OT: A reality check on an ebay auction, if you would please.

[Neiloler]

So I get a message on ebay about a guitar I'm selling:

"How much do you want for this? My max bid is $xxx, and if this is enough, would you be able to ship it now? Or do overnight shipping? I leave the country on the 29th, and so I would have to get it by then. Otherwise, if $xxx is not enough, please cancel my bid."

This seems a bit unfair to me because I'm hoping for more than that amount already, and it seems that this person is missing the contractual obligation that one is under when you enter a bid on ebay. He should have asked his questions before bidding, because I'm feeling that it's not fair to ask such of me the seller. I'm happy to over-night it to him, provided he pays for such, but to ask me to cancel his bid simply because he's on a schedule seems lame.

Am I off my rocker? Opinions and thoughts please.

[ironlung40]

You're not off your rocker and you're completely right. But, beware, Ebay protects the buyers more than the sellers, trust me I know, so you don't want this guy going to extremes if this doesn't work out for him the way he wants. I would not, try to rush ship something to someone on the chance he doesn't get it, then he'll want his money back and you may be stuck with return shipping, etc. if this is even possible. Worst case, you could loose the item and the money.

If you don't want to sell it at the price he bid, then he needs to complete the bid retraction form, or you need to cancel the bid. It's possible he'll get outbid anyway, though, and his bid may get the auction moving. But, I'd still have him retract the bid so you don't have to worry about him winning the auction.

[jason41224]

anytime "I'm leaving the country" comes into the conversation, their legitimacy is automatically gone with me.

[Bandeapart]

I agree. I wouldn't do a single thing for the moron except watch ebay come down on him when he doesn't pay up. I'd say, "I can't do anything about your bid, that's up to ebay, but if you want to pay for the overnight shipping I'd be glad to provide that service to you." Sucks to him if he can't deal with it at that point, he should have thought about that before bidding.

EDIT:

On second thought, it might be better to cancel his bid and not deal with him or ebay - he seems like trouble. I'd cancel his bid and send him a super a-hole-ish message like, "think about that next time before you bid, you're contractually obligated to follow through with it... Learn how ebay works. I'm doing you a favor, but don't expect the next seller to be so kind. Please, never bid on one of my auctions ever again unless you intend on following the buyer guidelines, they're the ones written in actual writing. If you need help deciphering the straight-forward English they're written in, please contact me, I'll be glad to dumb it down for you."

... but then again, I'm an a-hole.

[Neiloler]

No, I hear ya's. I basically told him that he's put me in a strange spot, he's welcome to bid, and I'll be happy to over night the guitar at his full cost, but as I'm trying to sell the gear to pay bills, I'm going to let the auction run as is to get the most bucks I can. I don't mind shipping it to him as long as I get the money to do so. I just chuckled and cringed a little bit to realize I finally had my eBay bozo moment.

[yossarian83]

Hmmm, they used to give you the option to cancel your own bid... did they take that away?

[Neiloler]

I don't believe so, or if they did, they gave control over such to the eBay seller (I just read up on it on eBay's info page concerning cancelling bids).

[Les Paul Lover]

Bidding and making an offer are two very distinct practices.

[bclaire]

He's a scam artist definitely. I'd report him. Find out how to cancel his bid or hope that someone outbids him and start the auction over.

He's a classic example of "I'm relisting this item because the original bidder...."

[Neiloler]

Yeah, just didn't feel right. I cancelled his bid. Back down $40, but I feel safer.

[irish_admiral]

Grab his user ID and put it on a list of your blocked bidders on eBay... occasionally when I get oddballs that's what I do.

[Ddjembe Mutombo]

I'd say he wasn't even on a time crunch. He just made up that story in hopes that you would sell the guitar to him at the price he requested. He was trying to low ball you.

[riffmonster]

Ebay is a great way to get your stuff sold.

The only snag is a vast majority of emails you get are from idiots who it seems cant read... You are better off not dealing with this numpty and cancelling his bid.

Also many of the high value items I've sold the bidding happens in the last few minutes, so don't sweat too much if the price seems a bit low right now.

Good luck

[JackoMBA]

I've been on ebay since 2004. I've had a lot more problems lately, especially from people who use the Buy it Now, then find some strange reason why they want you to cancel the transaction. It's still a pretty decent place to sell stuff. You just have to keep communication open. As soon as something smells fishy, bail.

[ironlung40]

I think more and more buyers are trying to use ebay's protection as a 100% return policy. It seems to matter little these days, if you put a "no returns and no refunds" statement in your listing. If you sell an item and it is as described, the buyer should have no recourse, even if they are not happy with it. Private sellers are not chain stores. I've completed some refunds and returns lately, because the seller decided they didn't want the item, even though it was as described. I've denied this before, and ebay almost always sides with the buyer if a case is open. All the seller has to do is lie and say the item was not as described, and ebay thinks the best mediation is a refund with the item returned to the seller. This is why I am moving away from ebay. It's really starting to be risky, and added to that the ever increasing fees and paypal monopoly, it's making it harder on the occasional seller. It seems ebay wants to be like amazon.com, or only have merchants selling on there.

This has also made me have to be a lot more selective in gear purchases, because I know it isn't as easy to just flip them on ebay anymore, with the increased costs. I used to just buy something and then resell it if I didn't like it. Now, I'm just not giving in to the GAS.