@belbel01berylwrote:
I bought something on ebay for an advertised price with free postage. Only to get a reply from the seller stating that he had a bug and now i have to pay for postage. It has been over a month and i still do not have the product.I will not pay the extra for postage as it clearly stated free postage. i will not be held to ransom or blackmailed.
So, the seller just did nothing when you advised that you wouldn't be paying the additional cost? i.e. No refund, no cancellation, just retained the funds?
Weird, as they would have known that strategy wouldn't work in the long run when someone is clearly not going to accept a change in terms. It also seems a pretty odd selling strategy to intentionally leave off postage costs and ask for more after the fact... I mean, maybe a seller might try it once or twice, but it would become very clear rather quickly it's not a wise strategy to repeat long-term. Maybe your seller had malicious intent, but logic dictates it's not a given (I mean from the outset, not with regards to retaining the payment) - especially as you subsequently wondered how many other buyers had been "duped", because if they'd pulled this a lot, feedback usually tells the story (or stories). I did have one seller tell me that paying extra for insurance was required (it didn't say so on the listing I bought from, but it did say it on all the others I looked at, so I figured it was left off in error. Unfortunately, the extra they wanted meant the price was no longer feasible, so I told them I wouldn't pay it so to please cancel and refund. I had to contact them a couple of days later because they still hadn't done it, but I wouldn't have waited any longer than that.
For what it's worth, though, it's not like errors can't occur - they in fact happen all the time. Sometimes it's human error, sometimes it's software error (eg no idea whether your seller is a casual seller and made a bad choice or a mistake, or a business seller with thousands of sales, but there's a lot of software out there that syncs with eBay and automatically update listings - it's not unheard of for those updates to make erroneous changes. A while back, I spotted a seller with a whole heap of DVDs I was interested in listed at $1 free post. First thought was "awesome" and I made a couple of purchases, second thought was "hold up, that doesn't seem right...", so I contacted them and asked if the prices were genuine. They explained it was a syncing error, cancelled and refunded - no harm, no foul. Got a glowing positive from me, for the great communication and swift action, but they got a bunch of negs from others. ๐ )
Sellers obviously don't have the right to retain funds, that's particularly bad if it's been over a month, but they do have a right to withdraw an item from sale if it has been incorrectly advertised (in other words, you don't have the right to demand it for the advertised price - these are consumer laws, not my opinion).
