YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BACK OUT OF A SALE. "I CAN'T FIND THE ITEM" IS NO EXCUSE.
TOO MANY SELLERS are backing out of sales, claiming that they "cannot find the item" or that "the item is no longer available".
First of all- THE ITEM MUST STILL BE AVAILABLE. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO SELL LISTED ITEMS OUT SIDE OF EBAY. If you list an item on eBay, you must sell it on eBay or you are breaking the site's rules.
Secondly, if you "can't find the item", than HOW DID YOU PHOTOGRAPH IT IN ORDER TO LIST IT IN THE FIRST PLACE??? SURELY YOU KNEW WHERE IT WAS AT THAT TIME. IF YOU LIST THE ITEM, YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR PROVIDING THAT ITEM.
YOU CANNOT back out of a sale because you don't like the price you got, ESPECIALLY ON A BUY IT NOW ITEM. You WILL END UP WITH NEGATIVE FEEDBACK, AND YOU CAN'T BRIBE OR INTIMIDATE PEOPLE TO CHANGE THE FEEDBACK THEY GIVE YOU. YOU EARNED IT.
theteamsetguy
·6 months ago@leehurst ,
Unfortunately humans are not perfect including myself. Also, there are many sellers that cross list their items on multiple platforms and forget to remove it on eBay when it sold at the other sight which is not illegal. Also, many sellers have brick and mortar stores. When their item sold in the store they forgot to remove it on eBay.
Also, many sellers set up antique shows, flea markets, coin shows, gun show, comic shows, baseball card shows and etc. Same thing can happen where the seller forgets to remove the item sold at the show. I have a good friend who sells expensive graded sports card at major shows out of state at least once a month. He puts a blue sticker on the holder of cards that are also listed on eBay so he can take it off while he is it at the show. He's admitted to me that at times he has been distracted or too busy at the show and forgets to remove from Ebay.
irishmichael4585
·6 months agoWe've had eBay relist an item about once a year, or sell one more than was in the listed inventory. On rare occasions, one inadvertently goes to a train show and when we try to remove the listing at the show it doesn't take.
rugerskick
·6 months agoWell that is true, sellers are supposed to have physical inventory on hand. But like any store, sometimes stock gets damaged, miscounted, misplaced, or was put away working but when getting ready to ship, its now found to be nonworking.
I mean, buyers are also not permitted to back out once they purchase, because its a contract, yet they contsct sellers and ask/demand/threaten to cancel their orders, all the time.
bgt_masters_of_tiki_d
·6 months agoYou do realize you can in fact sell items outside of ebay. Just because you list it on ebay doesn't mean you cannot sell the item locally or on another site. There is nothing against the rules of doing so.
Also there are many reasons why an item may no longer be available. Some of which may not be the sellers fault at all. Such as ghost listings or listings that were listed years ago in quantity that when auto-relisted the system didn't update the sold quantity properly.
sfau
·6 months agoAbout once a year I will loose an item. It usually slips into the consignment sale we do or a sold item gets relisted accidentally. It happens - we are all human.
grand-and-glorious-purpose
·6 months agoThe last item I couldn't find, small Halloween diecut decoration.
Tore my shelves apart looking for it.
Finally had to cancel the sale.
You know where it was?
Stuck on the underside of a picture frame...just a sliver wedged on the outermost edge. Just enough to keep it in place.
0% chance I was going to find it.
Only reason I did find it is because I sold the frame it got stuck to 8 months later.
Not everyone is a villain here so calm down.
tarotfindsandmore
·6 months agoThis level of emotion over a cancelation is completely bonkers. What could anyone possibly buy, other than maybe an organ (kidney, liver, etc.), that would warrant this kind of response??
I source from small artists, crowdfunding sites, and major retailers. Every single one of these entities has failed to deliver at some point, and many of them have done so several times. Each one of these failures represented actual income for me, but I cannot fathom kooking out like this over any one of them.
It's a bummer and the seller will pay for it in several ways, so why so angry? What great injustice has been done? Do you behave like this in real life?
