eBay Advice

[Mike]

I bought a coin on eBay on 24 Sept, 2005 Proof Sovereign.  Paid for it there and then and after a week chased buyer as it wasn't dispatched, Received a response a few days later apologising and saying that they were away and would deal with it when they got back.  Today I received a message saying he could no longer complete the sale as the item, inferring that item was stolen.

He refunded me the money, but has effectively had a 3.5 week interest free loan and can now walk away from a contract to sell seemingly without any repercussions!

Any views?  

[Shinus73]

Report him to eBay and be grateful you got your money back. 

Not much else to be done really.

[HelpingHands]

Some people list items they don't intend to sell to borrow money for a short period.

A better rate that a payday loan.

Keep an eye of their listings to see if the same coin gets offered for sale again.

[richatthecroft]

It’s not right that this has happened, and extremely frustrating.

Personally, I would breathe a sigh of relief that I got my cash back and look around for another 2005 Sovereign- nice choice of coin.

Lifes too short.

Good luck with your search

[whitesands1]

15 minutes ago, richatthecroft said:

It’s not right that this has happened, and extremely frustrating.

Personally, I would breathe a sigh of relief that I got my cash back and look around for another 2005 Sovereign- nice choice of coin.

Life's too short.

Good luck with your search

Once again someone going back on a deal, or a most unfortunate theft.

Very frustrating, but can't say it any better than above!

[KelvinM]

Give negative feedback and explain the situation in comments. 

Only buy from 100% positive sellers.

[Sal]

1 hour ago, Mike said:

I bought a coin on eBay on 24 Sept, 2005 Proof Sovereign.  Paid for it there and then and after a week chased buyer as it wasn't dispatched, Received a response a few days later apologising and saying that they were away and would deal with it when they got back.  Today I received a message saying he could no longer complete the sale as the item, inferring that item was stolen.

He refunded me the money, but has effectively had a 3.5 week interest free loan and can now walk away from a contract to sell seemingly without any repercussions!

Any views?  

Expose the sellers username or any other info about him. The Silver Forum police force will take over for you. Seriously who was it? 

[richatthecroft]

1 minute ago, whitesands1 said:

Once again someone going back on a deal, or a most unfortunate theft.

Very frustrating, but can't say it any better than above!

Let’s face it ebay is the Wild West of shopping. 

I sell on eBay and do my very best for people in terms of descriptions and the onward postage, but there are, like in all aspects of life, shitehawks out there who can, if your unfortunate to hit upon them, all out to be dishonest.

Funnily enough, I bought a 2005 Proof Sovereign from eBay about 6 months ago, the seller with fab feedback described it as flawless.  I made an offer well under the buyitnow price, he accepted. 

I received the coin and it looked like a small child had played with it with jam on his fingers.

I contacted the seller to protest, he got back to me straight away, explained he had multiple boxed 2005’s and had inadvertently sent me the wrong one. 

He sent me a replacement, with a £10 note enclosed to send the offender back Special Delivery And refunded me another £20 for my inconvenience.  

Great service.  Was he trying it on in the first place, who knows, I suspect it was a genuine mistake, but he made it right.  I got a very cheap, 2005 Proof.  

There are some good people out there. 

 

[Tonyb959]

Not helpful now, but for future orders you could enable 'pay after delivery'. It gives you two weeks before you need to send any money, but that's reduced to one week if the seller provides a tracking number when the goods are dispatched. 

Great for buying, pain in the rear as a seller (I'm waiting until Sunday for funds to clear from some coins I sold on the weekend) 😒

[Bullionbilly]

11 minutes ago, Tonyb959 said:

Not helpful now, but for future orders you could enable 'pay after delivery'. It gives you two weeks before you need to send any money, but that's reduced to one week if the seller provides a tracking number when the goods are dispatched. 

Great for buying, pain in the rear as a seller (I'm waiting until Sunday for funds to clear from some coins I sold on the weekend) 😒

As a seller. I would not send the item under those circumstances.

Id think. Either up to no good or the old switcher roo.

[Nick1368]

I personally would not buy anything more expensive than £50 from eBay or amazon, I work hard for my money and don't have time for disappointments or chasing people.

in your case I think you should be happy to have your money back and don't stress yourself any more than this.

[watchesandwhisky]

My view is this is just part of the risk with ebay if buying of a member of public (probably cheaper than a business) most are fine but you will get the odd one.., if you want good service then generally ebay business sellers are excellent - we have to be. 

[dicker]

Agreed with richardatthecroft. It is the Wild West of buying and selling. 

There are decent people selling stuff on eBay, but when you are selling / buying high value portable items, you definitely have to be careful and know the eBay rules. 

My best experience was buying a car on eBay - the gentleman had it serviced valeted and had it full of diesel ready for my collection - none of which I asked for but was much appreciated. 

My wost was selling a desireable swiss watch - “go you ship to Ghana”, “If I pay you double the asking price will you send me a cheque for the difference”.  I gave up and sold it elsewhere after a couple winning bidders turned out to be scammers. 

Best

dicker

[richatthecroft]

54 minutes ago, Nick1368 said:

 

I personally would not buy anything more expensive than £50 from eBay or amazon, I work hard for my money and don't have time for disappointments or chasing people.

 

Personal choice, but maybe consider that as a buyer, and providing you stick to the rules, pay via PayPal, then it’s pretty foolproof in terms of getting your cash back if things go wrong.  Of course it doesn’t proclude disappointment or expectations being met.

As a seller, you have far more chance of being ripped off. 

