Winning a cancelled auction?

[willynillywilliam]

I was in this auction for 5 days. It came down to the last hour, which was supposed to finish at 8 PM, and no one was topping my bid, but at 7:38 PM, the bid finished with it saying "you won the auction", which I found strange. Only to find out that it ended because it was cancelled under "out of stock or damaged". 

I had to message them FIRST to see if this was a technical error or not. Gotten back with a "Hi, I had to cancel the order, but eBay support wouldn’t let me do it until I ended the listing. For some reason, they don’t have a way to cancel it without accepting the current bid first. Apologies for the inconvenience".

I'm *bleep*. They could've had the courtesy to message me FIRST about cancelling, and could have provided a better reason to cancel. Is there anything I can do about this? I had Buyer Protection, but not sure if it has any added benefits.

[papso22 · Accepted solution]

Buyer protection is not for this scenario. 

Your seller is correct in what he told you about the ebay processes  but that doesn't make his actions necessarily right.  On the other hand if he had cancelled after the auction ended and you had paid you would have had to wait for the refund. 

The reason for cancelling is one of ebay's set ones.

You can still leave feedback. 

[john1297576]

Using reason, out of stock, seller gets a damaging defect on his account, and if any fees payable they are not refunded.

[tommystrezures]

Also you cannot cancel an auction in the last 12 hours of it being live, so the seller was correct in saying they couldn't deal with it until the listing had finished.

[plpmr]

The seller could have cancelled the bids while the auction was live.

[tommystrezures]

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@plpmr wrote:

The seller could have cancelled the bids while the auction was live.

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I am not completely sure thats the case, the seller has to ask the bidder to retract, I am not sure as the seller you can do that in the last 12 hours. I am sure I have had this issue albeit years ago so things may have changed.

EDIT: This is the only thing I can see on it.

[plpmr]

bids can be cancelled by a seller at any time -

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/selling/listings/selling-auctions/cancelling-bid?id=4140&st=3&pos=1&quer...

[willynillywilliam]

Thanks for the feedback guys! While the seller has not responded to any of my follow-up messages thoroughly, other than a vague apology, it's just one of those sellers you come across on the website, sadly.

In good news, I was able to acquire a Steam Deck from another seller who was fantastic in the process. I'll leave a neutral review on the last seller and hope he doesn't send any underhanded messages.

Thanks once again, happy spending!