I don't get it??

[maxmaxc]

I recently sold an item. The buyer then said, the he made a mistake and did not want to pursue the item. I said fine however , why is it up to me to cancel the transaction? Because when I did, the seller (who changed his mind) had to agree to cancel the transaction. How does that work? It should be the other way around, should it not?

[bettyboopsadaisy]

Yeah, I agree with your POW, especially when you get a message from ebay after the buyer has agreed to the cancellation saying: 'Good news !! The buyer has agreed to a cancellation of this transaction", as if it was us the sellers who'd wanted it in the first place !!??!!

I do, however, understand the explanation other ebayers on this thread have given.

Maybe ebay should re-word their message to take into account the fact that the sellers in this situation are not the ones wanting the cancellation but only signalling their willingness to cancel by requesting it !!

[lane-ends]

If there was a request cancel transaction option from buyer, without having to ask seller directly, you would see an enormous increase in requests to cancel. Not good for sellers nor Ebay. Having to ask seller to initiate will make many think twice about it first.

In 11 years i have never had a buyer decline after requesting. I have had many not respond and so had to wait it out. Being all BINs loss of listing fee is insignificant so overall inconvenience to me to cancel is minimal. Auctions would be a different story due to loss of listing fee and potential underbidder.

[thecatspjs]

I am not so sure that if buyer intitiated cancellation requests was implemented that there would be an increase of requests if it was premised on being transparent, to encourage responsible buying.

If the number of cancellation requests were limited (like feedback revision requests are) and the tally of cancellation requests showed (like bid retractions do) I imagine you may see a decline overtime.

[digital*ghost]

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@lane-ends wrote:

If there was a request cancel transaction option from buyer, without having to ask seller directly, you would see an enormous increase in requests to cancel. Not good for sellers nor Ebay. Having to ask seller to initiate will make many think twice about it first.

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The function is available on another site, but it remains that only a seller can actually cancel a transaction, and having been selling there for around 4 months (not long at all I know), but with reading the forums on a daily basis to get an idea of the general climate / ethos of the site, the instances where a cancellation request causes complaint is very low. Granted, there are no auctions there, so no impulse bidding to an unaffordable point etc, and probably less chance a buyer will continue to 'shop' until they find something cheaper, but I still think - like bid retractions - that here it has the potential to solve more problems than it causes; there's already a couple of ways discussed how it could help sellers, but maybe there'd be less 8+day UPI cases because a buyer would feel more comfortable clicking a button to request a cancellation than sending a message to say 'I can't pay'.