Unable to report a seller for bad practices

Question

There is a seller who I would like to report to eBay for bad selling practices - namely a seller who refunded a purchase saying that the item is no longer in stock, and then re-listed the item at a higher price. The seller's feedback and listings suggest that this is not a one-off occurrence.

I have tried using the Customer Service "Take an Action" page to submit a report, but for the past two days I've consistently gotten an error - "We ran into a problem, Please try again later." - and I haven't been able to submit a report.

Does anyone know if there are any alternatives?

woodland_gnome · Answer

The seller already got a "defect" when s/he cancelled the transaction. 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.

inceptions · Answer

You can report the seller here: https://www.ebay.com/help/action?topicid=4022