Seller refusing to sell me item I won

wrenasaunts

I won a kingsize bed on eBay, and emailed asking the seller for her address and a suitable time to collect. I emailed her in the morning after the auction had ended them went out and ordered a kingsize mattress costing me £280 + £50 delivery. She emailed back in the evening saying she had now decided she was going to sell the bed to her neighbour and could we forget about me winning it. I emailed back telling her No I couldn't .. it was a legally binding contract and posting her the rules about selling on ebay. She has not replied. I requested her details so I could phone and the mobile phone she has listed is not working or is false. She is supposed to be in Manchester but her location says Leeds. I've contacted ebay about this but they don't seem interested in the slightest. The mattress arrived this morning. I only have a double bed at the moment and so it is no use to me and will need to go into storage. I would like to start court procedings against the seller but ebay wont give me her full address. How do I go about getting her details? and what is the likelyhood of me winning the case, my costs which will include storage of the mattress? And is there any action I can take against ebay. They dont seem interested in doing anything to the seller or care that her details are incorrect.
Any help please would be greatly appreciated.
Thank You

Colin2511

although ebay spout about legally binding contract, if the seller changes their mind there is nothing legally you can do

you can report the seller to ebay for :
1. False contact details - was the address not on the end of auction email? -
have you pulled their contact details? type in seller id and the auction no and this will get you their registered info

http://search.ebay.co.uk/_W0QQtZvbQQsofindtypeZ9

2. open a seller non performance report
3. Then neg them for not selling item after auction ended

Do not agree to mutual non sale, this way the seller will be stuck with the final fees on the item

This I am afraid is the best you will be able to do,

goshdarnit

What Colin said.

Why does everyone want to sue everyone else nowadays. It just seems like a quick reaction when you gets things wrong - I'm going to sue someone else for this.

Basically you shouldn't have bought a mattress when you didn't have the bed. You would get laughed out of court on this one, more so if you mentioned storage costs.

barvid

Technically, you're right - it IS a contract, and you should be able to insist on the seller fulfilling her obligations. In theory, it's all very well. In practice, it's difficult if not impossible. If she's made the decision to sell to her neighbour, how can you actually stop her? To be honest, even if you went to court over it the best you'd probably get is a refund - if it were a unique item then the court might arrange for it to go to you, but a bed is a bed - they'd probably just get the seller to give you the money to go and buy one, which you can get a lot more easily by accepting a refund from her. I'd take the money back, neg her, and move on.

Mark7799

As a matter of interest, have you actually paid for the bed?

hesjane

This happened to me. I paid for goods via paypal and a few days later the seller decided not to sell as they had had problems with bidders placing bid (apparently!). I offered them the opportunity to provide me with evidence from ebay that this had happened, but the declined - I contacted ebay who said they were not aware of problems with this particular listing. The seller refunded my money and filed a non paying bidder claim in order to get their listing costs refunded. Talk about annoying.

I took them to small claims court...and they won. An ebay contract is worth the paper it's written on, ie., nothing.

Just put it down to experience and walk away.

frivolous_fay

hesjane wrote: »

I took them to small claims court...and they won.

Loss of bargain?

goshdarnit

barvid wrote: »

Technically, you're right - it IS a contract

I would disagree that a contract has been formed.

Say you took me to court for not selling an item to you, what point of law/case law would you be basing this on?

hesjane wrote: »

I took them to small claims court...and they won.

Please give more details when you have the time. For example:- what you tried to claim for, how much did the case cost you, whether you had to travel to the persons local court, what was said in court etc etc.

Thanks.

Avoriaz

If you haven’t yet paid, give her a negative, buy another bed and move on.

If you have paid, file a non paying bidder dispute, get your money back, buy another bed and move on.

Whatever you do don’t even think about taking her to court. You have no real case and even if you did it simply is not worth the hassle, time, effort and cost.