Withdrawing from an Ebay auction (1 Viewer)

[Rob Gillespie]

I've been an Ebayer for a couple of years now. I have 171 positive comments on my account - and 1 negative (from a total moron).

Today, I've done something I've never done before - I've withdrawn from an auction I won.

This was a UK auction for an Asus motherboard. The reasons for my withdrawal are:

1. The auction stated the location to be London, UK - but the user's contact details are actually in Maryland USA.

2. Seller wants payment via E-gold.com. This is not a site I've even heard of before. They trade in gold only. I just don't want to get involved. E-gold.com was not mentioned on the auction.

3. Seller has not responded to my queries on the motherboard.

4. Seller has not responded to my queries about points 1, 2 and 3.

I've emailed Ebay about this but have yet to receive a response. Something about this auction just stinks. The seller doesn't even sign emails with their real name. I smell a rat!

The seller has a current rating of 1. No doubt he'll give me a negative remark, but he'll get one back which will do him a lot more harm than it will me.

Just wanted to vent.

 

[Michael*K]

Very strange terms. I usually try to avoid auctions by any seller with a feedback rating of less than 25. On another eBay rant...Twice I've reported a seller (the same seller) for flagrant shill bidding and both times the seller was suspended. Now I see his account has been reinstated and he's back in "business." How many times does a seller have to be busted before he's kicked off for good?!? And the thing that really pisses me off is that this guy is building up a feedback profile based on positive feedback from the bogus accounts he's created!

 

[Carl Miller]

My all time favorite encounter with a shady seller came from a poster seller who said she accepted credit cards. When I told her I wanted to pay by credit card, she sent me a nice little e-mail telling me to add 10% to the final bid price for CC purchase. It wasn't stated in the auction, and she told me it was a friends processing account and that the 10% was to recover her friends fee.

I backed out, she apologized, we agreed to forget the whole matter and that was that...Until 89 days later when she suddenly left a negative feedback on my account. When I went to toss a neg her way, I found out that I couldn't as the item page was no longer on Ebays system. She knew exactly how long to wait to catch me by surprise so I couldn't give her a negative feedback in response.

Just on the principle of it, I ended up sending at least 15 e-mails back and forth to Ebay to get that negative removed, but they wouldn't budge.

 

[Scott Strang]

I did have one negative problem. I did a buy it now for a Poltergeist II LD. The user refused to send me any contact and final payment info.

I did leave negative feedback and really wish I could've done more.

 

[Ryan Wright]

Just on the principle of it, I ended up sending at least 15 e-mails back and forth to Ebay to get that negative removed, but they wouldn't budge.

This is so much horse-shit. I've done a bit of trading on eBay - 25 positives to my name, no negatives (yet - I'm sure it's only a matter of time. You can't please everybody.) But flat-out refusing to remove negatives in all situations is just wrong. If another user is blatently trying to cause you harm by leaving negative feedback, it should be removed and that user suspended.

There are other things that piss me off about eBay.

1. It's too easy to get an account. Sure, they suspend people every once in awhile, but there's nothing stopping them from just creating another account. eBay should require a faxed copy of a driver's license or other form of identification in order to bid on or sell items.

2. You don't get your listing fees back for dead-beat bidders. Sure, they refund the final value fee, but not your listing fees. Why should I have to pay another ~$2 to re-list the item? eBay does absolutely nothing to track these people down.

I do not allow people with zero feedback to bid on my auctions unless they email me privately first. This is stated boldly in all of my auctions. Yet, I still find myself having to cancel bids from new users who refuse to read the terms of the auction on a regular basis. This screws with other bidders in a big way - they think they've been outbid, perhaps bid on another item, then all of a sudden they're the winning bidder again. It sucks.

Also, I don't believe people should be able to cancel their bids. I experienced the following situation a couple of months ago: I had an item for sale, and the high bidder (bidder A) was at $350 with a max bid price of $480. Someone else came along and bid $500. This pushed bidder A's bid up to $480, at which point he was then outbid by bidder B. A few minutes before the close of the auction, bidder B canceled his bid because he hadn't read the full terms of the auction the first time around, and decided he didn't like them. Bidder A was now the high bidder at $480 and the auction closed.

