Of course eBay state that a bid or purchase is binding. Thatโs the policy.
That doesnโt mean that eBay donโt provide the means to deal with a failure of one or both of parties to follow through. They are pragmatic; things can and do go off-course. Hence sellers have the ability to cancel a sale (3 proffered reasons for so doing being available to them), and buyers have the ability to not pay.
In some instances eBay concede the necessity or validity of transaction cancellation; in other instances they consider it a result of bad seller or bad buyer behaviour which may even earn the buyer/seller a rough beating or sanction of some sort.
Example of necessary or valid cancellation: item is damaged during packing, buyer is recognised as banned eBay member trying to circumvent the ban, buyer turns out to be scammer trying to get item sent to Nigeria etc, seller has changed item description in some way post-bid, seller is found by eBay to be hijacked account (so eBay will cancel transaction)โฆ just for starters.
Other instances are excusable and understandable, such as (genuine) death of buyer or seller, technical glitch resulted in an action going through twice, buyer is robbed or scammed out of their entire savingsโฆ
Some are the result of bad decisions by buyer or seller โ seller refuses to sell if auction doesnโt reach price they want, buyer changes their mind after buying, etc. In these cases it is annoying for the other party, but especially for sellers, itโs best to be practical and cancel with the reason โBuyer didnโt payโ.
The buyer canโt force the seller to sell in those cases, either. They can complain, possibly give feedback, contact eBay Live Chat to describe the sellerโs terrible behaviour, but againโฆ itโs best to be practical because stamping oneโs feet only results in broken floorboards and sore feet.
Iโm not endorsing the above behaviours. For that matter, both buyers and sellers may be subjected to a range of actions including account restriction, loss of MBG coverage, temporary suspension or - at worst - permanent account suspension/ban.
