eBay not allowing buyers to cancel items

[kaibacorp*]

This has happened to me twice recently.

Note: What I mean buy accidentally buying an item is that a second after I press the final confirmation button I no longer want the item.

I have tried to close the page as soon as I realise that buying the item was a mistake, but strangely, the order still goes through. On other sites closing the webpage will cancel the transaction.

After accidentally ordering an item I have cancelled the item seconds later. Strangely, eBay are now giving sellers the option to reject or to allow buyers to cancel orders. Which I suspect might be breaking consumer laws.

1st time this happened to me, I cancelled the order and contacted the seller. The seller admitted that he hadn't posted the item and that he stands to lose nothing by cancelling the order. But, he still decided to post the item because it was to his financial advantage.

On this occasion I decided to let it slip.

It happened to me a second time just then. I cancelled the item seconds after I purchased it, I got eBay's message "You are at the mercy of the seller." So what does the seller do? They completely ignore the cancellation reqest and days later, posts the item.

So, I contacted eBay live help and they said "on this occasion, we will refund your money." But, they made it clear it's a once off.

And they refused to explain themselves.

I am extremely suspicious that eBay is breaking Australian consumer law and as a buyer I think it's outrageous.

I'm also pretty sure that this new rule they have is only a few months old. The previous rule they had gave the buyer 3 days to cancel an order if it was a mistake.

I don't really have any questions for the community about this, I'm just making a statement.

*If eBay ever refuse to cancel my orders for no good reason I will take it up with CBS.*

[6o7o8o]

I know it sounds bizarre but it happened and fortunately 8 out of the 9 were around $15 but the last one threw me at $1200 plus.
I've been around a long time and still have all my facilities

[digital*ghost]

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@6o7o8o wrote:

I've been around a long time and still have all my facilities

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I don't doubt it 🙂

I'm just trying to wrap my head around how it could have happened - that is, find a logical reason or cause. ebay and PayPal definitely aren't always forthcoming with those (logical reasons), and they are certainly fond of denying all knowledge / responsibility at times, but there'd have to be an identifiable reason, even if not ever made public. 

[6o7o8o]

Initially I thought I'd been hacked but when both parties confirmed my ISP I was stumped. Albeit I generally don't believe what comes out of both customer services mouth but they couldn't have colluded on this one.
I've come to realise there just isn't anything logical about these companies nor with these buys.
One was a bid (the big one at $1200 plus) and I was at home at the time and had actually unsaved the item when I saw the bid as it was way over the top for me, unbeknown to me it was from my account. And you can imagine my surprise after the item had finished that I was the successful bidder.

[6o7o8o]

And no it didn't show up in my 'bidding' column either

[*tippy*toes*]

Last year, I "bought" something. Only I didn't. It was a BIN now item on my watch list. The first I knew about it was when they opened up an UPI on me. I went and checked my purchase history, which showed the bought item. I paid for it and am now wondering what to do with 2 paediatric oxygen masks! I only put the item in my watch so I could easily find the seller.

The reason I knew I didn't buy it is because the purchase took place around 4am. That night I went to bed around midnight and didn't get up until 6.30am. Mr Tippy doesn't have access to that account, so not sure what happened.

What I do know is, somehow an item got purchased, but not by me. Thankfully mine was about $16. I haven't had it happen since.

[quesevery-0]

I am beginning to see how technical and complex some situations can be. In my case the issue was with eBay’s convoluted system and not with the seller at all. Having chatted briefly with the seller I found them to be a person of good character who had good intent towards me, something I greatly appreciate as a new eBay user who made a naive mistake (accidentally purchasing an item twice).

The seller had only just began an auction that had no watchers and no bidders, aside from the minimum one I made. When I contacted them shortly after making the bid explaining the situation they had no problem allowing me to retract my bid but also did not know how the retract bid process works. The two main parties involved had no issue with one another or the bid being cancelled. Eventually I was able to retract the bid but not without a bunch of unnecessary runaround and stress.

Importantly I made as much effort as possible to explain things to the seller who was not financially put out by my mistake and understood where I was coming from. I can see from reading this thread that sellers can undergo much undue stress due to buyers being careless or malicious. People make mistakes & though this is obviously very different from physical store purposes I think it is safe to say that a person would never accidentally buy the same item twice at a physical auction (if you are new to online auction sites it can happen quite easily).

[lyndal1838]

It is not possible to buy an item twice unless you don't watch what you are doing.

If it is a Buy It Now Item you are prompted that you have already purchased that item and do you want a second one.

If it is an auction you can only increasethe bid amount if you have already placed a bid.

If it is a different listing you should have been more vigilant with reading the description and realise you have already placed a bid on a similar item and check it before proceeding.

There is nothing complex or technical about any of that....and certainly nothing complex or difficult about retracting a bid.

[springyzone]

Everyone makes mistakes at some time or another, that's true.

But with ebay, it pays to take those few extra seconds to read right through an ad to double check things before you actually commit to buy. Helps avoid any problems then, at least on your side.

[quesevery-0]

Your comment was really jaded and I am really glad you were not the kind of person I was dealing with in the instance I mentioned. If you think for any reason you can bully customers and strong-arm them in any way then it is small surprise you have had so many bad encounters with them. Lift your game sir.

[quesevery-0]

My previous message was to lyndal1838.