What's with sellers deciding they can just cancel orders because the item sold too cheap?

[rimtrim]

Maybe this is more of a buying question, but I'd really like to put it to the audience of sellers. I've been on eBay as both buyer and seller for over 20 years. I'll admit that I love to jump on a great deal, either a B-I-N way below market, or an auction that's ending cheap. That's supposed to be part of the fun and profit of eBay. I was always under the impression that rule #1 on eBay is that if the buyer pays for the item and provides a valid shipping address, the seller must complete the sale, no ifs ands or buts.

Just in the past couple years, I've had a rash of sellers who canceled my purchases because the item sold too cheap and they didn't want to sell it for that price. Some came right out and told me that was the reason, while others pretended they "couldn't find" the item and then amazingly they "found" it and relisted for more money. I always respond and tell them that I'm not approving any cancellation and I expect them to complete the sale. In response I've been called a "thief", a "scammer", "rude" and "threatening", probably among other things that aren't coming to mind 😛 Let me be crystal clear that all I'm doing is insisting that sellers fulfill their obligations and ship the item they listed and sold.

Am I out of touch or out of line on this? Are there now serious sellers who think it's acceptable to cancel orders because they didn't research pricing or check shipping rates, or because the auction didn't get bids when they thought it would? As a seller I would never dream of refusing to ship an order or asking the buyer for more money after the sale, and I have had a few stinkers over the years where I made nothing on a deal. Mostly I learned from those experiences, and I'm careful about researching prices and setting shipping rates. But if I did mess up, I'd never be comfortable asking the buyer to take the hit.

I'm also wondering whether other sellers who like to jump on a cheap deal for potential resale are seeing a similar increase in seller-initiated cancellations. I remember back in the early days, sometimes I would win auctions for pennies and I never had this happen.

[lakefor94]

The bottom line is eBay cannot make a seller ship. Been reading these same type of posts here weekly for as long as I can remember.

If they cancel with Out of Stock, they take a hit in Seller defects.

Cancel with Buyer Requested or Problem with Address, they are off with no penalty. 

[mam98031 · Accepted solution]

Yes this is an issue.  And yes Ebay is starting to crack down on sellers that do this.

Buyers can really help in this effort to stop the misbehaving sellers that are abusing the cancellation system.

When a seller Cancels a Transaction, they have to give a reason.  There are only two reasons that prevent a seller from getting a defect on their selling stats.  And too many defects are problematic for a seller and can even cost them significantly in penalty fees on sales.  The two reasons are The Buyer Requested the cancellation or there was a problem with the buyers ship to address.

When a seller cancels a transaction for reasons like you bring up in your post, the item didn't sell for enough, they misplaced the inventory, etc.  The seller should be filing the Cancelation for the reason they are Out of Stock [OOS].  But sellers don't like to do that because it creates a defect on their account.

Buyers get an email from Ebay whenever a seller Cancels a transaction.  Inside that email it states what reason the seller chose for the Cancellation.  If it is one of the two reasons I stated above and it is untrue, you need to report the seller for abuse of the Cancellation system.

So PLEASE report sellers that are abusing the system.  It is really easy and will only take a few seconds of your time.

https://www.ebay.com/help/action?topicid=4022

[gurlcat]

No it's not a thing serious sellers are doing now.  It's something newbies do when they don't know how to figure out a BIN price or start an auction at a starting bid they can live with if it gets only one bid.  

[mam98031]

I wouldn't be so quick to judge that.  As a buyer, last summer I ran into a seller of some shipping supplies I was in need of and she kept cancelling my order.  First I just thought she made a mistake, so I sent her an email and told her I would go ahead and purchase it again and pay of course.  So I did and she cancelled my order again. 

This time she at least reached out to me afterwards to tell me I didn't pay enough.  But I had paid exactly what she was charging on the listing.  She simply refused to ship the item.  Oddly I watched her listing for a few weeks, she never changed the pricing and had other purchases, however I don't know if she cancelled them too or not.  It was very odd.

Oh and she was a decent size seller and had been selling for several years or more.

[dbfolks166mt]

     I don't buy a lot on eBay these days but in the few instances where a seller has canceled an order for some bogus reason like buyer requested or problem with buyers address I have reported the seller. At least 1 of the sellers was suspended but not sure if their cancelation of orders was the reason but other feedback seemed to indicate that it was habitual with this one seller. 

    EBay probably doesn't help this situation much, especially with new buyers, when they suggest ridiculously low starting prices or inflated promoted listing rates. 

[luckythewinner]

 I remember back in the early days, sometimes I would win auctions for pennies and I never had this happen.

Like buyers who refuse to pay, sellers who refuse to ship have been an issue since eBay began. 

Actually, in the early days of eBay it was much worse - several times I paid for items and the seller refused to ship - and also kept my money and gave me a retaliatory negative when I called out their behavior through feedback. 

[rimtrim]

---

@gurlcat wrote:

No it's not a thing serious sellers are doing now.  It's something newbies do when they don't know how to figure out a BIN price or start an auction at a starting bid they can live with if it gets only one bid.  

---

I know exactly what you mean, and I tend to avoid those messed-up listings from new sellers even if it's a great deal, because I know I'm highly unlikely to ever receive the item. But most of the cases I'm talking about are sellers who had feedback in the thousands and should have known better. In some cases it seems like sellers list a large number of items without doing research, and when a few of them sell instantly, they cancel the orders and then research the true value of the items.

