Seller has asked me to cancel...

[talia11]

Hello, I made a purchase using PayPal, seller has today messaged me asking that I cancel order as the item is not available. I am not inclined to cancel, shouldn’t they do that and refund me?

[lyndal1838]

The seller is being canny....if they cancel an order because the item is not available they get a defect.

If the buyer asks for a cancellation they do not get a defect.

However, the buyer cannot cancel the order themselves.

I would just wait it out and if the seller does not cancel you can open a dispute for item not received and get the refund that way.

[talia11]

Thank you. I thought as much

[michellebartley]

Well why advertise an item for sale when its not available to buy. Stuff like that annoys me. Its dishonest.

[phorum_junkie*]

How is simple human error an indication of dishonesty? As a seller I have say 25 of an item, the last one is sold and when I go to get it off the shelf to pack it is broken, possibly just by being bottom of the pile. Annoying for both the seller and the buyer but hardly the mark of a dishonest seller.

Now we all know thar there are dishonest buyers prepared to ignore the law of the land just to get what the want, perhaps they are more deserving of the term.

[brerrabbit585]

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@michellebartley wrote:
Well why advertise an item for sale when its not available to buy. Stuff like that annoys me. Its dishonest.

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Many times lately ebay relists items that have already sold.  It's the poor mug of a seller that cops the defect in this case and yet ebay are the ones who've caused it.  It's impossible to keep track of which listings ebay has done this to, unless a seller has nothing else to do but take a weekly stocktake.

[countessalmirena]

@talia11,

Unless this is a seller whose feedback indicates that being out of stock is a perennial problem, I think I'd give this seller some slack. As brerrabbit says, eBay has been relisting sellers' items without their permission or knowledge lately. (You can see various threads addressing this on the Seller board.)  If your seller is one of those affected, it would be unfair to see the seller penalised for eBay's error.

It's up to you. If you're happy to wait it out, then you're not inconvenienced by not having the refund actioned until you make a claim viz-à-viz item not arrived.

If you prefer to have the refund actioned quickly, you could message the seller saying that you will agree to a cancellation request on the basis of buyer requests cancellation.

[enigmabear]

Annoys me when people automatically assume a seller is lying,full stop,no question,no other possiblity at all

One only needs to read how many threads are on here to see how many times and how many sellers have had eBay re-list already sold items without their knowledge 

To the OP, yes it is possible the seller is trying to avoid getting a ding because they listed something they did'nt have,quite possible indeed

It is also possible that they are just another of the many people who ebay re-listed long sold items for and the seller was not aware

Either way, of course they should be giving you a refund

[tazzieterror]

Sometimes an item is advertised across multiple sites (eBay, Gumtree etc) and sold through both within a short space of time.

I've sometimes had items listed on both, and if someone responded on Gumtree and wanted a look, I'd try to make sure I bumped to price of the eBay listing up temporarily until the Gumtree buyer had viewed and decided one way or another. But a few times I didn't always get a chance to do this.

[talia11]

It’s not simple human error. They said they didn’t have any in stock and refunded me. A week later I purchased the same item on another listing, not realising from same seller and again they refunded. If it’s not in stock, pull the listing