Seller cancelled my order saying they didn't mean to allow shipping to USA but the aucon allowed it.

[antigen42]

I just had a question about something that happened to me on eBay recently.

I made a Buy It Now purchase of a coin from a seller in the UK, and I had no problems paying for it or anything else.  I got an email later saying my order was cancelled and I was refunded, with the reason being "Something was wrong with the buyer's shipping address".  It seemed like this reason meant I had made a mistake in my address, so OK, I'll just go correct the mistake and then they can send it.  When I went to check on what address I had given them, however, I saw that it was perfect, with no mistakes, which confused me.

I contacted the seller to see what was going on, and they told me that they didn't mean to list it as for sale to the USA and they wouldn't make enough money on it if they had to ship it to me there (even though I was paying £13 shipping in the auction to ship one coin the size of a quarter).  They then offered to sell me 20 of that same coin at the same price per coin that they wanted for just one in their auction, saying I 'could sell off the other 19 that I didn't want on eBay', or something to that effect.  I even offered to pay more for the one coin or buy a smaller number of coins, like 5 or 10, so they could make money on it, even though I felt I shouldn't have had to do that.  He declined every offer I made, saying he would only sell me 20 at the original price he listed for just one.

I know that as a buyer, I'm not even allowed to cancel a BID that I made if I later don't like the price I agreed to, much less an entire completed sale, so it seems like there should be some kind of similar rule for the seller.  I know I can't force them to mail me actual items, but is there anything else I can do about it?

I don't know if I can leave feedback on a cancelled sale, and even if I can, I don't want to get a negative feedback on my 100% account because they retaliate against me leaving them a warranted negative feedback, even though I didn't do anything wrong in this situation.  Can eBay remove negative feedback that was left for retaliatory reasons instead of valid ones?  I tried everything I could think of to make some kind of deal before I got eBay involved, but they refused every offer I made. 

I don't want to ever have to get eBay involved unless it is as a last resort, and in this case I'm not sure what options I have.  I'm not sure if they are able to cancel my sale like this or if it is against some kind of policy, and I'm not sure what I can do if it is against policy.

All of our conversations have been through eBay messages, so eBay should be able to see everything we have said to each other regarding this.

Thank you for any help that anyone can provide!

[kathiec]

@antigen42 

You have no options other than reporting the seller for using a false reason to cancel the sale. You can do that here. Beyond that eBay has no way to force the seller to honor the sale.

You may be able to leave feedback, although I'm not sure if you can if the seller refunded. Buyers haven't been able to get negative feedback since 2008, so there's no worry about retaliation.

[monroe67]

"I know that as a buyer, I'm not even allowed to cancel a BID that I made if I later don't like the price I agreed to, much less an entire completed sale, so it seems like there should be some kind of similar rule for the seller.  I know I can't force them to mail me actual items, but is there anything else I can do about it? . . . . I don't want to ever have to get eBay involved unless it is as a last resort, and in this case I'm not sure what options I have.  I'm not sure if they are able to cancel my sale like this or if it is against some kind of policy, and I'm not sure what I can do if it is against policy."

". . . is there anything else I can do about it?"   No.  eBay can't force a seller to send anything to anybody.  You did get a refund.  That appears to be the best you can hope for from that seller.  

You don't say whether the listing was on the US site, ebay.com, or the UK site, ebay.co.uk.  I don't know how different the two sites are on the question of seller non-performance. 

There are rules for sellers.  This one will probably get a defect on his record.  Enough of those, and he will lose his eBay listing/selling rights.  It also sounds like the seller is kinda new to the eBay game, especially since he admitted he would lose money by shipping the one coin to you, and that he wanted more money.  And that suggestion that you buy 20 coins -- oh, please.  Just plain crass!  Essentially, he violated the terms of his own listing if it said he will ship to addresses outside the UK.