ebay absolutely sucks

[3macca7]

I won an item fair and square at an ebay auction which was never delivered then 6 weeks later I get the following email from the conniving Seller...

When I tried to leave feedback of course its too late. When I tried to insist on delivery I was diverted to Paypal who simply refunded my money! What a con!

If this is how ebay operates then it really sucks

[siddieswans]

Firstly you are not allowed to identify sellers by name on these boards, so don't be surprised if this thread disappears. While I am sorry this has happened to you, I don't understand why you left it so long to pursue this matter. If the item was paid for and not delivered within a certain time, you should have opened an Item Not Received Dispute. As obviously the seller could not prove delivery eBay would have found in your favour and PayPal would have refunded your money. You would then have had the opportunity to leave Feedback. You should NEVER wait too long, whatever the seller is telling you; you have 45 days to open a dispute and 60 days to leave Feedback.

As for not getting your item - that is sad, but there is no way you can FORCE a seller to send your item. Pay with Paypal and you are protected; start a dispute in a timely fashion, and when the dispute is found in your favour, leave a Negative Feedback for your Seller. This Seller has VERY limited Feedback - a negative would make them look very bad. Frankly I can't see why you can't leave Feedback as it would seem you only purchased this item on 24 Feb???

[3macca7]

siddieswans

Thanks for your comments and info contained.

The reason I did not chase up the non-delivery earlier was because I had a number of purchases around that same time including some from overseas and so it would have required closer monitoring of individual purc hases which I now know I should have done.

My point of real issue though is that I won this item in a fair auction and the seller just decided not to do business at that price. I did not want my money refunded by Paypal I wanted the item I won fair and square at auction.

This anomaly make ebay auctions different to any normal auction and this is not made clear to participants.

The web site does not permit me to enter bad feedback because the Seller has apparently been able to block this by getting ebay to allow him to cancel the sdale after the auction has been completed.

This is why I say ebay sucks! Sorry but for me on this bad experience thats what it does.

[siddieswans]

I can quite understand your annoyance here; you thought you got a bargain. But really there has to be provision for a seller to cancel a sale. Say I sold you a vase for $100. As I was packing it up, I dropped it. I am sure you would want me to cancel the sale then.

You say this is different to any normal auction but it's not really.

Say I leave an absentee bid at a Sydney auction house. When I go to pay and pick it up, they can't find it (this has happened to me.) I am very annoyed, because I want the item - but what can I do? If it can't be found, the sale must be cancelled. Or say I bid on a ring described in the catalogue as 18ct gold. When I get the ring home, I find it actually is stamped 18ct GF (gold filled.) Any auction house worthy of the name will refund my money, because the item was not as described.

I would agree with you that the reason the seller gave (not achieving the desired price) is a very bad one; but sadly there are some bad sellers on eBay (as there are some bad buyers.)

But frankly I really don't understand about your not being able to leave Feedback. As far as I am aware, the only time you can't leave Feedback is if an unpaid item dispute is opened, and the buyer does not pay or respond to the case - after 4 days the case can be closed, and then no Feedback can be left.

You say the seller cancelled the sale. In that case he must have sent you a mutual cancellation request - which I presume you must have ignored. Then he could close the case with a cancellation after 7 days. But as far as I know, this would not preclude you from being able to leave Feedback. It sounds as though you are still really annoyed about this. If leaving Feedback for the seller would help, I would suggest phoning eBay (sending them emails is pretty useless) and explaining the situation, and ask WHY you can't leave Feedback. You will need to have at hand the item number, seller's name etc. As far as my knowledge of the rules go, you paid for the item, you should be able to leave Feedback - within 60 days.

[3macca7]

siddieswans

I greatly appreciate your comments and the time and trouble you have taken to respond.

I will try and leave feedback about my experience with that seller.

My only comment is that failing to achieve a satisfactory price at auction should not be a good enough reason to cancel a sale whereas each of the instances you detailed do provide sufficient reason for cancellation.

If I do deecide to use ebay again then you can be very sure I will check that any sellers I use do have a perfect reputation before I place any bids.

Best redgards

Mike.

[kopenhagen5]

siddie, the seller didn't make contact for about 6 weeks so the time for leaving feedback has probably passed. (60 days)

[siddieswans]

Originally (when you could see the item and the seller) it was clear the item was purchased on 24 Feb. Should still have been time by my reckoning.

[artinvestaustralia]

The problem is that eBay, to make sure that everything 'goes', every item is sold (hence they get their cut every time, more or less, of course...), has refused the application of a 'reserve' price to Aussie sellers selling in the auction format. If you ask eBaywhy, they will tell you that Aussie sellers did not want that feature in their auctions (!) wnat their platform was launched...

Some sellers, rather than losing their shirts in that format (as has happened to me too many times, I delivered the item, though) prefer to forfeit the sale if it attains a miserable price, one should not blame for it, the system is 'corrupted', compliments of eBay.

There is also the fact that eBay had rather not allow 'auctions' on their platforms, it creates too many problems for them trying in the process to emulate the likes of Amazons (they will never succedd, the eBay brand is recognized at an auction site globally).

[artinvestaustralia]

There is a 'tacit' code of ethics for sellers, I would first of all withdraw the item from sale welll before the allowed twelve hours preceeding the end of the auction if I could sense that that particular auction is going to be a disaster, the problem being that with the 3 to 10 second bid eBay promotes/sell, the bids all arrive now in the last seconds of an auction, so it is becoming more and more difficult to sell in the auction format without the possibility of a 'reserve' price.

[siddieswans]

As a longtime eBay buyer, I found "reserves" incredibly annoying and tended to steer very clear of sellers who used them. With the listing fee strategy that eBay now employs there is really no advantage in starting auctions at an unrealistically low price.

I use auctions as well as BIN and always start my auctions at the lowest price I will accept. That way if they sell at one bid, I am satisfied, and if there are multiple bids, I am very happy. eBay is nothing like it was 10 years ago, when auctions used to attract savage bidding wars.  Nowadays it is mostly BIN - they outnumber auctions probably by a factor of more than 10 to 1 in almost every category. There are many reasons for this - some of them are attributable to eBay but often it is that buyers simply want an item NOW - they do not want to wait until the end of an auction. There are a large percentage of eBay buyers who will NEVER look at auctions in their search, because they are after an instant buying experience.

I'm afraid I cannot see the percentage in starting a potentially valuable item at a very low price and then hoping that it will achieve the desired result. With the very low exposure that Australian eBay sellers seem to be getting at the moment, it is just encouraging disappointment.