eBay seller wants a price increase

Discussion in 'Marketplace Discussions' started by cuddlytoy, Oct 29, 2019.

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  1. jon9091

    jon9091 Master Of Reality

    Location:
    Midwest
    Anyone trying to get extra money after a sale is complete should be reported.
    I would think an established seller wouldn’t even bring a $6 error up to a paying client, they would just learn from their mistake and move on. This sounds like a possible scam.
     
    Last edited: Nov 1, 2019
    Dale A B and zphage like this.
  2. carrolls

    carrolls Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dublin
    Don't pay the $6 and leave negative feedback giving the reason that when a seller sets the price, this is the eBay "handshake".
     
  3. nm_west

    nm_west Forum Resident

    Location:
    Abq. NM. USA
    Give what you can give.

    Why would you leave negative feedback?
     
    Panama Hotel likes this.
  4. carrolls

    carrolls Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dublin
    Trying to weasel out of a written contract is bad form in my book as a businessman. Maybe the negative feedback will focus minds and put a stop to this mindset.
     
  5. formu_la

    formu_la I'm not a robot

    Location:
    Toronto, Canada
    He is sending the book, right?
    No $6 for him, no reply, no feedback. He is crazy to ask extra after the sale. At the same time, he knows this because he has sent the book.
    Some weird play he attempted...
     
  6. An experienced seller with 5000 transactions, and currently 200 listings asking for additional monies is odd. EBay would be the only one who could tell if there was some gender scam angle, but they would have to under take a massive analysis. Ignore the xtra money plea, it really comes down to whether or not you want to flag this via feedback or directly to eBay.
     
  7. weekendtoy

    weekendtoy Rejecting your reality and substituting my own.

    Location:
    Northern MN
    $27 for a book. That's an expensive book!
     
  8. First, this is not a gender issue.

    While mistakes do happen, and I am very understanding of such things, a deal is a deal after the deal has been made.
    With the (Buy-it-now) feature, at least the way I understand it. If you push the button, and agree to the terms, the deal is done immediately due to electronics and user agreements.
    Mistakes or not, the deal has been made and it is now legally binding should either party choose to take things that far.

    Had you pushed the (Buy-it-now) button on a price higher than they intended, you would be legally bound to the terms of use per the selling site, and liable to pay the higher price.

    The guilt trip message seems like their weak attempt to reason with you about the mistake price listing. Not wrong, perse, but not done the best either.

    A few options that come to mind:
    If you have dealt with this seller before, and they have been great, making a consession in their favor may be a good choice.
    If this is a first time purchase from them you could:
    1) Simply refuse the book, cancel the deal based on sketchy practices, leave an appropriate rating, and move on.
    2) Let the deal be what it is and forget about all the other stuff. It does sound like they honored the deal, which is the real bottom line in all of this.

    There are a lot of ways you could take this situation, as well as deal with this situation.
    Make a choice that allows you to walk away without regrets and move on.
    I am assuming here but I bet the book will not signifcantly change your life, nor will the $6, regardless of the end result.
     
  9. I can kinda understand if the seller left off two zeroes (listing, say, a $199.00 item at $1.99) but in this case it's too odd, and I can't believe a seller would waste the time to contact you - and risk negative feedback - over $6. I'd simply not respond at all, and do not pay the additional $6.
     
  10. Negative feedback for sellers does more than "focus minds"- a handful of 1 or 2-star ratings (which are anonymously provided, and can even be given while providing a positive feedback rating) can get someone's store shut down for an indefinite period of time (a few years, minimum.) With no advance notice, and no appeal.

    Furthermore, with Ebay's 5-star system, an overall 4-star rating is a Fail. I think the cutoff point for acceptability is 4.3/5. Ebay has never, to my knowledge, made buyers aware of this. How many of these facts did you know before reading this post?

    "This mindset" that you're talking about is in reference to a single case where a seller made a hasty decision to request a sale cancellation, retracted their request, and then made a simple appeal for some extra money- once- with no obligation to the buyer to even need to send a message of refusal.

    So what you're doing is counseling the buyer to penalize the seller for no other reason other than the buyer's umbrage over having to read that request. And that penalty may be the one that tips the seller over the edge into being banned from Ebay.

    I'll note that there are plenty of big-box retailers of NIB goods who never have to sweat this, because they deal in such volume that 100 negative feedbacks a month is nothing. And practically all of them are members of the "overnight free shipping" and "free returns" club, which means that as long as they ship the next day and allow buyers to return their purchases, they're guaranteed 5-star ratings on shipping time and handling expense. They never have to box their goods, or take any extra trouble in describing them beyond a single template. And if they were the only people offering items on Ebay, there would be no collectibles market.

    It's the small retail sellers who get hurt by the policy of being policed on the whim of the buyer, with no opportunity to even know who might have downrated them, much less disputing their ratings. Meanwhile, buyers can go their way thinking that their 3 or 4-star ratings are merely denoting "average" or "above average" seller performance, when they're actually placing sellers in peril of having their eBay business shut down.

    Understand, I'm an eBay buyer, too. But I'm also a seller. And having had fairly extensive experience with both roles, I've gotten to realize how corrosive it is to have a society that indoctrinates people into the false aristocratic value system of Consumerist Entitlement. It's no less a fail of the ideals that supposedly ensure the virtues of independent private enterprise than it is a failure of the ideals of community.
     