Bidder A refused to pay. He tried to talk me into selling the item for $350 (an item that I subsequently resold for $450), since "the other bidder screwed with my price." He hinted that I was behind all of this, driving bids up on my own item. I explained that he was perfectly willing to pay $480 for the item when he placed his bid, and even if bidder B hadn't ever bid, somebody else would have and his bid still would have been driven up ($350 for this item was well below what other items were selling for - no way would it have closed at that price). In the end, he didn't pay, and I had to go through the whole deadbeat bidder process with eBay, all because some third party changed his mind. Sorry, but my opinion is, once you bid, that's it. There should be no backing out.

 

[Brian Perry]

I had over 200 positives and then somebody accidentally left me a neutral. They even apologized in the feedback response. However, even though both of us notified eBay of the mistake, eBay wouldn't remove the neutral. Since it wasn't a negative, I decided to drop the issue, but it still ruined my perfect record.

 

[Rob Gillespie]

Hello Rob
Thank you for taking the time to contact us with this information. I
have reviewed the information that you have provided and wanted to let
you know that I have suspended the member that you alerted us to. I want to assure you that you no longer need to finish this transaction due to
the circumstances.
I would like to thank you for your help in keeping eBay a fun and safe
place to trade.
Regards,
eBay SafeHarbor
Investigations Team

Wohahaha!

 

[Ryan Wright]

Sweet!

 

[Thik Nongyow]

I am fortunate that all my dead-beat bidders did not give me negative feedback after I gave them such feedback. I would be very upset if this happen, as I have perfect (46)feedback.

 

[Rob Gillespie]

Anyone who uses Ebay on a regular basis - and has at least some common sense - wont take any notice of a couple of negs on an account that has 40 or 50+ positive comments.

 

[Philip_G]

depends Rob, I've seen users that have 1500 or more (+) feedback, then in the last month something goes horribly wrong and they get like 50 negatives and then the account is disabled for some reason or another. So if someone has 50 (+) and their last 3 are (-) in a row, i'd stay away

 

[Henry Carmona]

Your correct Rob, i wouldnt discredit a seller if he had one bad comment out of say 25 or more.
However
If things had not turned out in your favor, i would say you should have recognized those things about the seller BEFORE bidding

 

[Chris Bardon]

On a semi-related note, am I the only one who hates feedbacks like "A+++++++++++++++++++"? Just a little silly, don't you think?

 

[Kevin T]

I usually try to avoid auctions by any seller with a feedback rating of less than 25.

that's what i thought til i got ripped off by a seller who had a 36 or so feedback rating. she lived in nanaimo, bc but i never could get in touch with her and her cell phone got disconnected. i eventually got my money back through a charge back. now, i absolutely refuse to do business with any seller (and most buyers as well) outside the us. too much hassle if something goes wrong.

kevin t

 

[Rob Gillespie]

Non-UK people are a no-go for me too. I've sent a few things to mainland Europe, but I always stipulate that they contact me before bidding to discuss shipping rates. Many of them have been ex-pats who still hold UK bank accounts, which obviously makes payment a lot easier.
Back to the feedback thing; Maybe I've just been lucky, but some of the best buyers I've dealt with have had extremely low credit ratings.

If things had not turned out in your favor, i would say you should have recognized those things about the seller BEFORE bidding

I wish that were any easy process!

 

[Dave E H]

I just had a woman back out on me for an auction (my second sale on eBay.) Pretty PO'd about it - she just bid on two items, won both and decided mine was the one she didn't want. Oh yes, she's geting some negative feedback.

 

[Derek Miner]

am I the only one who hates feedbacks like "A+++++++++++++++++++"?

Let's hear you try to come up with new ways to say something positive about a transaction, then!

 

[Philip_G]

what's wrong with "good (seller/buyer) thanks!"?

 

[John Miles]

I do not allow people with zero feedback to bid on my auctions unless they email me privately first.

That's lame as heck, IMHO. Or did you start out your eBay career with 50 feedback points?

 

[Philip_G]

That's lame as heck, IMHO. Or did you start out your eBay career with 50 feedback points?

anymore, I agree. Now it's a SERIOUS pain to register on ebay, when I first started you didn't even need a credit card to bid.
now, if I was selling a car or motorcycle I wouldn't accept bids with 0 feedback.