Hi there. I'm sorry your order was canceled. I definitely understand your disappointment and frustration, as I've had more orders canceled on me than I care to count and it never gets any less frustrating (just today, I had a third-party Amazon order of mine--for something I'd been searching for for over a year--get canceled).
That said, in this type of situation, I think it's important to be a bit more charitable in your judgment and have reasonable expectations of the seller--especially since many, if not most, sellers on eBay are not professional retailers/sellers by any means and are just normal people looking to make a quick buck by selling their old things. Correct me if I'm wrong, but from your post, it sounds like what happened is that the item sold at auction for a $1 plus shipping, but the shipping rate that was advertised in the listing (and subsequently paid for by you) was much lower than the actual rate and would not fully cover the cost of shipping. Upon realizing this, the seller reached out to tell you about the issue--I think you said the real, adjusted shipping rate would be about $15--and then re-listed the item as a fixed-price listing with a shipping cost of $30, which was much more than the calculated $15. If I understand you correctly, you are upset because the seller won't go through with the sale at the original price with the too-low shipping rate or even at the price with the adjusted shipping rate, and because the seller is not willing to sell at either of those lower price points (which you feel entitled to because you won the auction at one of those prices), you went so far as to accuse the seller of being a scammer. Just want to make sure I'm understanding you correctly.
Okay, so I don't know if you also sell on eBay or only buy, but I want to point out a few things that you might be unaware of if you're a buyer only and that I think are important to consider. As you probably already know, eBay charges a pretty steep premium for selling on their website. These seller's fees are made up of two parts: a nonrefundable, flat $0.30 fee per order, and a fee based on a percentage of total sale (including shipping and taxes--the latter of which is exceptionally ridiculous if you ask me), which ranges from about 12.5% to 15% depending on the category of the item. So, basically, to put that in context, when you were insisting that the seller go through with the sale at $1 plus $15 shipping, what you were really doing, in essence, is asking the seller to pay for the privilege of sending you their stuff. But really though. At that $16 price point, they'd be paying eBay about $2, in addition to the time and money it'd cost them to buy all the packing materials, pack the item up, and drive it to the post office. And oh yeah, I almost forgot: forfeit their stuff on top of that.
So yeah, I don't really blame the seller for wanting to cancel your order and re-list the item at a price where, at the every least, they're not losing money, and I think most people (including yourself) would do the same in their shoes. And, frankly, I think it's a bit unreasonable, and entitled even, for you to expect that of them, especially when we're talking about casual sellers and not professional sellers/retailers. That doesn't mean you have to, or even should, buy it at the new price; I just think you should cut the seller some slack and move on instead of whining about not getting the item for so cheaply that it costs the seller. I'd also like to point out that eBay defaults an auction's starting bid at $0.99 more often than not, so it's definitely not outside the realm of possibility that the seller just overlooked setting a custom starting bid, or thought they had but didn't. Should the seller have been more careful when they listed the auction to make sure the shipping rate was correct and that the starting bid was a price at which they'd be willing to sell? Most definitely. And does their mistake give you the opening you need to go after them for bad selling practices? Sure. But I think the real question here is not if you can, but whether you should. And I think that's probably a no in this case. Everyone makes mistakes, and since eBay allows buyers to cancel a transaction at pretty much any point up until the item's been shipped without providing the seller with any good explanation, I think it's only fair that we grant sellers those same considerations--especially when they do have a good reason for doing so (e.g., they lose money in the transaction), but also because it's their **bleep** to begin with.
Obviously, I haven't read the seller's messages to you or yours to them, so I can't really comment one way or another on whether their conduct in their communication with you justifies a strike against them, but judging from the combative tone of your post and what I perceive as your inability to see the situation from the seller's POV (see: labeling the seller's reasons for canceling as their "sob story"), I'm sure the seller would take issue with your conduct as well. I just think that if all sellers and buyers could just try to be a bit more understanding, then situations like this could easily be avoided.
