Best offer auto rejected, then manually accepted

[interpol224]

Did 3 offers to a seller that were all auto rejected, purchased similar item from another seller only to find out later that night the original seller had gone back and accepted my highest offer manually 2 hours later. 

Now I'm stuck with paying for an item twice or having a strike.

Is there anything I can do other than hoping for the seller to respond to my messages of wanting to cancel the purchase?

[jellybirddesigns]

Does seem a bit silly of the seller to manually accept your offer and assume you will still hang around to pay for it after 3 rejections.

Don't bother haggling over it with the seller - just take the strike and chalk it up to experience.

Assuming that this is a once-off situation, you won't have any further issues.

[davewil1964]

You can wait for your offer to expire in future. The time limit is 48 hours, so 2 is well within that parameter.

Of course, you could expect sellers to be glued to their computers 24/7, even on the weekend. Or you could offer a reasonable price to start with.

[springyzone]

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@davewil1964 wrote:

You can wait for your offer to expire in future. The time limit is 48 hours, so 2 is well within that parameter.

Of course, you could expect sellers to be glued to their computers 24/7, even on the weekend. Or you could offer a reasonable price to start with.

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I think that's a bit harsh, David on several fronts. The price offered may not be what the seller was hoping for but if he later accepted it, it probably wasn't too far from the ball park. In any case it was obviously the best offer he got and we are not in a position to know if the hoped for price was ambitious or not.

I have always assumed that if an offer was rejected, it was rejected, and I think most other buyers would think the same.

Sure, if you make an offer, that offer stands for several hours (I am not sure it is 48 hours. I seem to recall a while back I made an offer and I had a choice as to how long it could stand for. From memory, the choices were 12/24/48 hours but terms may have changed since then).

But I would have thought once a seller made a decision about that offer, that decision should stand, it should done and dusted. An auto setting is only there  because the seller has set it. It seems very unfair that a buyer can have an auto rejection and then, hours later, be told that there is a change of mind and they are being held to it.

I would never expect anyone to be online 24/7 but I would think a seller who has auto rejected offers but then changes his mind about the last one could notify the buyer and ask if they are still interested as he was willing to accept the last offer of X amount. I think this seller should shoulder some of the blame for the situation as he should have set the auto rejection limit more accurately.

However, I take your point in that ebay itself is allowing a manual override.

I have to say, I have in the past done exactly what this buyer has done-looked at something, made an offer, had it rejected, immediately looked elsewhere.

I'm with jellybird on this. I would do as the buyer has and contact the seller and explain that as they rejected my 3 offers, I assumed there was no sale and sorry, but I had bought elsewhere. If the seller  insisted on a  strike for me, so be it.

But I would try one more thing. I would contact ebay live chat if I could and explain the situation as I think a strike in this situation is unfair.

[papermoon.lady]

I think that if the seller decides to accept an offer that had been auto-rejected, it's OK, but the buyer should be able to explain they are not interested any more because their offer had been auto-rejected, so they looked somewhere else. Basically it should have the value of a new offer sent by the seller rather than a commitment to buy for the buyer. If the offer had not been auto-rejected and the OP had just been impatient, it would be different, but obviously the OP could not know that their offer would later be accepted (after being rejected).

[springyzone]

Yes, that is exactly what i think too papermoon lady. You probably explained it clearer than I did.

I too think it was fine for the seller to contact the buyer to accept the offer but it should have the status of a new offer.

And I agree, if the buyer had made an offer then got impatient and bought elsewhere before getting a reply, it would be an entirely different scenario.

I have to admit, I have learnt something from this. I have always assumed if an offer was rejected, that was it, that was the decision.

[davewil1964]

I don't think it's harsh at all.

Firstly, unless things have changed radically recently, a seller doesn't even know an offer was auto-rejected.

Secondly, nor do they know who made the rejected offer.

So, thirdly, it would appear there was no auto-reject in place.

[countessalmirena]

davewil, I found the OP's post quite bewildering. He/she appears to be saying that their third (and final) offer was rejected automatically, and that later the same night, that third final offer was accepted.

If this happened, it seems to me that it must be some sort of glitch. As far as I'm aware, a rejected offer (whether it's rejected manually or automatically) is an offer no longer on the table, and it can't be dragged up again by the seller in a sort of "Oops, I really do want to accept the offer to which I said no a couple of hours ago" manoeuvre.

Does it seem more likely to you (as it does to me) that the third offer was not automatically rejected, but that there wasn't an instantaneous reply...? That the OP may have jumped the gun and assumed that the offer was not accepted?

[papermoon.lady]

I wonder if the OP got a counteroffer from the seller instead of his/her offer being accepted after being rejected? If this is the case, of course he/she does not have to accept it.

This is from an eBay help page:

• When you get an offer below your lower limit, we automatically send an email to the buyer declining the offer. The buyer can submit a higher bid or you can send a counteroffer. Buyers can make up to three offers per item in most categories.

[springyzone]

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@davewil1964 wrote:

I don't think it's harsh at all.

Firstly, unless things have changed radically recently, a seller doesn't even know an offer was auto-rejected.

Secondly, nor do they know who made the rejected offer.

So, thirdly, it would appear there was no auto-reject in place.

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We can only go on the information as given. Interpol clearly said that he had had 3 offers auto rejected.

He said the seller then over rode that a couple of hours later to accept the last offer.

That's what he said. Whether it is accurate or not we have no way of knowing at this point, but I have based my answers on the information given.

I think countess has a point and that it may have been an ebay glitch.

I don't think it matters if a seller doesn't know an offer was auto rejected. From what I have read on the boards, it is all automatic but a seller can look it up if they are interested. BUT if an offer is auto rejected, it should not still be showing to that seller as a current offer, surely.

I thought your first reply was a bit harsh in that it seemed to attack Interpol on 3 fronts-first that he should wait for an offer to expire, then that he shouldn't expect sellers to be online 2/7 and finally that his offers aren't reasonable.

In every case, (going on the initial post) Interpol was not guilty of those things. He waited till he had as he thought 3 clear rejections, he wasn't expecting the seller to be online 24/7, he just thought the matter was done and dusted and he could move on. Which is what 99.9% of buyers would think if they had their offers rejected. And finally, if a seller has an item as make an offer, a buyer is entitled to make an offer. I agree with you that it should not be an insulting offer but in this case if the seller decided to accept it, it was probably in the ball park or close.