sellers who withdraw listings after bids are taken

[08.lukey60]

When is eBay going to stop sellers withdrawing listings after bids have been taken. Once a bid has been taken a legal contract has been formed and should be adheared to by both parties. It seems this happens when seller gets bids lower than what they think item is worth. Sellers,  please respect you buyers, there what you survive on.

[stonieacsto39]

I think allot of people here are getting confused with the difference of what's not moral and what is law, once money has changed hands your into a contract, seller or buyer bails out no agreement. 

It stinks that's all, if a seller puts up an item and dosen't state a reserve "you loose buddy", and should be liable to sell the goods at the winning price, if the seller is prepared to take the risk, the transaction should be completed, just bad customer service. 

The laws do very from state to state, so Australians need to talk to their local Consumer Affairs Department, if it's a trader out side this country good luck. 

I was winning a bid, logged on to see if i had won, item disappeared with no explanation, it sucks, BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE...

(No reserve on item).

[davewil1964]

I'm sure we are all happy to know that -

TEN MONTHS AFTER THE LATEST PREVIOUS POST.

[*crikey*mate*]

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@08.lukey60 wrote:

When is eBay going to stop sellers withdrawing listings after bids have been taken. Once a bid has been taken a legal contract has been formed and should be adheared to by both parties. It seems this happens when seller gets bids lower than what they think item is worth. Sellers,  please respect you buyers, there what you survive on.

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Haven't read back, probabl;y been said, but

a bid is not a contract.

a bid is an offer.

an offer can be withdrawn or rejected at anytime before acceptance (although in eBay land I think that excludes the last 12 hours - but note this is policy, not law)

for online auctions, acceptance is deemed to have been communicated at the end of the auction

the mere placing of a bid (ie making an offer) does NOT form a contract for either party.

[*crikey*mate*]

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@davewil1964 wrote:

I'm sure we are all happy to know that -

TEN MONTHS AFTER THE LATEST PREVIOUS POST.

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just a shame none of it contained any facts, eh?

*sigh*

I hate it when that happens

[aggapantha]

I understand that legally and business based the seller has all the right to withdraw an item but, like many others, I get very frustrated when the reason given is clearly a lie - 'out of stock' or lost/broken' and then the item is immediately back in a new auction.  I see this a lot when items have a 1c starting bid (so there has been no profit or even postage factored in).  The sellor does this to come up high in ranking - cost - but if they want to gamble by doing this then perhaps they should take the losses with the wins.  It certainly gets buyers annoyed and hurts ebays reputation.  If a seller wants a reserve then they should set the pricw accordingly rather than make it 1c and hope it gets 5000%.  Pity we cannot have a 'name and shame site' for sellers who do this all the time - at least then buyers should not be surprised if this happens to them with those sellers. (we can put it on the sellers profile because we did not buy anything)>

[stevens7425]

I have just recently placed a bid which was then terminated .I was given an email which didnt explain why the item was withdrawn....so an explanation would be appreciated from ebay after all a buyer cannot simply withdraw a bid without an explanation.
finally , everbody is looking for a bargain..isnt that why we buy from ebay? If a seller cant put a minimum price on the item he ir she is willing to accept in the 1st place then surely they must accept whatever bids have been placed? And about previous comments made; never mind legality.....what about common decency.or is that too much to expect? Perhaps I'm naive but that's me

[*tippy*toes*]

You're not talking to eBay here, we are just other members like yourself. Sellers end items for a multitude of reasons. The seller would have had to give a reason when they ended it, which should be in the message. It's not in a sellers best interest to end items with bids because after 2 or 3 they still get charged fees on the item that they ended, even though they didn't sell it. It's possible something happened to the item, e.g broke, it's possible the seller changed their mind about selling it. A seller is legally allowed to end any item they like, they still own it until it's paid for.

For future reference, if you have an issue, start a new thread. This one is 18 months old and the way eBay is constantly changing, quite often old threads are no longer applicable.

[harley_babes_hoard]

where's me thread closed pic. hmmm

[padi*0409]

steven, you're on the Aussie boards here, welcome to Down Under.

But saying that, tippy and harley are correct the item belongs to the seller until it's paid for, so they do have every right to end a listing for whatever reason. Though I believe a listing can't be ended in the last 12 hrs unless it's sold to the highest bidder.

[lyndal1838]

It depends on who ended the listing....ebay or the seller.

If it was ended by ebay it was probably because there was something wrong with the listing or the seller....ebay will never tell you why they ended a listing but you can be pretty sure you dodged a shonky listing.