 

[Mike]

2 hours ago, Sal said:

Expose the sellers username or any other info about him. The Silver Forum police force will take over for you. Seriously who was it? 

Thanks Everyone for the feedback, and yes grateful I got my money back.  In terms of who it was:

hippywitchindra

I can’t leave negative feedback as they cancelled the transaction, but I will report to ebay

Thanks again all

Mike

[Goldhooked]

12 hours ago, Mike said:

 

I can’t leave negative feedback as they cancelled the transaction

You can but there’s a certain way to find the link.  When I get a chance later I’ll look it up and let you know.

[Gordon]

I would open a case with ebay the day after it had gone past its delivery date. I call these people payday loan scammers as the item was never for sale and all he wanted was a 0% loan for a few weeks at your expense. Ebay wont do anything as you got your money back all you can do is leave neg feedback.. Go to my ebay and click on purchase history you should find the item in there in cancelled orders

[Mike]

49 minutes ago, Goldhooked said:

You can but there’s a certain way to find the link.  When I get a chance later I’ll look it up and let you know.

 

30 minutes ago, Gordon said:

I would open a case with ebay the day after it had gone past its delivery date. I call these people payday loan scammers as the item was never for sale and all he wanted was a 0% loan for a few weeks at your expense. Ebay wont do anything as you got your money back all you can do is leave neg feedback.. Go to my ebay and click on purchase history you should find the item in there in cancelled orders

Thanks both - I eventually found a way to do it - their feedback now dropped from 99.5% to 99.3%, interestingly, reading the negative and neutral feedback comments, seems to be an unlucky seller that has had other thefts and also items eaten by their dog...

[Goldhooked]

22 minutes ago, Mike said:

 

Thanks both - I eventually found a way to do it - their feedback now dropped from 99.5% to 99.3%, interestingly, reading the negative and neutral feedback comments, seems to be an unlucky seller that has had other thefts and also items eaten by their dog...

Keep an eye on the feedback.  It appears they like to respond to negative feedback by calling the buyer a scammer.  If they respond, you can have the last say with a further response and then that's it, no more responses allowed from either party.

[Mike]

53 minutes ago, Goldhooked said:

Keep an eye on the feedback.  It appears they like to respond to negative feedback by calling the buyer a scammer.  If they respond, you can have the last say with a further response and then that's it, no more responses allowed from either party.

Thanks - Yes I spotted that.  I emailed them as soon as they cancelled the order to express my frustration and they have had over 24 hours to respond before I left the feedback

[Murph]

I've had similar buys.  I remember one said their child had opened the box and played with the item so I said it didn't matter, after which the story changed and parts were lost.

A short while later they relisted the item so I tried reporting this to ebay but they don't do anything.

 

Another time the seller said they couldn't afford to post the item and paypal would only release the money after I'd left positive feedback to say I'd received the goods and was happy.  Needless to say I refused to leave feedback until I had the goods but I did offer to send them enough to cover the postage which they could repay later or issue a partial refund.

They started ranting that I was in effect calling them a thief and a liar and I wouldn't get anything unless I did as they said.  Luckily Paypal refunded me.  I just hope they didn't get a chance to withdraw or spend the money before Paypal initiated my refund.

[AppleZippoandMetronome]

5 hours ago, Murph said:

Another time the seller said they couldn't afford to post the item and paypal would only release the money after I'd left positive feedback to say I'd received the goods and was happy.  Needless to say I refused to leave feedback until I had the goods but I did offer to send them enough to cover the postage which they could repay later or issue a partial refund.

They started ranting that I was in effect calling them a thief and a liar and I wouldn't get anything unless I did as they said.  Luckily Paypal refunded me.  I just hope they didn't get a chance to withdraw or spend the money before Paypal initiated my refund.

This is a genuine thing that eBay has started randomly doing. I had it happen to me a few months ago when I sold a camera for £150. As soon as the buyer paid for the item eBay slapped a hold on it and I got a message from PayPal saying eBay will release the funds in 3 weeks or sooner if the buyer leaves positive feedback. I am guessing it is just something eBay has started doing to make it "safer" for buyers on there. Personally I think it is really poor because it leaves sellers out of pocket until the funds eventually clear - they really shouldn't be allowed to put a hold on funds being paid for shipping. I couldn't understand when it happened to me as the account it happened under is in good standing, several years old and I've sold many things previously with no hold. It appears completely random. I shipped the item, asked the buyer if they could leave feedback when the camera arrived if they were happy with anything then when I got that positive feedback I asked eBay to release the funds and they did.

[watchesandwhisky]

Screw that, if ebay/paypal try and do that to me i wont be sending anything. 

[AppleZippoandMetronome]

I found it especially rich given the history I have with both eBay and PayPal. I have two eBay accounts - a business and a personal. The business account is 14 years old now with many thousands of postiive feedback plus many tens of thousands of £s in turnover in recent years. My personal account is a few years old now which I set up when I started relying on eBay invoices for my business paperwork and didn't want personal items sold muddling up my business sales. I've got a couple hundred feedback on there and had sold I'd guess around 20 or 30 items some of which were more valuable than the camera I sold. I couldn't understand for the life of me how their system came up with the decision that I was a risk to the buyer. Really boggles the mind.

I should add a few weeks after I had this experience PayPal enabled something called "Funds Now" on my PayPal account which from what I read will prevent the same thing from happening again in the future.

[Mike]

Bumping this topic - the ebay seller hippywithindra has had 2 or 3 other items of negative feedback in the last few weeks - very similar to my situation.  Don't buy coins from this seller coinsters