ebay mistake?!?

Did you make a formal complaint to the eBay Investigations team? Sounds like you probably did, but I have added some relevant information below just in case.

Section 5.2 of the eBay User Agreement (from http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/png-user.html) seems to be the governing provision here:

"5.2 Binding Bids. Except for items listed in a category under the Non-binding Bid Policy, if you receive at least one bid at or above your stated minimum price (or in the case of reserve auctions, at or above the reserve price), you are obligated as the seller to complete the transaction with the highest bidder upon the auction's completion, unless there is an exceptional circumstance, such as: (a) the buyer fails to meet the terms of your listing (such as payment method), or (b) you cannot authenticate the buyer's identity."

Based on this language, the seller was obligated to complete the transaction. She may have screwed up when she ended the auction, but I doubt that this is the type of "exceptional circumstance" eBay is talking about.

I have never been through the process, but you can report her as a "non-selling seller" (see http://pages.ebay.com/help/community/investigates.html#selling):

"Non-Selling Seller - Refusing payment and failing to deliver an item at the end of a successful transaction."

There is a link right on the above web page for making a report. I don't know whether the Investigations team can do something about the negative feedback.

If you need more information, look at the web pages above. You also can post questions in the eBay Community Help Board for "Bidding." Be sure to include the item number.

Good luck!

[This message was edited by TeeJay on September 20, 2002 at 10:36 AM.]

For the record eBay can and will remove undeserved (retaliatory) negative feedback. Right, Rickdogg?

eBay will not remove feedback just because it is retaliatory in nature, or untrue, or unfair or for any other reason, except "bombing" (that is when someone bids on something for the express purpose of leaving negative feedback) or profanity, or leaving personal information ( like sellers email, phone number, address etc.)
So, once you've got it you have to live with it.
Leave a response that is truthful and to the point and most people will see who the offending party really is.

robert

Robert, the instance I had in mind was one where the seller was doing something in violation of eBay rules and posted negative feedback against the buyers who reported him to eBay. EBay removed that feedback at the same time they barred the seller.

Steve,
I stand corrected.
One of the few instances where eBay actually does. Although they didn't do it for me.
I have one Neg (out of 1185 +), from a seller who would not honor my bid. They wanted more money. And after I reported them to eBay, they left me a Neg and said I had been rude to them. They sent me a really nasty email also. What nerve! I was very nice, but did point out that we had a contract and they were in violation of eBay TOS.
eBay must have slapped their hand, but I never got my item.
Oh well, life goes on.

robert

[This message was edited by robert on September 24, 2002 at 01:41 PM.]

bigt98588, Did she ever give a satisfactory explaination of how you could have possibly bid on an item that she "canceled over a month ago!!"?
From all appearances, you are in the right, and sbridget7 attempted to cancel but instead chose the wrong option "sell to the high bidder now"
She had no right to cancel the bid just to relist for a higher starting price.

Sorry Steve, I rarely ever look at this board anymore because I have found another board that interests me more since I mainly deal with comic books.

About the negative feedback...ebay will remove it these cases only:

"Circumstances where eBay will consider removing feedback

eBay is provided with a ruling or settlement agreement from an eBay-approved certified dispute resolution service. Such a ruling may be issued if the feedback recipient initiated a dispute resolution process and the member who left the feedback does not respond to the request for mediation.

eBay is provided with a valid court order finding that the disputed feedback is slanderous, libelous, defamatory or otherwise illegal, or with a settlement agreement resolving such a lawsuit submitted by both attorneys and signed by both parties.

The feedback, on its face, has absolutely no connection with eBay, such as feedback related to commercial transactions that were not conducted through eBay. This also includes feedback that contains any reference to another auction service or feedback that advertises the goods or services of someone other than the user for whom the feedback was left.

The feedback contains any link to another page, picture, or JavaScript.

The feedback contains profane or vulgar language, or adult material. Inflammatory language, such as "fraud, liar, cheater, scam artist, con man" etc. is strongly discouraged but will not be removed.

Feedback that contains personal identifying information about another user, including real name, address, phone number, or e-mail address.

Feedback that makes any reference to an eBay or law enforcement organization investigation, i.e., "eBay is investigating this person".

Negative feedback intended for another user will be considered for removal only in situations where the user responsible for the mistaken posting informs eBay of the error and has already placed the same feedback for the correct user. This does not apply to a comment that was mistakenly marked negative instead of positive or vice versa.

Feedback left by a user who provided eBay with false contact information during the transaction period (as verified by eBay), and cannot be contacted.

Participating in an eBay transaction with the intent of leaving feedback as part of a campaign to harass one or more members.

eBay may give special consideration to remove feedback upon request from members if the listing ended before the member was suspended, but the feedback was left after we reinstated the member."

I have learned how to use this guideline as a tool to remove retalitory negatives from DEADBEAT bidders.

i bid on a 2 tier locker about 3 months ago, i was outbid by $.50, and i decided to wait until the ending hour of the auction to rebid. AS I WAS placing my bid(no reserve auction, starting at $.99), with 12 minutes left, the seller cancelled the auction, because the item was "no longer available". I was pissed, i watched this auction for 9 1/2 days, and he canceled it. i emailed him and asked what the deal was, he offered me the locker at $99.99 each. The item was still availble, but he didn't want to pay a reserve price, and didn't want to sell it for $60.00. I complained to ebay, but since i wasn't the "current" highest bidder, i had no case....

i hate ebay sometimes, guys like that ruin it for everybody...

Actually Ebay does nothing about it even if you are the high bidder. There are a # of comic book sellers that do this & when people complain ebay does nothing about it even though it is against ebay rules. Just shows how great the safe harbor team is

Other than with a Court Order, has anyone ever had a negative feedback removed because the person placing the feedback was an outright liar? I had a seller try to rip me off for 3x shipping costs when I won a bid at a low price. I had absolute proof but the seller ignored this, relisted the item and then sold it for 4x what I won the bid for. And then the seller left negative feedback on me! I filed a complaint to eBay but they have never responded and I have the strong impression that unless it would make headline news, eBay won't respond.

If the seller indicated a shipping rate, then suddenly multiplied it after the auction ended, that would be one thing and I believe eBay would respond to such a complaint. If, on the other hand, the seller said NOTHING in his auction listing about shipping, I believe eBay would probably feel that the bidder should have inquired about shipping fees prior to bidding. That's what I do, just to avoid this thorny issue.

I did recently have a seller levy an additional
.79¢ for using PayPal. He maintains that this is what PayPal charges him for retrieving a payment from someone's bank account. This may very well be, but in my experience with hundreds of transactions, no seller had ever levied such a fee. My feeling is that he should indicate this additional fee in his auction listing prior to the auction.

Actually it is against ebay rules (US, in UK it is ok) to attach a surcharge to a for of payment such as paypal. I don't understand sellers that try to pull this off since it is such a small percentage to do business.

As a matter of fact you can report these guys to safe harbour and ebay usually ends their auction the next day. Just look under "listing issues" or something like that and you can report them. damn cheapskates