In the words of a certain floppy-lipped brit, you can't always get what you want...
iamalwaysright
·6 months agokrazzykats
·6 months agoSometimes, if I can’t find an item I sold or discover an issue that wasn’t noted—like the time a boxed ornament was supposed to have two pieces, but one piece was missing—I’ll try to arrange to have it drop shipped from another seller and have it sent directly to my customer rather than disappoint them.
This only works with mass produced items.
á“šá˜á—¢
bashort
·6 months agoThe thing that aggravates me is I believe that every single Item I have lost in the past will eventually show up at a later date when you are looking for something else.
bashort
·6 months agoyes but sometimes reality gets in the way.
Almost every serious seller has lost a item before, I have lost several over the years, if i got negged for it I would not even ask for a revision, I would just own it, block the person who left it and go on.
iamalwaysright
·6 months agoYou'd block a person for leaving you a negative because you weren't able to ship them the item they paid for? Why?
bashort
·6 months agoyes, don't want to take a chance on disappointing them again any time in the future
onefootflipper
·6 months agoI block everyone who leaves neutral or negative feedback, everyone who initiates a claim or return of any kind and anyone who wastes my time or money. The pool of ebay buyers is essentially bottomless, I am not a brick and mortar in a small town, I don't want and don't have to sell to anyone who has ever given me any trouble.
evelyb30
·6 months agoThen there are the zombie listings. It isn't supposed to happen, but it does and the seller often only finds out AFTER it sells for a second time. Is the seller resonsible? Yup, but unless it's a common occurrence with that seller it needs to be filed under Life Happens. On the other hand:
Once upon a time, a manufacturer cancelled two orders of mine placed for underwear purchased directly from them. It wasn't just mine. The manufacturer turned seller had some sort of weekend error and sold things they didn't have. A lot of things. I don't even know if they still sell on eBay. Customer money was refunded promptly but with no explanation or apology, and the perceived attitude of "We don't care" garnered dozens of red donuts. One or two items is a glitch/oops, but this was ...a lot. More than a lot.
thelongball
·6 months agoAn observation I made.
You left a negative for a seller based on them not being able to find a item they sold you. You left the negative to worn others. You feel your feedback means something and will stop others from buying from the seller. I can prove it won't. Because you bought from the seller and they already had negatives for doing the same thing to others. Yet you still bought. Unless you are being paid to be the eBay police, just move on with life. Its too short to carry so much anger around. Mistakes happen. If the seller is doing something wrong to often, eBay will catch up with them and they will be gone. It happens all the time. Wish I knew how many sellers loose selling privileges every day. I'm sure it's a large number but then again, who cares.
krazzykats
·6 months agoReport an issue with a seller on eBay
á“šá˜á—¢
gloryglorygifts
·6 months ago**bleep**e happens. I've had a few out of stocks just this year and the last was the most frustrating because I must have sent two items to the last buyer instead of one. My inventory still showed I had one available, as did my stores. I didn't realize the error until that last one sold.
It looks like you were a seller. Even the best of the best sellers have problems sometimes. If you sell long enough, it will even happen to you.
onefootflipper
·6 months agoI have a very detailed location SKU system where every single item has a specific location and yet sometimes things STILL GET LOST.
It can happen to anyone, and if you have a very large store then it isn't a matter of if it will happen to you, it is a matter of when and how often.
iamalwaysright
·6 months agoAs the title says, you’re still not supposed to do it though. I’m not saying an item lost doesn’t ever happen, but it’s still not excusable.
onefootflipper
·6 months agoOther web retailers do it all the time. Ebay just punishes it so harshly because otherwise auction people would use it as a constant excuse not to sell things that didn't meet their expectations.
I tried to buy a repair part for my clothes dryer on ebay once only to have every single seller of the darn thing on ebay do an out of stock cancel on me and a half dozen websites do the same thing. It seems they were all drop shipping / fullfilling from the same distributor who had run out of them.
iamalwaysright
·6 months agoalbertabrightalberta
·6 months agoNot a single reply has disagreed with the OP that it's not supposed to happen or that it's excusable.
Yes, stuff happens!
