Buyer paid for an item and within ten minutes wants to cancel

[4608andrew]

I have sold an item today at the end of a ten day auction. The buyer paid and then almost immediately asked to cancel. Claims the item cant be delivered in time as they are leaving the UK tomorrow. I am reluctant to cancel as it doesn't sound true. I wonder what they are up to. Any thoughts?

[tressygirl]

Personally,  I would always cancel and refund.

If someone doesn't want an item and you refuse the cancellation, you are allowed to,  there is a danger of either the buyer will not pay so you have to wait 4 days to cancel.

Or, the buyer receives the item sends it back possibly badly damaged,  for a case of item not as described.  This you cannot refuse,  and could end up fully refunding and receiving back a damaged unsaleable item.

Frustrating, annoying yep all of that, but end of the day accept the cancellation refund if they've paid, and relist the item,   blocking this person from returning and ruining anymore of your sales.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/bmgt/BuyerBlock?

@4608andrew 

[dancewithadingo]

Good Evening Andrew

While your buyer's excuse is ridiculous you really should cancel and refund immediately.  Relist the sunglasses and hope that they sell next time around. That said this time of the year is not a good time to be selling them. 

[twin--turbo]

yep, if you refuse they will just abuse. 

[kath3735_wxmjn]

and put them on your blocked bidder list!

[insidethe93]

Good advice.

But the buyer's excuse might be true. If it was an outright lie, you'd think they'd've come up with a more plausible excuse.

Hubby and certain friends have had to travel abroad quite often for their jobs, on less than a day's notice (once hubby was sent to the USA for a fortnight on 2 hours' notice). One job I had required me to look after a wardrobe of clothes and a suitcase of toiletries, kept in the office, for my boss in case he had to travel overnight; he didn't go abroad while I worked for him but could've had to.

I've had to travel abroad on less than a day's notice, nothing to do with work e.g. to say goodbye to someone whose life support machine was to be turned off. After having to drive 500+ miles with only a loo stop when my father-in-law fell ill about to die, I learned to keep toiletries in my car in case (and to ensure it was plane walk-on weight). Not that unusual as people get older - I'm at the stage when family, friends and now former colleagues are dying left right and centre. A brother-in-law had to drop everything to travel from abroad immdiately to see his mother before she died. A second cousin would've done likewise except that Covid rules forbade him from entering Britain. Not all bad news - a friend came home from abroad on a few hours' notice to be a witness at a surprise wedding.

[dancewithadingo]

Good Morning Inside

Having done jury service twice I am hardened to the nonsense/excuses/lies that people come up with and thus take a cynical approach to certain other people. Suffice it to say we found both defendants guilty.

Sorry to hear about your problems let's hope that 2025 is less traumatic for you.

[4608andrew]

Thanks, I have asked ebay to refund, reported the buyer to ebay and blocked the buyer - and told them why.Moving on...

[4608andrew]

My buyer says he/she is a tourist in the UK. If they were really leaving today I think they probably knew that before yesterday afternoon.I have asked ebay to refund, blocked him/her and reported them to ebay in case others have had the same experience with this person.Moving on 

[markybears_blu-ray_blowout]

I have 3 or 4, sometimes more, immediate cancellation requests at the end of my Sunday-night auctions nigh on every week. It's just a game to a lot of users. The items will sell on a re-list the following week, but what a waste of time for myself and genuinely interested buyers.

[dancewithadingo]

Good Morning Andrew

Well done. You did the right thing,the correct way.  Good luck with the relist.

[*vyolla*]

There is absolutely no point in refusing to accept a cancellation if the buyer requests one, but I do think that there should be a system in place whereby if a buyer wants to cancel an auction win of an item sold by a private seller, they should receive some kind of defect against their account, else this is so open to abuse.

[insidethe93]

You're probably right.

You can change flights (national and international), both bring forward or delay, by requesting a carrier to let you know if they unexpectedly have last-minute seat availability, so you can travel early or later as wished. A brother-in-law regularly does this. Many don't realise you can do this and/or don't have the funds to do it; easy to do nowadays thanks to the internet.

Anyway, glad it's worked out for you. Just sounding a small note of caution: people and circumstances are so various that you can't always jump to the correct conclusion. The majority of people on eBay are honest and unexpected things happen. I remember reading in an eBay discussion thread years ago that to sell on eBay it's a good idea to have a good safety net of both money and time/patience 🙂

[eastern-lights]

We can block serial non-payers, it is a shame sellers cannot block serial cancellers. Perhaps those that have cancelled more than five purchases in the last year?

Incidentally, not necessarily well known, you can see how many times someone has cancelled their own bids (though unfortunately no count is taken of how many times buyers ask the seller to cancel for them.): Go into their feedback, select “see all feedback”, select “received as a buyer” and over on the right below “detailed seller ratings” is the number of times they have cancelled in the last year. Mine and most people’s will read “Bid retractions (last 12 months): 0”. The worst I have seen is 58. I don’t know if it is worth reporting these abusers?

[jma2815]

Sellers can block any buyer for any reason they fancy. Which is good enough. 

You’re correct that there’s no ‘strike’ for asking to cancel as a buyer though. 

[eastern-lights]

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@jma2815 wrote:

Sellers can block any buyer for any reason they fancy. Which is good enough. 

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We can block non payers based on their behaviour with other sellers. With serial cancellers we have to suffer them ourselves first before we can block them.