Seller refused to sell - are sellers allowed to specify payment deadlines ?

[oasion45]

I recently won an auction and because I was away during the weekend, I did not pay immediately after the auction ended. The price of the auction was something quite a bit lower than what the market price was.

Seller specified in his auction description something to the effect that "payment must be made within 24 hours otherwise will be refunded".

When I came back home, I saw that the seller had opened an unpaid item dispute. No problem, I paid him. The unpaid item dispute was closed in my favor. Then a few hours later, he refunds, saying "since you did not pay me within 24 hours this transaction is cancelled"

I emailed him back "if you did not want to sell the item, why did you open an unpaid item dispute ? you should have opened a request to cancel the transaction"

I now understand why he opened a unpaid item dispute instead of a request to cancel the transaction. If he had done the latter, I would have refused his request to cancel. But even though he opened an unpaid item dispute, I still paid him and he still did not get his fees back.

My question is : are sellers allowed to specify their own payment terms or deadlines which are not in accordance with eBAY guidelines (i.e. the unpaid item process) or stricter than eBAY guidelines for e.g. payment is due in 24 hours, or payment is due immediately after auction ends or payment is due in 4 hours after auction ends ?

Please give me some advice on this. thanks

[digital*ghost]

  But eBay gives 8 days before the seller can give a strike and finalise the transaction, so it really does not matter what the seller says in their terms, if they get payment within the 8 days they can get NEG for not finalising the transaction, and once payment has been made they will not get their FVFs back.  Of-course, seller can allow much longer for payment.

Of course it matters what a seller has in their terms! 😮

There was a seller discussed on the old forums who had terms to the effect that buyers who had ever left negative FB for any seller were not allowed to buy their items. Is it enforcable? No, at least, not in the sense that there is an eBay block to prevent someone from buying if they've left a neg. Is it allowed? Yes.

I didn't agree with that term then, and I don't know, but I respect their right to have it, whether there is a system on eBay to enforce them or not - you buy from a seller, not eBay, and just because eBay's systems mean some terms aren't enforcable, it doesn't mean you should ignore them. 

The fact that a buyer can dish out a neg for the seller abiding by their terms and the buyer NOT abiding by the seller's terms, doesn't mean it's ok to disregard said terms. 

[digital*ghost]

I didn't agree with that term then, and I don't now,  

*fixed

[***super_nova***]

There was a seller discussed on the old forums who had terms to the effect that buyers who had ever left negative FB for any seller were not allowed to buy their items. Is it enforcable? No, at least, not in the sense that there is an eBay block to prevent someone from buying if they've left a neg. Is it allowed? Yes.

Is it really?!!!!!   When you join eBay you agree to work within the parameters given by ebay, and I doubt that saying that people who left NEG are not allowed to bid is OK.  That is on level of giving retaliatory NEGs to  buyers, it scares people into not giving honest FB, it protects scammers = it undermines eBay's trustworthiness. 

By the way, the person above who said we can open NPB dispute after 2 days; could you please point us to where it is said?  I believe that might be the case in the US, but I do not think it is here.

[digital*ghost]

The only thing eBay dictate is that you are not allowed to have a feedback policy for yourself - eg you can't tell buyers what kind of FB you expect or to leave. 

They set a lot of parameters, but they don't tell you you can't have your own terms within those parameters, and that if you do, they're irrelevant - quite the opposite, actually. 

[jameshouseofstyle]

Hi supernova - you are right in stating that members, buyers or sellers sign up and adhere to common sense general and practical rules - as without the ground rules or codes of behaviour there would be utter chaos!

But none of us sign up to be dictated with whom we will or won't deal with.

Same as in real shops - even though you pay the rent, landlord can't stop you from showing someone the door if they are annoying you or disregarding any of the rules that you alone impose on your business.

If a seller wants to be paid within 24 hours - for whatever reason, and spells it out in the listing, and that is ignored or not seen by the buyer - not even Ebay can force that seller to go through with the sale if they don't want to. Ebay also can't appropriate their FVF - not being legislative body they can't impose monetary fines for any misdemenour, which keeping the FVF after the refund is issued would ammount to. They have no choice but to refund it.

Buyer of course can totally blame the seller "for reneging on a sale" and leave a neg - but guess what? - seller has almost 100% chance of it's removal as it was based on Not respecting seller's terms.

Similar example was in our case when we refused to deal with customers when they were rude and insulting. We told them : Our transaction with you is terminated - you'll find your refund already issued.

If Ebay then turned around and told us how we are breaking some rule of theirs by refusing to complete such transactions we would have gladly told them that if and when they decide to start selling things - they are welcome to these charmers.

[oasion45]

Thanks for all the very healthy debate on this issue.

A lot of valid points raised, and thanks.

I just wanted to say 2 points on here :

- Firstly, this is a very clear cut case "price too low, seller refused sale". This item typically sells for a range between $60 to over $100. His item ? Ended for $37, and I had nothing to do with it. I put in a max bid of more than $50. Not sure why it ended so low.

All the talk about payment not received within 24 hours, it's just an excuse. The seller had relisted the item for a buy it now of $80, AT THE SAME TIME that the UPI was filed. this clearly indicated that the seller had no intention of completing the transaction whatsoever. And, why file UPI ? Well clearly because if a request to cancel had been filed I would have the option to disagree. Had the auction really closed at $80, I would have bet my last dollar that the seller would have waited a lot longer than 24 hours if he needed, to get his payment.

- Secondly, I am frustrated with this because I very often come to this dilemma myself when listing items. Sometimes items end at prices that are low and not very desirable and I often think to myself how I wished I didn't have to sell at those prices and refuse the sale. but the thought of buyer dissatisfaction and leading to negative feedback would stop me from doing so.

How is it then fair that other sellers do this ?

Anyway, I contacted him many times and no response, he's rather arrogant too. In my last note to him, I wrote a longish note, talking about seller non-performance, the mystery of why he filed an UPI when he had clearly intended to refund. I'm HOPE eBAY will pick this all up when they review his request for a feedback removal and refund of eBAY fees ...

[punch*drunk]

You bid 4 seconds before the auction ended, why not just pay straight away?

[oasion45]

Did you think it was humanly possible for me to place a bid 4 seconds before ?

I used a sniper ....

[punch*drunk]

Did you think it was humanly possible for me to place a bid 4 seconds before ?

I used a sniper ....

I always bid in the last few seconds, so yes its possible.

But that explains why you didnt pay straight away 🙂

[k1ooo-slr-sales]

Did you think it was humanly possible for me to place a bid 4 seconds before ?

I used a sniper ....

I once had a bid displayed as having been placed at the exact second the listing ended.  I had pushed the confirm button for my bid with just 2 seconds to go.  I love bidding manually in the last couple of seconds.