Another flea-bay question. What to do when...
 

I was bidding on an item on ebay (veloce brakeset) that was supposed to end this afternoon. It was a 7 day auction and, as of last night, I was the only bidder (at $0.99). I got an e-mail a couple hours ago, saying I'd won an auction and had to pay and thought to myself, "hmmm, didn't think that ended until this afternoon, but ok, great, decent condition dual pivot brake set for $7 shipped, I'll take it." Then just before I went over to paypal, I got a message from the seller asking me not to pay because he'd accidentally hit the wrong button and ended the auction early.

I have no idea whether other people were watching this auction or not and whether or not it was likely to go up at the end (just wanted a cheap campy brake set and put 99 cent bids on a couple a week ago and walked away just to see if I got lucky), but it almost seems to me like someone pulling an auction because it wasn't getting the action he wanted.

What would you do in this case? Walk away saying no harm, no foul as I wasn't really invested in getting this particular item? Walk away, but leave a neutral feedback? Try to see if it's possible to talk the seller into selling me the brakes for that price?

I already wrote him back acknowledging his e-mail and asking him what he wanted me to do because I didn't like having unpaid things on my account.

I'm not trying to screw a guy over if he just made an honest mistake while trying to check the status of the auction, but, if he was trying to get out of it because he didn't like his lack of responses, that doesn't seem cool. I was bidding on a frameset last week when someone pulled the auction with less than a day left saying the item was no longer available and then reposted it as a buy it now for much higher than the bidding was going, so that way of doing things has a bad taste in my mouth at the moment.

Probably not much you can do. I think the seller did what was akin to withdrawing a bid... not enough traffic on the auction and he didn't want to let them go for $0.99. I don't know what ebay's policy would be on this, as you did get an email saying you won (from ebay I presume). Whether the seller would honor it or not is another question.

I've been selling on ebay for 10 years. There's no way to "accidently hit the wrong button". Ending an ad early requires at least 3 steps. I would pursue some action from ebay, and if the seller does not resolve the issue to your satisfaction, negative feedback is in order.

The seller is supposed to sell to the highest bidder if he/she ends the auction with-in the last 12 hours of the auction. If he, or she, refuses to sell the item, Ebay can impose a penalty but don't think that doing so will force the seller to sell you the item. He, or she, will likely just take the Ebay repromand and keep on going.

I could be wrong about this so you might want to check further.

Yup. Same thing happened to me a while back. Not much you can do. This is why there are so few real auctions on ebay anymore. Mostly all buy it now or set minimum prices close to what they want for an item. Seller just saw he was probably going to be forced in to selling his item for peanuts, so stopped the auction.

That said, you need to tell the seller to initiate a cancelation of the completed transaction if you did indeed receive a notice that you owe for it. He sends a cancel transaction request. You agree to it. Case closed.

imo it's still a "real auction" even if the starting bid is close to the market value/desired price. For vintage bike parts, it's foolish to start an auction lower than the price you would accept.. it's not like tons of people are searching for 25 year old parts. You might luck out and get a few people bidding against each other but if you get one person interested at a price you're happy with, then it doesn't really matter.

Oh, I see, so he probably tried to just cancel the auction, but, since there was only 4-5 hours left, it automatically said that I won it? Is it possible that he wouldn't have know that would happen? Just trying to figure out if it's worth giving negative feedback. I don't expect to be able to "force" him to sell it to me. I mean I would have liked to get the brakes for next to nothing, but whatever.

i think a neutral would be the worst i would give unless the seller was a jerk about it. If they canceled it because it wasn't high enough then that is lame but as you said, whatever...

Yes and yes.

Ok, if he might not have known it would happen that way, then I don't feel like I need to deal with the karma of giving someone bad feedback for a $1 win that I didn't care that much about. Tons of other brakes out there for reasonable prices.

Not an uncommon practice. Check his feedback, if he is an experienced ebayer, it likely wasn't a mistake, but him jumping because he didn't want to sell them for that low price.

Sounds like he wanted to start the auction cheap to avoid listing fees but still have the option to walk away if the bidding didn't go as high as he wanted.

Sometimes what sellers will do is claim the item broke or had been lost, presumably as a way of avoiding letting you actually have it for a bid they considered unacceptably low. Ultimately you can complain to ebay (who probably won't do a whole lot), you may be able to leave negative feedback to warn others, but it seems to me you might as well put it down to experience.

You're not giving bad feedback for a $1 you didn't care about, you're giving bad feedback to warn others that the seller is prone to pull underhand stunts if he doesn't like the way the auction is going.

Under ebay's new policy most listings are free, so there is really no point of the .99 auction anymore.

As a seller, I've hit the wrong button on my iPad and sent out a misleading message to a buyer before. It can be an honest mistake.

I agree he most likely pulled a sleeze move to get out of selling too cheap, and the 99¢ auctions are annoying.

