(if this is in the wrong place, please move it) So last week I was selling stuff on eBay trying to pay a few bills. One of the items was a Victory Saber, which went for a pretty decent amount. But not soon after the auction ended I got a message from the winner saying: So, transaction is canceled and I'm out a significant profit. That's the third time in less than a month that I've lost money from bidders claiming their accounts were used by someone without consent. In fact the most recent prior to this encounter was from someone claiming to be well below eBay's required user age stating roughly "I didn't know that bidding means you pay." Any other sellers encounter problems like this?
I can understand the occasional excuse cause yeah it happens, but three times in less than a month is ridiculous.
It's not pretty from the buying end either. I'm, tired of dealing with it and this last transaction of mine is the last straw. From now on I'm dealing with Vintage online retailers or board members only.
i think you should make them pay. the "kid" wanted it. he bidded. He won. his parents lost. and kid should pay with ass whoopin' for forgery, lying, and breaking a promise. and isn't a winning bid a contractual agreement to pay? hold em to it. seems like a waste of effort, but it is the principle. however, the only drawback is knowing the little snot won't appreciate what he got and that could mess with your conscience.
I agree, make 'em pay. It is a contract, it says so when you place your bid. It is one thing if someone hacks your account and bids on shit, but something else when your punk ass kid uses your account. I know you will get no where with this and eBay will take their cut and give you the middle finger, but at least make it a pain in the ass for them.
You know, that's interesting, I JUST got an excuse like that from someone to whom I sold a Classics Prime figure on eBay. They said it was their rascally nephew who used their account and bought it. And about a year ago I dealt with a buyer whose "little brother" had accessed his account and bought an item from me.... an item he never paid for (which, luckily, I also didn't ship). Now that I see this, that other folks are getting excuses like this, I think it is a scam. Maybe these people bid on lots of the same item and then only end up paying for the cheapest one? Or don't pay at all, if the end price isn't to their liking? They probably figure sellers will be more inclined to "mutually cancel the sale" if the buyer appears to be some poor dupe whose mischievous family members made the purchase without their knowledge. Well, I'm glad I saw this thread... I hadn't responded to the buyer yet, and I was all set to be a nice guy and cancel the sale and eat my fees. But jorod74 is right, a purchase over eBay is a contract. Even if the buyer is telling the truth about their family member, well, that will teach them to let others use their eBay account. I've been thinning out my collection lately, and selling some stuff both here on the boards and on eBay... and man, I think after I get the last of the stuff cleared out, I am steering clear of eBay from now on. I have had so many non-paying buyers lately... the fact that sellers can no longer leave negative feedback really damaged the system, I think, and filing an unpaid item dispute does exactly nothing. So irritating. That combined with all the fees (which, correct me if I am wrong, seem to have gone up recently) makes me just not want to have anything to do with that site anymore. P.S. Shouldn't this thread be in the eBay forum? More people might see it there and be warned.
I wonder what the buyer would say/do if you replied 'Oh, I'm so sorry this happened. I am going to report that your account was misused to eBay just in case there's an item your son/nephew/etc bid on that you didn't catch.' --Moony
heck, as hard as it is for me to recall my ebay, paypal and other things just to order from them, for a kid to so easily use his parent's account, it sounds screwy. so it's a scam. bust a few, then bail on ebay.
I'm not a student of all thing legal. But wouldn't a contract created under false pretenses not be binding?
If you guys wont sell stuff on ebay is there another route to go to sell collectible stuff like tf's and other toys?
I've had similar things happen as a buyer - I won a G1 lot (Ultra Magnus, Thundercracker and a few others) that went for very cheap, clearly way less than the seller wanted. So the next day they email me and say "oh sorry last night my kids were playing and they knocked the shelves *all* of the toys were on and they got broken." Of course when I asked to see a pic they never replied...
Make him pay. I know when my kids are online. They don't have access to my passwords, and never will. If he doesn't like it, tell him he can always relist the item on eBay and try to recoup his losses. -Tony
Well, my young cousing made that once. I left my pc for a moment while surfing on ebay and he bidded on an Energon lot. Lucky since I had already bought alot of stuff from that seller, including a high priced item, we were able to work it out peacefully. But it never hapened again.
I'm already taking steps to resolve the situation(s). Which leads me to another sort of question: What's the most tactful way to respond to a bidder that doesn't pay and then calls you an ass because you had to file an Unpaid Item claim?
I have people who bid up my auctions to hit the reserve and then cancel their bids. and I have people who make multiple "offers" via the offer system and then when I accept it they decline.
Ah yes, but only if eBay were actual real world and not the psychotic world that its CEO and board members dream it of being, we might be able to do that. I'd say the money's lost, the buyer gets off scot-free, and eBay doesn't give a crap, would pretty much sum it all up.
