SELLERS SELLING ITEMS THAT THEY DON'T HAVE

Question

DOES EBAY HAVE A POLICY AGAINST SELLING AN ITEM THAT YOU DO NOT HAVE? THREE TIMES NOW I HAVE PAID FOR AN ITEM & HAD TO WAIT FOR UP TO 3 WEEKS FOR THE ITEM TO SHIP BECAUSE THE SELLER DIDN'T HAVE THE ITEM, EVEN THOUGH THE LISTING STATED THAT "X" NUMBER OF ITEMS WERE AVAILABLE.

eburtonlab · Answer

Sellers should not be listing items that are not in the seller's possession -- or under contract to the seller in the case of a drop-shipper.

The fact that those rules exist does not actually stop some sellers from trying to do that, though.

You can avoid many potential issues by choosing to only do business with experienced sellers that have a proven track record of delivering similar items as seen by examining the seller's feedback page, and by avoiding inexperienced sellers, sellers with patterns of negative feedback indicating serious problems, or sellers with large gaps in the selling history or recent drastic changes of seller behavior.