Seller wants Buyer to request cancellation

[colineberry]

I purchased a Buy it Now item 10 days ago using PayPal.  Seller never shipped and has told me via EBay Messages that he can't find the item and won't be able to send it to me.  However, Seller is asking me (Buyer) to request to cancel the transaction.  This seems screwy to me.  Why is Seller asking me to cancel?  Shouldn't the Seller cancel and refund my payment?  If I request to cancel will it reflect negatively on me?  I have paid and would still accept the item if Seller would send it but he says he can't find it.

[ebooksdiva]

The seller should cancel for being out of stock, so you can get a refund. But it sounds like he doesn’t want to do that because he will get a defect on his seller account when he does that.

When is the last estimated date of delivery? You should open an item not received case when the estimated date of delivery passes by one day. 
Next to the  order in your purchase history there  is a drop down menu select “I didn’t receive it”, follow the prompts. Your seller should respond within 2 days with either tracking information or a refund. If neither of those occurs then on day 3 you can go back to the case and ask eBay to step in for your refund. 
The seller will get a well deserved defect on his seller metrics for not shipping plus a defect for not shipping with in his handling time. 
Good luck. 

[tobaccocardyahoo]

The seller is asking you to cancel because he is trying to avoid having the cancellation affect his Seller Level.

Cancelling will not reflect negatively on you.

You need not follow his request, but if you are feeling kind, you could.

I sometimes ask, and tell the buyer if I find the item, I will let him know and he can order it again. I usually do find the item eventually and the buyer usually buys.

With about 5,000 items active, it is unlikely that I can avoid sometimes having to cancel.

[campanaelia]

I personally would request the cancellation for the seller since they gave you the courtesy of communicating with you first. The seller will get a defect on their performance if you refuse and have to say it is OOS.

Think of it this way, if you need to cancel a purchase, I'm sure you would hope the seller does the right thing to save you an unpaid item strike.

[kathiec]

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@campanaelia wrote:

I personally would request the cancellation for the seller since they gave you the courtesy of communicating with you first. The seller will get a defect on their performance if you refuse and have to say it is OOS.

Think of it this way, if you need to cancel a purchase, I'm sure you would hope the seller does the right thing to save you an unpaid item strike.

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The seller has earned their defect, plain and simple. Perhaps next time they'll actually locate the item before they sell it (unless they were hoping for more money and conveniently 'lost' it). As for the logic of avoiding strikes, I've been on eBay for 27 years and never asked to cancel a purchase. So that might not be the trade-off you're imagining it to be.

[nobody*s_perfect]

As noted in other posts, the seller wants to avoid getting an  "Out of stock" defect point on his account.  If you request the cancellation, it will not reflect badly on your account and you'll get your refund sooner.

[mudshark61369]

@colineberry,

I agree with kathiec's reply, unless you check the seller's feedback profile page and find that they have either not sold anything before, or haven't sold anything in over a year.  If either of those is true, then it is very likely that the real reason for the cancellation was they did not know that ebay places a 21-30 day hold on all new or returning sellers first few payments, and they did not know how to deal with it. 

    All they saw was that on their account was the payment status was marked as Pending so they didn't think the payment had cleared, and may have taken your message asking about shipping as an attempt to scam them somehow. That could also be the reason why they haven't refunded you.   Your seller could have a 100% rating and a fair number of feedback but all for buying not selling, which is just one reason why you should check the feedback profile of any seller you intend to buy from and not go by a feedback percentage alone.

  If this is not a new/returning seller then your reply to he cancellation request should be something like:

"I expected to receive the item I ordered and paid for within the time frame given. I am not responsible for you losing items you have listed on ebay".