Another idea: e-mail the seller, saying you understand why he might pull a bid for such a low price and ask him what he would be willing to sell it for. If you can agree on a price, then he can re-list with a buy it now price or a second chance offer or something and you can seal the deal amicably and within eBay's rules.

Good idea. I might just try that.

Not sure I see the point in negative feedback most of the time. I agree if there was a mistake it was only in that the seller didn't know he was ultimately agreeing to sell for a dollar rather than just ending the auction. Cheesy & stupid. I've made the same mistake (99 cent starting price & selling something for a dollar on Ebay, that is) and always start auctions at a price I'm willing to take even if I hope for more (don't do the 'reserve' thing either). I recently had a buyer fire off two nasty emails complaining first because the item wasn't shipped within 8 hours of payment & then that the shipping was higher than they wanted to pay. I responded by (very politely, though) telling them to go to hell & giving them a refund. I got negative feedback for that one and I probably deserved it...but I try to avoid interaction with a-holes whether in person or digitally. Personally, in the case described by the OP, I'd say if he/she opens a case & ends it properly (ie, making a claim that the auction is ended by seller's initiation, etc. etc.) so there's no unpaid item or anything like that, I'd call it even and not give any feedback + or - ...and maybe note the seller as a joker in the future. But, hey, what's the worst case scenario...you don't get to buy something for a dollar?.. that's a seriously First World problem right there!

Yeah, I know, not really a big deal.

Recently bought a house and since have found several things that the seller said wasn't an issue or that he'd fix and didn't and find myself getting riled up and then remind myself that I have a roof over my head and heat and food and really what I'm worried about isn't at all an issue compared to what people are dealing with in say Sudan.

If it were me I'd just pay. When it doesn't show up, notify eBay. Or it shows up. You held up your end of the deal.

I have another question, why don't sellers just post a reasonable minimum bid in the first place?

I've had several of these weasel sellers even tell me after an auction ended that they "couldn't find the item" and so wanted to cancel my winning bid, after I had paid. So not only am I back to square one with hunting down an item and waiting for an auction to close, but now have to police the returning of funds!

And another question, how do these "buy it now" sellers with their inflated prices re-list so many times without incurring the same fees as the rest of us. It seems like they have thousands of items being re-listed perhaps automatically. Are they somehow privileged by their sale status levels or is it some king of "power seller???" deal that anyone can make with Ebay? Where can the rest of us sign up?
Kind of getting sick of all the 4X-value PB-bikes listings that crowd out and ruin every ebay shopping effort, and which Ebay seems to allow to their own detriment.

whoa...and I thought you had ebay problems! :eek:

although it's not yet clear to me whether you have actually 'won' the auction or not.
2 cases i could think of.

1. ebay says you are the winning bidder and up to pay
you can pay ahead and claim yours. seller is due to ship it to you regardless whatsoever the situation.
2. auction ended, and you are not listed as the winner
nothing much you can do, but also you are not at any due. no obligation.

common things here—i've been selling/buying on the 'bay for long time too.
– there's no way to 'accidentally' close the auction.
it's usually the seller feels it goes cheaper than he thought and try to end it.
you can easily do that marking as 'the item is not available any more' sorta statement. stupid ebay sys.
– even though the seller wants to end the auction early, he/she can't just do it if it's close to the closing time.
(this is where my confusion is from)

anyways,
in case if you ever are left as 'unpaid' buyer, you can simply claim through ebay.
have all the communications w the seller attached—they are gonna review them on their end anyway, but it is important to show ebay that you know what you are doing and you have things needed to support the argument.
ebay is usually on listening manner and solve it reasonably, but not in the fastest manner.

hope this helps.

KIS
If you want them, pay.
If not, don't.

He knew the deal; so do you.

That will be 3.50, BIN

Eh, stupid little stuff like saying the washer and dryer worked just fine, when the washer wasn't connected and the dryer didn't work. A few hours making sure the connections were all right and putting in new dryer conduit fixed that. A toilet that was working when we visited, but broken when we showed up after closing that requires a new plunger mechanism (bought it for $20, but haven't had the time to put it in yet) in a guest bathroom we don't need. Radon we found out that needed mitigating. Lots of little stuff like that that come with any new house. Like I said all stupid first world problems.

Yeah, I got the e-mail from ebay saying I was the winning bidder and I needed to pay and then before I went to pay I saw I had a message from him (listed as a post auction message or whatever they call it) saying to please not pay as he'd made a mistake. The issue appears to be that he tried to close it I think 4 and a half hours before the end of the auction and it was just too late. I haven't heard back from him yet when I asked him how he wanted to rectify the situation. I'm not in a rush as I don't have a frame for the brakes to go on, just sort of getting things together and veloce brakesets in lightly used condition seem to be popping up a lot and cheaply on e-bay.