NO ONE has denied that the OP is correct in that a seller isn't supposed to be OOS on an item.
But for the OP to spam the boards with multiple threads on the same topic indicates that he's letting it bother him way more than is appropriate and way more than is healthy!
iamalwaysright
·6 months agoten_o_nine
·6 months ago@iamalwaysright
As the title says, you’re still not supposed to do it though. I’m not saying an item lost doesn’t ever happen, but it’s still not excusable.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If the truth is not excusable, would a lie do it?😊
iamalwaysright
·6 months agoUnpopular opinion alert
Aside from the OPs rant, I wholeheartedly agree with the title of this thread. Sellers are obligated to ship the item they sold to the buyer without any excuses. It doesn’t matter what the reason is, the buyer is entitled to receive the product they paid for. The buyer shouldn’t be required or expected to help the seller when the seller isn’t able to complete the order. In those circumstances, the seller should take whatever treatment the buyer gives then contact eBay to remedy any situation that is eligible for seller protection. Crying to the buyer isn’t the way to go. Doing so makes you and eBay look unprofessional and frankly the #1 reason why I hear people don’t buy on ebay. “Your order always ends up getting cancelled.†Awhile back ebay glitched on my account and some out of stock items were thrown in stock and purchased. I received buyer backlash, some negatives and defects. All I did was apologize to the buyers and contacted eBay afterwards to confirm the glitch and successfully removed the negs and defects.
I get that some reasons are valid to why something physically can’t be shipped, and some are not. Buyers don’t and shouldn’t care which category your reason falls into. Not shipping a buyer their item should never go without penalty. Valid reasons are still not excusable and should be prone to penalty if only to serve as a lesson for a seller to do better. Keep better inventory, more frequent audits, stop dropping/breaking your stuff (or sell unbreakabke stuff), buy another item from competition to send to your buyer, or stop selling online.
I mentioned this before, I bought a piece of equipment for 2.5k here, it was about $300 cheaper than MSRP which isn’t far fetched. Seller makes a story saying why they can’t ship it to me something like the box is damaged. Then they lied and tried to trick me to formally ask to cancel. I just tell them no worries, just reinforce the box and I’m okay with it. Ship the item. Then he says the manufacturer year stated is the wrong year. And still I say I’m okay with that, ship the item. Then they came back with another poppycock reason and I basically called them out on it and said SHIP THE ITEM. They went ahead and filed a cancellation with the reason that “buyer asked to cancel.†I asked them about that and they became very unprofessional and rude accusing me of picking on them when other sellers on eBay cancel all the time. To be clear, I would pick on any seller that cancels for these lame reasons, not just them.
But those words they said still ring true to my ear “other sellers on eBay cancel all the time.†Are you contributing to this stereotype?
If you aren’t part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. If you cancel for whatever reason, you need to take your penalty and do better.
Whoops I forgot to say cancellation reasons of “buyer asked to cancel†and “problem with buyers address†are obviously excusable. The legitimate ones that is.
chapeau-noir
·6 months agoThough sometimes what one is supposed to do and actual reality clash.
gloryglorygifts
·6 months agoAll I will say is that the OP's bringing out a lot of guilt in sellers on here. I felt I had to justify my last out of stock to them, which upset me more than the customer.
The OP is just stating the obvious, which every seller on ebay should know. Seems he/she ran into a bunch of baddies and needed to vent. It's not an unpopular opinion. It's ebay policy.
purchase1212
·6 months agoI just went to look at tracking for an item I bought the other day and saw that it was cancelled and refunded.
as long as they said 'out of stock', I know they were 'punished' by ebay and do not feel the need to pile on with
negative feedback
I already bought another from different seller
mantle1951
·6 months agoThis happens to me around once a year and it is very frustrating(me seller). I sell newspaper obituaries and Willie Mays passed away a year ago or so. Nobody purchased it for months and finally somebody bought it, guess what I'm still looking for it. Everybody loses something from time to time, we are human. I always apologize profusely and offer a replacement or money back, most buyers accept a replacement(different obituary) In 25 years nobody has left me a negative. So far so good. I can appreciate your frustration though.
kibble-net
·6 months agoDo I need you to personally enter my apartment to verify that I simply made an inventory mistake and I literally don't have the item?
