E-Bay is turning into craigslist fast

mgreen

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So I let 2 auctions slide when a really nice (edited to protect seller) comes up for sale on E-Bay so I could slap down a hefty bid and become the highest bidder. The seller posts on the auction to, "quit asking him to sell it directly and stop the auction. Winner of the auction takes it" so I feel pretty confident this will go well.

With about 2 days left in the auction and the winning bid at around 450$ he shuts the sale down and sends no notices out. So I ask him fairly heated WTF in an e-mail. His response is that he got an offer from a customer in his store that he could not turn down. No opportunity on my end to counter offer or anything. There are no comments in the listing that he can close the sale at anytime because he is selling it at his store. And yep he is a retailer!

If you are on the board I am mainly angry because if I won the auction and then asked for a lower price; or backed out and said oh I really did not have the money to begin with, I would get negative feedback and could have my account canceled. I have no opportunity to provide any feedback or affect the seller at all. So much for a binding contract!!!!! It is really crap and the fact that e-bay has let it turn into a total anarchy has got me wondering if I should ever open it again.
 
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I could not agree more about your situation. I had a similar situation happen to me a few months back. There was an auction for an area 51 site 4 pcb, harddrive, marquee and guns. I was the only bidder and one it for $101 dollars. After about 9 days had passed and I still did not see my package and it was not marked shipped, i began to wonder what was going on. On the 11th day I got a refund out of the blue. Seller stated that he was sorry it sold outside of ebay before the end of the auction. Really, it took 11 days to realize that I had bid on it? That listing also did not mention anything about it being for sale outside of ebay. I also missed out on other auctions during that two weeks. At least I had the oppurtunity to leave a neutral feedback.
 
Ebay sucks period

And you are wrong about being able to leave negative feedback on a non paying buyer ebay won't let you. They protect the buyers even when they totally screw you. My last few auctions have gone horrible and I won't be selling on e-bay or if I do I won't take pay pal. I auctioned off a naomi system the buyer never paid or responded to any e-mails I waited the allocated days and e-bay refunded my money for the listing but would not do anything to that user or allow me too leave feedback because he never paid to begin with. The very next auction I sold a brand new slingbox it was only a couple of months old still under warranty and work when it left the house within a couple of minutes of the auction ending the winner e-mails me and says he accidentally bought two and doesn't want mine two please offer a second chance and if they don't buy it then he will pay, after offering the second chance and waiting the 24hrs for an answer he finally pays. I pay for upgraded shipping because I need the money, he gets the item two days latter and says it doesn't work and immediately opens and escalates to a paypal claim a not as described claim. I tell paypal it worked when it left here and it is under warranty that they will send him a new one if in fact he is telling the truth and told them he tried to get out of the sale, the immediately side with him and say he gets a 100% refund once tracking shows it is delivered back to me. Only he never ships it back to me It takes almost a month and 5 phone calls to get my money back and e-bay even auto bills me for the auction and taps my credit card on file because the funds were still on hold.
 
Some sellers are under the impression that ebay is on your side. This is patently false. Ebay has absolutely no vested interest in protecting you. They get listing fees and PayPal fess for every single transaction, since ebay owns PayPal. Giving money back to anybody is not in the cards. Allowing people to freely give negative feedback would hurt the overall image of the site, so that is not going to happen either.

No competition in the auction arena only benefits ebay.

No regulation over PayPal (since they are not a "bank") only benefits ebay.

Charging commision on the shipping fees only benefits ebay.

Absolutely none of these things benefit the seller.
 
Some sellers are under the impression that ebay is on your side. This is patently false. Ebay has absolutely no vested interest in protecting you. They get listing fees and PayPal fess for every single transaction, since ebay owns PayPal. Giving money back to anybody is not in the cards. Allowing people to freely give negative feedback would hurt the overall image of the site, so that is not going to happen either.

No competition in the auction arena only benefits ebay.

No regulation over PayPal (since they are not a "bank") only benefits ebay.

Charging commision on the shipping fees only benefits ebay.

Absolutely none of these things benefit the seller.

That is a damn fine assessment sir. And highly accurate.
 
bummer deal man........I have learned over the last 2 years if you find something on ebay you need or want you better get in touch with the cat and offer what you want to pay right out of the gate, hanging back usually ends up just the way it did for you these days....sellers want cash no hassle sales...to many flakes that dont pay......willing to paypal right then closes the deal.
 
Anybody getting "access forbidden" while trying to post?