    Last edited: Nov 1, 2019
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  11. carrolls

    carrolls Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dublin
    I don't know. I value the contract, the handshake, and business rule one is that at that stage the deal is done. Maybe I would relax the neg feedback but it is still totally unacceptable practice.
     
  12. crustycurmudgeon

    crustycurmudgeon We've all got our faults, mine's the Calaveras

    Location:
    Hollister, CA
    Well said!
     
  13. carrolls

    carrolls Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dublin
    Not really. If they were so concerned about their business, they would play by the rules. I know there is a lot of empathy with sellers here, and I am a seller on eBay too.
    But I play by clear business rules because I know I would be putting my eBay profile in jeopardy if I didn't.
    That seller needs to get with the program and smell the coffee. End of.
     
    Christian Hill likes this.
  14. that's by far the simplest course of action. the transaction is complete, case closed.

    I would not impute motives to someone over a relatively trivial amount of money. Unless they send another message. My guess is, that's exceedingly unlikely. And the response is simple; send it to the roundfile. What's the seller going to do- call up eBay to complain? It isn't disputable. The buyer has all of the power in this case. One hundred per cent.
     
    Shawn likes this.
  15. I just pointed out that it's entirely possible to play by the rules, and get negged anyway.

    For that matter- what specific eBay rule did the seller violate? The transaction was resolved as originally conceived.
     
  16. carrolls

    carrolls Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dublin
    So the seller behaviour was perfectly acceptable? I am of the opinion it was not by a long distance.
     
    Christian Hill likes this.
  17. Carl Swanson

    Carl Swanson Senior Member

    Ain't no "may be" about it. Offer and acceptance are the most important and most fundamental elements of contract law.

    A couple more pertinent points:

    • A contract is not required to be in writing to be valid and enforceable.

    • Contract law entails a "meeting of the minds", which is clearly implied by "offer and acceptance," it does not provide for "changing of one's mind" subsequent to a transaction.
     
    Christian Hill likes this.
  18. Dinstun

    Dinstun Forum Resident

    Location:
    Middle Tennessee
    I'm not a lawyer and I don't care. I can sort out right from wrong myself. If a seller can't find an item I purchased and paid for and they cancel and refund, I'm not going to sue.
     
  19. Carl Swanson

    Carl Swanson Senior Member

    You probably couldn't sue, since the full refund has already "made you whole," as they say. No loss, no tort.

    My comment was directly targeted at a seller who made a deal then tried to change it after the fact.

    That might be what a "couldn't find it" seller would be trying to do, but you could never prove it.
     
  20. I’d love to see you go up against Amazon when they mis-price something and then cancel orders. Or when big box retailers and grocery chains won’t honor an advertised price due to an error.
     
  21. The seller made an excusable error. It's a trivial mistake. I don't feature an appeal to voluntarily contribute additional funds as a component of a successful business strategy. But I don't think it warrants penalizing them with negative ratings or feedback. Or imputing sinister motives to them based on one brief exchange of communications, which is a type of short circuiting of rationality that's unfortunately become a scourge in our public discourse these days.

    I might feel differently if eBay seller ratings policies didn't have such a potential to be punitive. But they do, as I've outlined above. So that's the reality I'm working from.

    I do get that there are situations where buyers are especially vulnerable to finding themselves at the mercy of the people to whom they've given their money- home renovation, anyone? But not eBay. On Ebay, only the biggest and most shameless of thieves and con artists have any hope of getting over on buyers, as a one-and-done. It's much, much easier for dishonest buyers to get over on sellers, especially those who offer return privileges on used merchandise.

    Ever get into a payment dispute? How about one where the buyer presents their case while exhibiting only the most rudimentary command of the English language? All a buyer has to do is stamp their feet, basically.

    Most buyers are gracious, in my experience. As are most sellers. But there are a few buyers who are abusive or dishonest, and sellers who are incompetent or dishonest. And while eBay has plenty of protections against incompetent or scamming sellers, there's practically no recourse against abusive or dishonest buyers.
     
    Last edited: Nov 1, 2019
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  22. The thing about the "dog ate the item I was going to sell you" excuse is that whether it's due to sloppy inventory control or dishonesty, the seller is on shaky ground. I'm not sure, but I don't think canceling a sale exempts a seller from getting negged by a buyer. Losing track of inventory is a no-no.

    Anyone who tries to rely on that as a tactic because they learned after the sale that the item was worth a lot more money is acting unethically, of course. If they try to do that more than once, they're liable to get found out. EBay does keep track of sales that are canceled for any reason. Do it too many times, and the seller will get bounced. With good reason, in cases like those.
     
  23. Amazon, Wal-mart, etc. quite often sell out of popular items and then inform the buyers that they're refunding the money. They typically make apologetic noises about a "rain check", but they're basically telling the buyers to pound sand.
     
    Shawn likes this.
  24. noname74

    noname74 Allegedly Canadian

    Location:
    .
    I disagree. After 20 calls of righteous moralizing and explaining to them the error of their ways in minute detail they will beg him to take a refund as long as he just promises never to call them again.
     
    Shawn likes this.
  25. But there's no personalized "handshake" there. There's typically no advance negotiation, either.What there is instead is a requirement for all eBay sellers to use a mandatory boilerplate listing form where checking the wrong box or making a single typo can cost a seller dearly.

    Yeah, it's an enforceable contract. But speaking strictly as a buyer, I have no problem understanding how holding a seller strictly to account for one clerical error is not a fair thing to do, even if the letter of the law is on my side.
     
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