay's failings. I just wish they would actually clean up their act, rather than pretend to do so when challenged on consumer programs.

With the delivery cost issue, at least they have changed things so you can now choose the fields you display when searching for items. I have added the P&P field next to the bid price, so you can see if it is a rip off seller without even clicking on their item.

soolin

spor7y wrote:

hi Marky and all

I strongly agree about Ebay's feeble feedback scheme. I'm sure everyone would agree that members who have had disciplinary action taken against them, because of their actions against a fellow ebayer, should not be able to leave feedback for that particular transaction.
That would make it a much more fairer for those who have been a 'victim' of NPB's and dodgy sellers etc.

The only problem with that idea is that it would put sellers in total control and leave the buyers no protection at all.

The only form of 'disciplinary action' available on ebay is to file a NON paying bidder alert which puts a warning on the buyers account. A non performing seller complaint is not the same and doesn't do anything formal to the seller at all. That means that sellers can file a NPB against buyers they don't like just to stop that buyer leaving negative feedback.

The scammers would love that, every one of the people selling links or non existent phones could remove paypal from their listings and accept cheques only. Then the buyer would not be able to prove payment online and the seller would just need to start the NPB process and carry on trading without any negative feedback.

Soo