Possible price hiking? 16 August 2021 at 10:22AM in Ebay, auctions, car boot sales, post & parcels 16 replies 581 views

Maskface

This is an odd one. In July I bought a crystal from a seller in China. I'm a collector and It was a one off unique and rare piece. Asking price £48 and I struck a deal for £23. After several weeks I contacted seller because it hadn't arrived. They told me the item was lost and cancelled the order then refunded me. Their tracking said it arrived in the UK but Royal Mail confirmed it had never actually left China. Now it gets weird.

Last week I had an email asking for feedback on it. I gave neutral saying that it never arrived. The following day on my feed I find the EXACT piece being sold by another seller in China at £60. Not only the identical piece but also using the exact photos the previous seller used to sell it to me a month ago.

What the heck is going on here? Why would they sell an item then pretend it was lost and relist it a month later at nearly treble the price? Like I said, I'm a collector. I'm obviously going to notice this is the exact piece I bought a month ago.

MattMattMattUK

Maskface said:

This is an odd one. In July I bought a crystal from a seller in China. I'm a collector and It was a one off unique and rare piece. Asking price £48 and I struck a deal for £23. After several weeks I contacted seller because it hadn't arrived. They told me the item was lost and cancelled the order then refunded me. Their tracking said it arrived in the UK but Royal Mail confirmed it had never actually left China. Now it gets weird.

Last week I had an email asking for feedback on it. I gave neutral saying that it never arrived. The following day on my feed I find the EXACT piece being sold by another seller in China at £60. Not only the identical piece but also using the exact photos the previous seller used to sell it to me a month ago.

What the heck is going on here? Why would they sell an item then pretend it was lost and relist it a month later at nearly treble the price? Like I said, I'm a collector. I'm obviously going to notice this is the exact piece I bought a month ago.

You said "Why would they sell an item then pretend it was lost and relist it a month later at nearly treble the price?", well it got lost, it ended up being returned to them, they now realise that they can sell it for three times the price. Why would you be surprised that a Chinese eBay seller was trying to maximise their revenue. If they think that they can find someone to buy magic rocks at £60 rather than at £23 then they are not going to sell it at £23. If you look at other magic rocks on eBay they seem to be around or above the £60 mark.

Maskface

I don't believe it was lost. If it was returned to them then why is a completely different seller in another province now listing it? More to the point why are two different sellers using the same photos? As soon as I sent them the screenshots and asked why a completely different seller was now selling the same item they immediately deleted the listing. Why would they do that unless they realised they had been caught out?

TripleH

You're probably right in your guess.

As they delete the listing (and probably run multiple shops / accounts) what realistically can you do and what do you want to achieve?

You can either not buy the item / buy the item / play hunt the account to harass them (but thus could cause you problems).

How could you prove it is the same item though? Without having possession of both rocks side by side can you?

The buyer could quite easily say no, 2 different rocks but reused the pictures (risking a snad complaint).

It sounds a lot of work with no satisfying conclusion for you.

Maskface

TripleH said:

You're probably right in your guess.

As they delete the listing (and probably run multiple shops / accounts) what realistically can you do and what do you want to achieve?

You can either not buy the item / buy the item / play hunt the account to harass them (but thus could cause you problems).

How could you prove it is the same item though? Without having possession of both rocks side by side can you?

The buyer could quite easily say no, 2 different rocks but reused the pictures (risking a snad complaint).

It sounds a lot of work with no satisfying conclusion for you.

I tend to think you are right but surely these sort of tactics go against eBay's policies? Perhaps this is a regular practice all sellers get up to and I've just not noticed it before.

forgotmyname

They saw these selling and had a cheap source but when you bought that source had no stock so cancelled the

order and now they have stock but at the standard retail price?

Is £60 a fairly standard rate?

Photo could be a catalogue one and the one you get maybe different.

Maskface

forgotmyname said:

They saw these selling and had a cheap source but when you bought that source had no stock so cancelled the

order and now they have stock but at the standard retail price?

Is £60 a fairly standard rate?

Photo could be a catalogue one and the one you get maybe different.

Definitely not worth £60 but it is an unusual piece. I've bought similar from the same seller and they are all as the picture shows. These tend to be one off pieces.

soolin

I have dealt in rocks and crystals previously and there are 2 explanations either seller decided poor feedback was worth it to achieve a better price or they are all using stock photos and the one you see is just the generic photo again and the first really just wasn't sent as they couldn't match something close enough to fool you. . It is not unknown for them to list a lovely specimen - sell it across multiple Ids and then substitute something inferior for it . If you look through the crystal listings there are others using exactly the same photos but with slight variations in the title and many of them have poor feedback for item not looking like the photo, when it arrives. 

Maskface

soolin said:

I have dealt in rocks and crystals previously and there are 2 explanations either seller decided poor feedback was worth it to achieve a better price or they are all using stock photos and the one you see is just the generic photo again and the first really just wasn't sent as they couldn't match something close enough to fool you. . It is not unknown for them to list a lovely specimen - sell it across multiple Ids and then substitute something inferior for it . If you look through the crystal listings there are others using exactly the same photos but with slight variations in the title and many of them have poor feedback for item not looking like the photo, when it arrives. 

I think you're right Soolin. I have bought from the same seller and they have all been as shown before, but on this occasion they seem to be up to something. The sad part is I've done a lot of business with this seller and thought I'd built trust for always being a good payer. 

Maskface

Well guess what I found outside my door in a package from China today? The exact piece. Not a similar one but the exact piece in the pictures from last July. Now what do I do??

cx6

Might be nice to keep a good relationship with your seller for future business? Tell them it has arrive, say sorry and offer to pay the £23?