Confusing message from Ebay

tyllwyd

Hi! On Saturday night I bid on an auction, but stupidly didn't look at the seller's information in detail. I won the auction, but when I looked at the seller properly I was 100% convinced the account was dodgy. I emailed Ebay to ask if I could cancel the transaction because I was worried about the seller and got the following email on Monday morning:
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" Thank you for writing to us about cancelling the transaction for the networking (item ... ) you've purchased from your seller "...". I completely understand that you don't want to go ahead with your sale since your seller is suspicious, so let me look into this.
...
I have immediately investigated this case and I can assure you that I have taken the appropriate action against your seller "..." for breaching our Seller Non Performance policy by not completing the sale after you have won in an auction.
...
As we took action. Let me also clarify that we have officially cancelled this sale on the site. You are no longer required to pay for this item and you need not to worry as this won't have any negative effect on your account. If you should receive an Unpaid Item record from the seller, kindly write back to us and we'll be removing it for you.
...
I'm also pleased to let you know that I've already taken the initiative to remove the "pay now" reminder by removing the item from your 'Purchase History'. Just to let you informed, please be guided that you have the option to remove a payment notification and withdraw an item from your 'Purchase History' by moving them into the Archive section."


I'm confused because I can still see the item in my purchase history with a Pay Now button, and obviously the problem was not that the item was not received so that paragraph must be wrong. Can I assume that it has all been cancelled, or do I need to follow it up again?



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soolin

I would not assume that has been cancelled- it sounds like a general rubbish email from staff who don't have a clue.

There is no mechanism for a buyer to cancel unless seller agrees.

tyllwyd

Thank you - yes, the email does look like it's been cobbled together from a series of standard paragraphs and doesn't seem to bear much relation to the actual problem.


As an ebayer with much more experience that me, what would you do? It's only about £30, so it's not a huge amount of money but annoying to lose! Would you pay and then try to claim the money back if the item doesn't arrive?

soolin

tyllwyd wrote: »

Thank you - yes, the email does look like it's been cobbled together from a series of standard paragraphs and doesn't seem to bear much relation to the actual problem.


As an ebayer with much more experience that me, what would you do? It's only about £30, so it's not a huge amount of money but annoying to lose! Would you pay and then try to claim the money back if the item doesn't arrive?

If you think it is a blatant scammer then take the risk of asking them to cancel, and if they don't just don't bother paying . A blatant scammer will probably not risk opening an NPB on you.

If you think it is a low level scam of some sort, then you can risk the strike as one won't hurt you but be careful for the next year as 2 strikes will block you from most experienced sellers auctions.

Alidolly

You could try phoning ebay as I've always found speaking to them better than their online correspondence.

tyllwyd

Thanks! I've tried sending the seller a message asking to cancel so I'll see what happens.

tyllwyd

Well, I emailed ebay again to ask them to confirm that the transaction has been cancelled and I got a message back to say that it had, and it has now been removed from my purchase history so they can do it if they want to.

What is even more odd is that the seller, who was originally selling six copies of the same thing (and nothing else) has now listed another four copies. This is software that has been discontinued, so the chance of getting hold of four more legitimate copies is vanishingly small. And the seller still has only four feedback listed (all from different well established ebay sellers but all saying the same thing and all left within a four-minute period).

I don't understand why ebay would cancel a sale because of a potential problem with the seller, but then allow the seller to continue to list items.

tyllwyd

The end of the story ... I got another message from Ebay this weekend (about a week and a half after all this happened) to tell me that the item I had bought was no longer available and not to pay for it. And the seller has disappeared from Ebay so it looks as if they've been blocked. Just a shame Ebay didn't move a bit more quickly when I told them there was a problem.