Give me a flippin' break. OP needs to take their meds.
luckythewinner
·6 months agoTOO MANY SELLERS are backing out of sales, claiming that they "cannot find the item" or that "the item is no longer available".
eBay has many policies that they cannot directly enforce. eBay cannot force a seller to ship an order, just as eBay cannot force a buyer to pay for an order.
Secondly, if you "can't find the item", than HOW DID YOU PHOTOGRAPH IT IN ORDER TO LIST IT IN THE FIRST PLACE
A flood, a fire, a theft, moving houses, mis-filing, spouses doing cleaning, children meddling, and accidental damage are just a few of the many reasons that sellers occasionally lose track of items. I have items that have been listed on eBay for 10 years and I understand the need for a periodic inventory review. Some sellers may not be that diligent.
momtoabeautifuldaughter
·6 months agoI have thousands of items in my store and some have been listed for years so yes it is possible to not be able to find an item you listed several years ago.
spreadlovelikefire
·6 months agoI actually just did this. I had a buyer buy an item that was similar to another item I had listed. The other item sold and I figured it out when I went to package the other item. So essentially I sent one person the wrong item then had to cancel the sale of the other item because I no longer had it. It was 100% my fault and human error. You know what I didn't do? I didn't lose any sleep over it. Why? Because accidents happen and most people understand that and move on with their lives. If you are a person who has never made a mistake in their life then I would think you would have more grace than this post. But something tells me you make mistakes all the time and you are very hard on yourself about it.
Unavailable member
·6 months agoSellers are human. We list items and forget where we put the widget. It happens. Did you get your money back? Great!! move on….your beating a dead horse because whomever you think you are talking to probably will never see your post.
meme6253
·6 months agoYelling at this forum is not necessary!
tobaccocardyahoo
·6 months agoYour feedback is meaningless.
Your report is meaningless.
The act of cancelling for out of stock is in itself a black mark against a seller and excess cancellations can have serious impact on a seller.
I have over 5k items listed on Ebay exclusively. I am organized but sometimes an item cannot be found, sometimes the Ebay system hiccups and a sold item remains for sale, sometimes a seller makes an error causing an incorrect number of items to be offered, and sometimes an item is damaged.
I cancel a few items per year.
grandmasjewelry123
·6 months agoI agree. Jewelry is small and while I have a system there are times when the item is misplaced because it's been years since it was photographed. Usually it's found but if the time to ship is 24 hours, sometimes it can't be found in that time frame so the money is refunded.
le-5262
·6 months agoI had that happen once...
a drinking glass.
I had to sit with a dink for a year...
see it every day for 365 days.
Sorry that happened...
I'd probably be steamed too.
atle81
·6 months agoDoes that apply for items that get sold, and you have them in your hands and you drop it, resulting it gets dented or broken?
soh.maryl
·6 months agoPeople make mistakes.
pickapaper
·6 months ago@leehurst
You sound angry. Did you buy something for a cheap price and the seller said they couldn't find it and it made you mad?
If this is what happened, there isn't much you can do about it. eBay cannot force a seller to ship an item. But they can give the seller a defect for not having the item in stock. If the seller used a different excuse other than "out of stock" for cancelling such as "buyer requested cancellation" or "problem with address", you can report the seller for that. If a seller has too many of those "out of stock" defects, eBay will take the appropriate action.
slati_2013
·6 months ago"Secondly, if you "can't find the item", than HOW DID YOU PHOTOGRAPH IT IN ORDER TO LIST IT IN THE FIRST PLACE??? SURELY YOU KNEW WHERE IT WAS AT THAT TIME. IF YOU LIST THE ITEM, YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR PROVIDING THAT ITEM."
Hmmmm. I hope your job does not involve logic. I have taken pictures of items, listed them and years later someone buys it and I spend the next few hours trying to figure exactly where it could be. I eventually do find the item in most cases, but a couple of times I could not and offered the buyer a more expensive item than they were originally buying. And after all that, i find the item and go "aaah, I now remember putting it there".
