Sellers cancelling orders saying "buyer requested" or "problem with address" to avoid defects

[tracktowntreasures]

1) I would like to know if MY ACCOUNT is affected in any way by these cancellations.  I've had several of these in the last week out of 40 purchases for my business. 

2) I would like to leave appropriate feedback.  I understand stuff happens, but I didn't even get a message saying something was wrong or a reason.  Just cancelled and refunded with the lie for a reason.  I have been absolutely unable to find a way to leave feedback.  Does anyone know how or if it is possible now?  Thanks in advance for any insight!

[kathiec]

Your account isn't affected. You can certainly leave feedback. Your feedback page should have a link to every transaction for which you haven't left feedback. But you should also report the seller here. The seller selects those reasons to avoid an account defect. Reporting them gives them the defect they've earned.

[tracktowntreasures]

I have reported with the link you provided.  I assure you the "leave feedback" option is non-existent on the orders that were cancelled for bogus reasons.  I appreciate your help on that link!

[mudshark61369]

@tracktowntreasures 

"...  Just cancelled and refunded with the lie for a reason. I have been absolutely unable to find a way to leave feedback. Does anyone know how or if it is possible now? Thanks in advance for any insight"!

The reason you cannot leave a feedback is because of the invalid reason for cancelling that the seller chose, and the refund having already been issued.

I happened to notice the time stamp for your reply to kathiec,  that was pretty quick if this was the first time you used the Report option.   Below are instructions you may want to use if you didn't report the seller properly.

First open the link you were given.

On the first page use the blue Report seller button.

Next page select seller has violated an ebay policy > Continue

Next Pg. enter the seller's username, select Other, then in the text box write;

"The seller used an invalid reason for cancelling the transaction. Check my messages I did not request canceling the transaction. The seller selected that option to avoid paying the fees for cancelling".

You will never be told about the outcome of the report.  However, ebay takes losing their fees when a transaction is cancelled for an inappropriate reason seriously.  The seller will receive a defect on their account, and have to pay the fees for the cancellation. You still will not be able to leave feedback though. 

[woodland_gnome]

The seller should have automatically gotten a "defect" when s/he cancelled the transaction, but the lie s/he told blamed you and avoided that. "Defects" are 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).

Report the lie at https://www.ebay.com/help/action?topicId=4850 I don't know if eBay will do anything about it (give the seller the defect s/he should have gotten if s/he had taken the blame him/herself, keep the cancellation blaming you from counting toward your Open Transaction Limits--back when eBay actually published details of how those work it said that buyer requested cancellations counted but did not elaborate further on whether it went solely on the seller's word or if it checked for messages supporting that the buyer actually requested it) but it's relatively easy to do it that way.

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.