highest bid

Question

If you bid on an item and get the highest bid but then 5 days later the seller refunds your money because they didn't make as much as they wanted, then uses the excuse they haven't been on Ebay in a while. Can you file a complaint against them so that they cannot relist the item for more?

woodland_gnome · Answer

eBay will not prevent the relisting. The seller already got a "defect" when s/he cancelled the transaction (unless s/he lied to eBay to blame you, in which case we'd need details especially what eBay said the reason was in the cancellation notice). That is the primary tool eBay uses to weed out bad sellers, downgrading the selling status of those who get too many relative to their sales volume (as opposed to having to pay employees to actually investigate to see how likely it was that the seller had a legitimate reason to cancel vs. deliberate policy violations).

You may leave appropriate (calm, factual--if the seller said that x was the reason say "seller said x. . ." so people don't think you are just jumping to conclusions) feedback to warn future buyers/bidders. If the usual links have vanished, go to anyone's Feedback Profile (doesn't matter who, click on the feedback score in parentheses behind the username) then scroll down to below the last comment on that page to find a "Leave feedback" link that doesn't vanish (it brings you to a list of items you can leave feedback for).

Theoretically you could sue the seller for breach of the contract of sale (for the difference between the auction price and what you ended up having to pay for a replacement), but that is almost never practical.

eburtonlab · Answer

You can report the seller here: https://www.ebay.com/help/buying/resolving-issues-sellers/report-issue-seller?id=4022 eBay may not necessarily reveal the ultimate result of the report, though.

inceptions · Answer

Hi @helmeczichris

You can report the seller here for refusing to complete the transaction due to starting his bidding too low and for waiting 5 days to let you know he had no intention of shipping):

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

You can also leave appropriate feedback to warn other buyers.