Are sellers allowed to cancel an order & relist the item at a higher price?

[hear_her_breathing]

I just won an auction for a pair of shoes. I bid $50 which was the opening price; I was the only bidder. As soon as I got the "You won!" and "Order confirmed" emails, I messaged the seller to arrange pick-up (the listing allowed either post or pick-up). But then I discovered that the seller has cancelled the order, and relisted the item with an opening bid of $100. Is this allowed?

It's such a waste of my time and I feel like if the seller wasn't happy with $50, they should've opened bidding at a higher price in the first place. There are so many options (make an offer, reserve price, buy it now etc) sellers can use that this seems like bad practice and a bit unfair. I can't just change my mind after the auction as a buyer, why is the seller allowed to do that?

[davewil1964]

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@hear_her_breathing wrote:

I just won an auction for a pair of shoes. I bid $50 which was the opening price; I was the only bidder. As soon as I got the "You won!" and "Order confirmed" emails, I messaged the seller to arrange pick-up (the listing allowed either post or pick-up). But then I discovered that the seller has cancelled the order, and relisted the item with an opening bid of $100. Is this allowed?

It's such a waste of my time and I feel like if the seller wasn't happy with $50, they should've opened bidding at a higher price in the first place. There are so many options (make an offer, reserve price, buy it now etc) sellers can use that this seems like bad practice and a bit unfair. I can't just change my mind after the auction as a buyer, why is the seller allowed to do that?

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Apart from anything else, reserve prices don't apply on eBay Australia except in select categories, which shoes aren't.

Did the seller have best offer? Which would have disappeared when you bid. Maybe they were also under the impression that reserves were possible.

Buy your shoes from somebody else.

[hear_her_breathing]

They didn't have "Best Offer". The cancellation reason given was "I'm out of stock or the item is damaged" but obviously that's a lie as they've just relisted the same item. Can I put in a complaint about this?

[davewil1964]

The seller has already given themselves a policy violation using that reason.

You can report to eBay, I don't know the exact procedure, or you can look elsewhere.

Far less mentally damaging than pushing a lost cause.

[springyzone]

You're right in all you say. It is bad practice, and there are other options a seller can use when listing an item. But a reserve price is not usually one of them.

They definitely should have listed at $100 if that is their bottom pirce.

Is it allowed? Technically, no, a seller is not meant to hold back on a sale just because they failed to get the price they wanted. As you've seen though, they can cancel a sale. I guess ebay has to have a clause in the conditions to allow cancellations because sometimes things do break or somethimes a seller might notice faults after a thing has been sold. Mistakes happen in life.

So sellers are allowed to cancel an order. As dave said though, they may get a defect for doing this , depending on the reason they give. Your seller has not got off scot free.

And yes, they are allowed to relist the item. Ebay has no way of knowing if they had 2 of the items anyway. Even if there was a policy that the same item could never be relisted, a few changes to title and wording in description and who could prove it was exactly the same item?

So yes, you've wasted a little bit of time but probably not all that much. And you haven't lost any money or paid any money over where you have to wait for a refund. On balance, no real harm done except for disappointment and maybe turning you a bit off ebay. This sort of situation where people cancel sales because they didn't get a high enough price seems to happen more with very inexperienced sellers, so always keep a look out for their feedback score etc

[maddimason_77]

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@springyzone wrote:

You're right in all you say. It is bad practice, and there are other options a seller can use when listing an item. But a reserve price is not usually one of them.

They definitely should have listed at $100 if that is their bottom pirce.

Is it allowed? Technically, no, a seller is not meant to hold back on a sale just because they failed to get the price they wanted. As you've seen though, they can cancel a sale. I guess ebay has to have a clause in the conditions to allow cancellations because sometimes things do break or somethimes a seller might notice faults after a thing has been sold. Mistakes happen in life.

So sellers are allowed to cancel an order. As dave said though, they may get a defect for doing this , depending on the reason they give. Your seller has not got off scot free.

And yes, they are allowed to relist the item. Ebay has no way of knowing if they had 2 of the items anyway. Even if there was a policy that the same item could never be relisted, a few changes to title and wording in description and who could prove it was exactly the same item?

So yes, you've wasted a little bit of time but probably not all that much. And you haven't lost any money or paid any money over where you have to wait for a refund. On balance, no real harm done except for disappointment and maybe turning you a bit off ebay. This sort of situation where people cancel sales because they didn't get a high enough price seems to happen more with very inexperienced sellers, so always keep a look out for their feedback score etc

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They aren't allowed to cancel an order without giving a VALID reason. For example I just bought an item today. An hour later it was cancelled and the reason? Address issues. Which was Bs as I've bought plenty of other things on eBay and they were delivered. Then the seller relisted the item at a higher price. Why? Why didn't they just list the item at a higher price to begin with? I reported the seller to eBay.

[daydreams_12]

Did you check the date on this thread.  Please dont drag up old threads.  Start a new one if you have something new to say.

[springyzone]

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@maddimason_77 wrote:

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They aren't allowed to cancel an order without giving a VALID reason. For example I just bought an item today. An hour later it was cancelled and the reason? Address issues. Which was Bs as I've bought plenty of other things on eBay and they were delivered. Then the seller relisted the item at a higher price. Why? Why didn't they just list the item at a higher price to begin with? I reported the seller to eBay.

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Yes, they have to give a valid reason but from what I have read, they get a drop down menu of reasons and have to choose one of them. 

The one they chose, problem with the address, allows them to cancel without penalty.

You've reported the seller to ebay. Whether that will have any effect, I have no idea.

I agree that the reason was probably BS and they just weren't happy with the price.

Why didn't they list it at a higher price to begin with? How would we know! I can guarantee no one here on the forum would make that mistake but sometimes new sellers fall for the ebay line that if they list low, they will attract more interest. It often doesn't work.

Regardless of what the seller should have done or what reason they gave for cancelling the order & refunding, the fact remains that you can't force the sale.

I can see both points of view. On the one hand, it doesn't help ebay to have sellers who cancel orders for bogus reasons. On the other hand, I can understand new sellers not being prepared to undersell an item. That can happen if they believe they had a reserve in place or if they believed they would get multiple bids. Obviously, they should have done more research before listing, but it is what it is.

I suspect it is why ebay seems to be turning more and more into a site where business sellers  are favoured.

[kh-jean]

Hi everyone,

Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.

Thank you for understanding.