Seller withdraws multiple items after receiving bids

[justme41]

I have been following, and bidding, on several items listed on eBay.  The seller starts the auctions

at .01 and there is no reserve.  Usually they are 7 day auctions.  When the auction gets down to

one day left, the seller withdraws the item, stating it is no longer available.  Now this same seller

has these items listed elsewhere with "Buy it Now".  He also relists the same item, again starting

at .01, but will once again withdraw the item if he does not get what he wants in the bidding.

I thought that if I bid I am entering into a legal contract to buy an item.  It should be the same for

a seller.  If he has a reserve he should list it.  In these cases he obviously still has the item in new

condition, so why is he able to withdraw from my contract?  Can eBay do something about this?

There are more than one individual (ads are almost identical except for the seller's ID) doing the

same thing from the same products.

[mudshark61369]

@justme41,

It sounds to me like you are trying to bid on china based sellers items.  They get away with many more things than a domestic seller can.  A seller can cancel bids and end auctions early, if there are more than 12 hours left in the listing, and for most doing it often can lead to being sanctioned, by ebay.   Very high volume sellers and new sellers are the ones who do that most often. 

Using Price: lowest first as your search option, leads to sellers who end items early or multi variation listings where the "low priced" item is not the item in the title. 

[missjen831]

Actually all sellers can get away with this and it has nothing to do with where they are located. The only “sanction” they face is being charged final value fees. So it’s not true that Chinese sellers can away with this more than other sellers.

[kaelykat]

To cancel a listing sellers must follow this policy. They are charged a fee for this. If they do this often it leads to limits and restrictions being put on their accounts.

You can report the sellers if they do this a lot, but eBay won't tell you what actions they will take (if any) to fix it.

I would definitely vote with my wallet and not buy from these sellers and find one that is more honest.

[airsheep]

It only seems that Chinese sellers do it more frequently, maybe because they are selling a lot here, and whatever sanctions ebay imposes on them for misbehavior don't seem to bother them.

[justme41]

Not China:  At least they have US addresses and supposedly warehouse in CA and KY.

[chrysylys]

Still could easily be China, and yes, they play by different rules, published or not.

[7606dennis]

The seller would end up having to pay FVF although I don't think it would matter much to them if the item started at 1¢. However, you should be aware that there is actually no such thing as a non-reserve auction on eBay since all auctions require a mandatory starting bid which would act as a reserve anyway.

[justme41]

Checked a little further.  It is Chinese posting.  Finally got through to eBay Help and they are

investigating.  I only had 19 bid cancellations from them in two days.