[allstar-comics]

 a seller with 32,000 diff items sometimes the item is nowhere to be found  Not saying sellers dont cancel for other reasons but no matter how well you organize your inventory  things can grow legs

[gurlcat]

Hmmm, I can't think of any reason a knowledgeable seller would do it, unless they had only sold BIN's up to a point then decided to try auctions and were totally clueless about how to do it.  

For what it's worth, I buy here A LOT, household needs, gifts, self-gifts 😁 .....and I do at least 75% of my inventory sourcing right here, and most of that is auctions.  I can't recall if I've ever had a seller cancel, but then again I can't recall the last time I bid on (or even saw) one with a crazy low starting bid.  For my category most start at at least $10, either that or less but with inflated shipping cost (stupid way to CYA but I get it).  

[gurlcat]

---

@allstar-comics wrote:

 a seller with 32,000 diff items sometimes the item is nowhere to be found  Not saying sellers dont cancel for other reasons but no matter how well you organize your inventory  things can grow legs

---

Couple problems with the 'lost item' theory. 

-It makes sense for a BIN that has been relisting for months or years and that's how long ago the seller last laid eyes on it, but an item listed only days ago for an auction couldn't have gotten far on those legs. 

-In the event when a seller can't find a sold item (or breaks it while trying to pack it -been there, done that), then the cancellation details page will show whether the seller honestly answered 'Out of stock' or made up a fake reason for cancelling, as far as what they tell eBAy.  And when they do that AND the item sold for a very low bid, then they very clearly were lying in the email.  

[allstar-comics]

agreed it wouldn't apply to auctions  Just pointing out not everything is sinister on Ebay, lol

[gurlcat]

---

@allstar-comics wrote:

agreed it wouldn't apply to auctions  Just pointing out not everything is sinister on Ebay, lol

---

Absolutely.  And deceitful cancellations are a perfect example of how bad apples spoil people's perceptions of doing business on eBay.  They create an atmosphere of distrust, where one party might not believe the other's honest statement.  The couple of times I truly could not find a sold item, knowing the buyer might think I was lying, I didn't even cancel until writing at least one email saying I was having trouble locating the item but still looking.  And the (at least one) time I broke a sold item, I sent a picture to prove it.  And in both cases apologized and said how embarrassed and bad I felt about it (and I meant it).  From the op's and other stories I've read here, when the seller lies about this they're pretty flippant about it.  
So, long rant short, whenever a seller gets reported for this behavior, in my opinion they deserve harsh punishment, something to actually convince them to never do it again.  

[rimtrim]

---

@gurlcat wrote:

Hmmm, I can't think of any reason a knowledgeable seller would do it, unless they had only sold BIN's up to a point then decided to try auctions and were totally clueless about how to do it.  

For what it's worth, I buy here A LOT, household needs, gifts, self-gifts 😁 .....and I do at least 75% of my inventory sourcing right here, and most of that is auctions.  I can't recall if I've ever had a seller cancel, but then again I can't recall the last time I bid on (or even saw) one with a crazy low starting bid.  For my category most start at at least $10, either that or less but with inflated shipping cost (stupid way to CYA but I get it).  

---

The situation that prompted me to start this thread was a little different than others I've had...it was an auction where the seller undercharged for shipping, and after I paid he told me he needed another $40 or he would cancel the sale. I checked the rates myself (I'm pretty familiar with weight and dimensions of these items) and he was really only about $14 short, unless he was doing something dumb like using a retail label or a huge box. It seems to me that the right thing for a seller to do is eat the $14, ship the item and move on. So I declined to pay the $40 and reminded him of his obligation to complete the sale under the original terms, and at that point he said he would ship but he also called me a couple names in messages, so we'll see what happens.

In previous cases that come to mind, it's typically been a Buy It Now where they priced the item way below market. In my categories, there are certain items that are worth much more than other similar items, and I know which ones they are. So if a seller lists a bunch of similar items at the same price, I'll scoop up the hot ones for resale. It's in these situations that I've had multiple cases where the seller played dumb and pretended they couldn't find the item or listed it by mistake, then canceled with a bogus reason and relisted the same item for a higher price.

That's happened to me probably 4 or 5 times, and there were a couple really egregious ones where the seller sent me nasty messages and I did pursue it with eBay, particularly in regards to the false reasons for the cancellations. In one case I was even able to get their new listing pulled, where they had relisted the same item for 4x what I paid for it. I agree that there should be significant punishment for false cancellation reasons, because the defect system means nothing if some sellers can dodge responsibility by falsifying all their cancellations.

[rimtrim]

---

@allstar-comics wrote:

 a seller with 32,000 diff items sometimes the item is nowhere to be found  Not saying sellers dont cancel for other reasons but no matter how well you organize your inventory  things can grow legs

---

I agree this does happen...I know a guy who is an honest seller in my category who had to move his inventory twice in the past year, and he told me he's had a few cases where he had every intention of completing the sale but he honestly couldn't locate the item. As long as the seller submits the cancellation with a truthful reason and doesn't then relist the same item they failed to ship, I don't consider that to be anything to get too upset about.