eBay

Anonymous · ‎02-09-2020

I probably should ask somewhere else but you lot know me here so...can a seller have an item on auction and at the same time selling it somewhere else outside ebay?

dark_castle1 · ‎02-09-2020

according to Ebay rules doing so is not allowed and if doing so you are very naughty

cee-dee · ‎02-09-2020

I think people have done that since day one. You used to see sellers saying so in their listing.

If it was sold "elsewhere" the seller just ended the ebay listing.

It's life Jim, but not as WE know it.
Live long and prosper.

m25jet · ‎02-09-2020

According to eBay's rules you're not allowed to list something for sale on the site that you've already advertised elsewhere, although that doesn't necessarily stop people from doing it. One of the risks of doing so is that if you were to advertise something on eBay as well as advertising it elsewhere, then ended the listing to do an off-eBay sale and eBay found out about it, your selling account would be sanctioned as a result, and you may even end up with a temporary selling ban.

Anonymous · ‎02-09-2020

Thank you guys, I thought that was the case, but wondered if the rules might have changed over the years.

I won an item yesterday, no other bidders, so I waited to pay but it didn't appear on my purchase list and next thing it got relisted.

I contacted the seller to ask what happened. I shouldn't have done as it spoiled my mood and it ended up in a lot of messages to get to the truth. It had been sold already and all kinds of excuses. She did apologies though, but that is no good to me when people just lied to me.

She just dug herself a deeper and deeper hole and ended up saying it wasn't my business where else she sold and that she had said sorry enough times and was calling it a day.

Well although I'm normally the peace keeper type this just got me riled up, so I thought I ask you lot so I can message her one more time. And then I will move on, but I just hate it when people are not up front about things. I won't grass her up, but maybe she will learn something from the whole affair.

So rant over. Happy days.

cee-dee · ‎02-09-2020

If it was sold "elsewhere", how come it was re-listed?

It's life Jim, but not as WE know it.
Live long and prosper.

m25jet · ‎02-09-2020

Although the seller reneged on the deal and failed to send you the item, if she hasn't refunded your money by the time the latest estimated date of delivery has passed open up an Item Not Received case via the eBay Resolution Centre. If after eight days the matter has still not been resolved and you still haven't received the item nor received a total refund then escalate the matter to eBay for them to review and make a decision upon. With the exception of cases whereby the seller can provide proof that the item was definitely successfully delivered to the address provided on the PayPal payment notification eBay will always decide an Item Not Received case in the buyer's favour, so if you do have to escalate the case then eBay will end up forcing the refund, in which case the seller's account will be hit with a defect and you'll get a total refund.

Whatever the final outcome of this case, you're still entitled to leave feedback for the seller in relation to this transaction so leave her some appropriate feedback in relation to how you felt the transaction went, although don't say anything that suggest that you had to open an eBay case to get your money back if you do indeed end up having to do that, as the seller could use that comment as a reason to get your feedback removed from her selling history.

Should you leave the seller a negative feedback that would also hit her account with another defect - if she picks up too many defects then eBay will initially give her listings lower visibility in the search results, and if she keeps on racking up a lot of defects in relation to her selling activities then eBay may well decide to prevent her from selling on the site altogether.

Anonymous · ‎02-09-2020

CD I think it got automatically re- listed. (She said she did not re-list it). I immediately put it on my watch list again. I thought at first something had gone wrong at the very end with me bidding on the item. I sniped it at 6 seconds and I was the highest bidder. There were no other bidders and it should have been won by me. Normally you will get the pay in now button to appear, but nothing happened so I went to the end of my watch list where it would show as being sold. But it showed that is had not sold and that the seller re-listed the item. As I really wanted it I put it again on my watch list and it was set for a 9 day auction again.

I then contacted the seller in case something else happened which might have been ebays fault, so I wasn't really on the war path. Just asking a question. Only then the seller started with coming with excuses that sounded false to me, so I kept asking to find out what was really going on.

m25jet, I never got to the stage of paying her as I apparently never won the auction. And never could have even if I had bid earlier. She had sold the item elsewhere but hadn't changed the listing on ebay...too busy at work, didn't live with her phone in her hand etc, etc...And indeed all that could even be true, but it is the lying and twisting that gets up my nose. I can handle the truth no matter how bad it is, just never lie to me. It gets me a little angry.

I left her a message that what she did was against ebays policy and the rest is up to her.

theelench · ‎03-09-2020

Auctions that end with a sale usually go to the bottom of my Watch List with "Out of Stock" on them. If I think there's anything fishy gone on I check the search where I found the item, on the "Sold / Completed" page. If it sold it would show your bid, if your bid was too late, it would show as "Completed" (but without the green Sold price)

I wonder if, as you say you felt her excuses were untrue, she ended the auction early. Knowing it had a Watcher, with seconds to go and not wanting the item to sell for one "sniped" bid. If that's even possible, so close to the end, she will be charged the FVF for ending an auction with a bid, as ebay found her a buyer that she has disappointed.

Going back to your question about selling an item elsewhere, that is also listed on ebay.

The last time I read the policy (years ago) it was cleverly worded to give the impression that this is not allowed, without stating that it definitely is not. The section starts by saying it covers things a seller must not do and those things include listing elsewhere while an item is for sale on ebay. But then continued with some waffled qualifiers. Like, if you do not have enough stock to fulfill all the orders or if by doing so you risk disappointing a buyer on ebay. My interpretation has always been that the real "crime" (understandably) is to disappoint a buyer on ebay. As you found, to think you had won / bought an item only to find it snatched away, leaves a bad taste and gives the site a bad reputation.

But it can be done without any risk of disappointing an ebay buyer and to my mind, without breaking ebays rules.