So yes, you can photograph and item and lose track of it. As for everything else you have written know sellers make decisions on what is in their best interests. You are assuming lots of things as to why your sale was not completed. Stuff happens.
toomuchstuffagain35
·6 months agoSometimes things can take a while to sell on here. If something doesn't sell until 5 years after it was listed, life events may have happened meantime, like moving house, disasters like weather events impacting the household, boxes getting misplaced, etc etc.
Of course the seller had the item at the time it was listed, and 'can't find it' doesn't mean they no longer have it, it just means they may need a little time to find it.
annadryl
·6 months agoFeel better?
johnrj1226
·6 months agoDid you know a Neg FB for a seller does NOT affect the sellers selling performance rating and will disappear off their FB chart 365 days after receiving it.??
rugerskick
·6 months agoThats not the whole story.
First, no seller wants a negative. Many work hard to make sure they dont get any. And now ebay leaves them even if its just bad feelings, doesnt matter if they are factually wrong.
Second as you said, it takes a year for one to finally go off the fb rating. Thats a very long time. And the ratings history are permanent, you can still look up them up even after a year.
Third only buyers can leave negs. Sellers cant leave accurate fb if it isn't positive. Thats not fair either but we deal with it. Theres two sides in a transaction and only one side can ding the other.
inhawaii
·6 months ago@leehurst
Thank you for that informatrion.
I will take the appropriate action.
leehurst
OP6 months agoYOU are NOT ALLOWED to BRIBE, INTIMIDATE OR OTHERWISE TRY AND PUSH OTHER PEOPLE TO CHANGE NEGATIVE FEEDBACK unless that feedback was left in error.
If you are NOT SELLING IN GOOD FAITH, IF YOU BACK OUT OF SALES, IF YOU DON'T SEND THE EXACT ITEM YOU DESCRIBE OR PLAY BAIT AND SWITCH, IF YOU PLAY ANY GAMES WITH BUYERS, YOU EARN the NEGATIVE FEEDBACK YOU GET.
Negative feedback is how buyers REGULATE INDUSTRY. If sellers abuse us, we have the RIGHT to warn other buyers of this abuse. Treat your buyers right. That is how you get positive feedback. Otherwise, live with your shame.
inhawaii
·6 months ago@leehurst
Thank you for that informatrion.
I will take the appropriate action.
jonathanbrightlight
·6 months agoAre you posting this because of the negative feedback you left recently that had the text removed? Whatever it said, eBay would not have removed it unless it clearly violated eBay policy. I guess you can take comfort in the fact that the negative itself remains, and still affects that seller’s feedback percentage.
le-5262
·6 months agoI have never had that experience on either side...
good luck
meme6253
·6 months agoOnce again, Yelling at this forum is not neccessary!
pickapaper
·6 months ago@leehurst
You are coming here and yelling/venting because you are obviously frustrated/angry/upset.
Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do about it. No one here can help you. We are not eBay; we are just buyers and sellers like yourself. All we can do is sympathize and that's not worth much.
albertabrightalberta
·6 months ago@leehurst
This is the third thread you've started today about the same poor experience.
You are letting what you believe is a bad seller take too much space in your brain! Let it go. You negged the seller and did your "job" to warn others.
Now let it go and find another of the same item from a better seller.
Your blood pressure will thank you.
ten_o_nine
·6 months agoeBay only removes feedback text when it violates their guidelines. If you had kept your comments objective and factual, the wording would still be there alongside the rating.
bonanza125
·6 months ago@leehurst
We are not your customers or sellers who you make purchases from. Chances are non of us have had no interaction with you other than through this community. You do not have to warn us about anything. Majority of the regulars in this community understand feedback policy by the book. You are not talking to folks who don't know policy. We are here to help you with any question or advice.
luckythewinner
·6 months agoeBay has a feedback revision request form, and there is nothing in the policy that limits its use to "feedback left in error".
https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/leaving-feedback-buyers/viewing-responding-feedback-buyers?id=4102