Ebay dropping the ball again

[lars]

I recently purchased an Ebay item for a great price, but it wasn't outrageously great, not "a score", so to speak. I patiently waited for the item to arrive. Several days after the estimated arrival date, I began to wonder what had happened. Then I got an email that the order had been cancelled and I was going to receive a refund (none of which I had been contacted about or authorized). I contacted the seller and all they said was that the item was now magically "damaged", so they never shipped it.
I'm calling BS on that one, especially since I offered to receive the item anyway since I know I could fix it.
No, what most likely happened is that they decided what I paid wasn't enough in their mind and they sold it to somebody else for more money (they do own a pawn shop as well). I opened a case to explain that I didn't ask for or want the refund, but Ebay did nothing about it. The seller went back to not responding to any messages; Ebay closed the case and will not allow it to be appealed even though their site says, "you can appeal a decision within 30 days of the case being closed."
I tried Ebay's "we'll call you" option. When I got the call, it glitched out my cellphone and does not allow you to use your keypad to respond and just hangs up (convenient for them).

So as a review:  As a seller, if you at some point determine you didn't get as much money as you want for an item, you can just randomly cancel a completed order weeks afterwards without ever contacting the buyer or explaining anything. You also are allowed to randomly access a buyer's Paypal account, without their authorization, to dump the funds back into their account. Oh...and Ebay does nothing.

[fair.child]

Very sad story, sorry to hear that. Mind to tell us what were trying to buy?

[lars]

Just a guitar pedal, and a fairly cheap one at that. I don't understand why they got so weird about it, but again, when people "think" they found gold, then all bets are off.
I can tell it was that typical scared-to-lose-even-$1-on-an-item mentality that a lot of people are prisoners to these days. They're afraid somebody might make a couple bucks off of buying and reselling something, so they inflate the prices up front just in case it's worth more than they thought.

[fair.child]

I hear you. My principle is taking the business in a right way. I know we need to earn an extra profit out of sales but even just break even or $5 loss, I won't bite it. Seriously, I don't understand why eBay becomes such a horrible place to buy sell trade these days. I just bought another Marantz PMD222 with Power Supply for $80 and luckily the seller shipped and responded quickly. This is really rare these days.

[movinginslomo]

My dad has been selling a large collection of c-64 games on ebay and has had all kinds of issues. Granted he has made $290(us) on single games that aren't even working, but that's the collector's market for ya. At one point they tried to freeze his paypal account. Spent all day on the phone yelling at paypal (who are owned by ebay supposedly?) what a mess. My sympathies

[EBRAddict]

Auctions can be a crap shoot for sellers. I've sold around ~50 items since last October on both eBay and Reverb (long overdue decluttering) and have had very good experiences. I've under-priced some things because I didn't research well enough but what did I lose? $20? $50 maybe? Not enough to cry over.

If you want some bad experiences on eBay, try selling anything made by Apple. It brings the kooks and scammers out of the woodwork.

[lars]

I've under-priced some things because I didn't research well enough but what did I lose? $20? $50 maybe?

Yeah, I figured once they learned what they had, they probably thought they would get way more for it. The reality is that it's not valuable by any stretch of the imagination; they typically do not sell for more than $25 over what I paid.
The seller had plenty of opportunities to end the auction early, edit, review, etc. Once it sells with a completed transaction, IMHO it's exactly like if you went into a store and bought something at the marked price. The owner of the store can't run outside, grab it out of your hands and throw your money back in your face if they decide "oh, that's damaged, you don't want it".
But that's what happened.

*3/3/19 - LOL, through some weird glitch in the system, I was able to leave feedback even though the original transaction was cancelled two weeks ago. No, my experience was not "positive"...