Just tried to post a question and got this message
 
I had a bid in on it...here's his explanation from Facebook...

I know I am going to catch some hell over this one. Our late night customer who came to the shop drove in from Nashville and bought a total of 13 arcades including the Qbert. I would not have sold it if he hadn't bought so much and he paid a museum quality price for it. With out revealing the price I can tell you it was substantial and my highest sold item to date. I just couldn't let that much money go out the door with bills to pay. I am sorry for everyone's disappointment in me. Travis

Hey, we all have bills to pay. If you're going to end it early, maybe you shouldn't specify you won't end it early, or brag about the number of watchers on auctions that are going to go the distance.

UPDATE:

Day 1 The listing has 297 Views and 26 Dedicated Watchers!

To answer 2 of your emails. NO I will NOT Take offers to end the auction early. The winning bidder wins the arcade.

Good Luck and Happy Bidding!!!!!


UPDATE:

Day 2) In just 48 hours this listing has received 515 Views and is now up to 41 Dedicated Watchers!

Someone is going to win a nice collectors piece!


UPDATE:

Day 3) With only one week to go. 605 Views and 46 Dedicated Watchers!

7 days from today and someone will have this game in their collection.
 
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To some people, a possibility of a few extra bucks is more important than honesty and good business practice. This should just serve as a warning for anyone in the future to steer clear from the seller. Luckily, there are still others out there in this hobby who sell with integrity and stand by their word.
 
eBay is turning into Craigslist fast.

Yeah, no kidding: Some people seem to think those two sites are the same thing.

It's unfortuante that these bad apples have to mess it up.

eBay used to be a pretty cool place to buy and sell stuff.
 
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It looks that way because the auction was ended early. I placed a highest bid of over well over 4 figures so it should have went the distance. There was something like 16 or 17 bids on this item.

So you didn't place a bid, did you?
 
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So firstly I want to apologize to the seller for adding the link to the auction. This was not intended to slam him directly. I am glad he was honest about why he sold it out of the auction. I was tired and upset and wanted to show how nice it was.

This was the last game on my top 15 short list. I wanted this really badly and would have made a huge deal to me to get completed.

I understand the comment of trying to make an offer but this did not have a BIN or a MMAO option. For him to say don't offer me money to stop the auction and then stop it anyways is what bothers me.

So why did I post this? I want to know what people think about how this went down. Am I justified, out of control, or just whining? I personally agree with rdhanded2

So why did I wait so long to edit it? The server switch over would not let me in.
 
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So firstly I want to apologize to the seller for adding the link to the auction. This was not intended to slam him directly. I am glad he was honest about why he sold it out of the auction. I was tired and upset and wanted to show how nice it was.

This was the last game on my top 15 short list. I wanted this really badly and would have made a huge deal to me to get completed.

I understand the comment of trying to make an offer but this did not have a BIN or a MMAO option. For him to say don't offer me money to stop the auction and then stop it anyways is what bothers me.

So why did I post this? I want to know what people think about how this went down. Am I justified, out of control, or just whining? I personally agree with rdhanded2

So why did I wait so long to edit it? The server switch over would not let me in.

I'd be pissed too. Then after a while I'd get over it. You will too, of course. It was a shitty situation, but yeah, I can understand why he did what he did. As always, communication (SUCH AN EASY THING!) would have made things a whole lot better.
 
I sold a Final fight pcb on Ebay. Guy picks it up from my house, I SHOW HIM IT WORKING, stated that i would not be held responsible once it left my hands as im not present when he is plugging it in etc at home.....a month later i get a negative from the seller, saying the board was faulty etc.

No contact, no request for refund...nothing. Just leaves a negative...

I wanted to leave a negative against him, but because i'm the seller i MUST leave all my buyers a positive...Ebay=Joke.
 
Thats some serious bullshit right there. You're damn right you would have received negative feedback if you had won the auction and backed out of the deal without paying.

My father taught me at an early age that a man's word is his bond, if you go back on your word you will never be trusted and no one will do business with you.

Add another to my list.

Tom
 
Quote

I know I am going to catch some hell over this one. Our late night customer who came to the shop drove in from Nashville and bought a total of 13 arcades including the Qbert. I would not have sold it if he hadn't bought so much and he paid a museum quality price for it. With out revealing the price I can tell you it was substantial and my highest sold item to date. I just couldn't let that much money go out the door with bills to pay. I am sorry for everyone's disappointment in me. Travis


Just for the record, this is not me in any way and I dont even know this person.
Travis
 
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