Can a seller just decide not to ship and return money?

[Cornelius]

So I recently won this auction (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=150142685091&ssPageName=STRK:MEWN:IT&ih=005). I emailed beforehand to find out about the manual like they said I could, no response. I paid immediately after the auction and waited. Have heard nothing, even after an inquiry on the 3rd. I'm not too concerned about the money: it isn't much and I used paypal so can just do a chargeback if necessary. I'm not particularly surprised, either, since they have kind of lousy feedback and the no response I got before bidding.

But my question is, can they just decide not to sell it to me and give my money back (by choice or not)? And more importantly, is there anything I can do other than neg feedback? I'd rather have the item, of course, since it was a decent deal and a game I've been wanting to play.

[Rev. Link]

From what I remember, no, they cannot just refund your money. Once the auction is over, that's a binding agreement between you and him, you have to pay, he has to sell.

Don't neg him yet. File a complaint. There's a particular name for it, I don't remember right now, it's the seller's equivalent to the Non Paying Bidder complaint. Do that first and maybe you can get this resolved.

In fact, now that I think about it, there's also a way you can get eBay to send you his phone number, so you can call him and ask him what's up. You might want to look into that as well.

And here's some advice. If the listing says to e-mail the seller with any questions, and you do, and they don't reply, don't bid. It usually doesn't work out well.

[DefaultGen]

.....

[jonjandran]

Yes sellers can do this and they will if they want to. Is it right....No, but it does happen often

You can file a complaint and neg them , but you won't get them kicked off Ebay with one complaint. They would have to get several complaints.

[Cornelius]

Yeah, I'm not going to neg him until I've exhausted other options. I just never remember hearing about the 'non-paying bidder equivalent', so I'll have to look into that. Looks like this seller has a pretty long history of retalitory negs, always saying he DID email back or the buyer never contacted him.

[rcgamer]

Look in the a-z index in the help seciton of ebay. Look up non-selling seller . It tells you that this is not acceptable and in the additional information there is a link to report the seller .

[Rev. Link]

Look in the a-z index in the help seciton of ebay. Look up non-selling seller . It tells you that this is not acceptable and in the additional information there is a link to report the seller .

Ah, yes, that's it. Knew it was something like that.

[yok-dfa]

Look in the a-z index in the help seciton of ebay. Look up non-selling seller . It tells you that this is not acceptable and in the additional information there is a link to report the seller .

Yes you can report them, but eBay is not going to do anything about it. Happened to me once, and eBay's response was something along the lines of "Yes, the seller has to sell you the item, but if he doesn't, we don't have any way of forcing him to sell so good luck with that. We don't care"

[rcgamer]

Well of course they can't get him to sell it to you. But they can be told of his actions and when enough people report him they will kick him.

[Cornelius]

Just an update: After enough nagging I got jillygames to say they'd check with the post office about it. After more nagging, they told me the post couldn't locate the package. So I asked for the tracking number, but they said they don't put tracking on items under $20. So I asked how the post office knew it was lost without tracking, and they said, "Obviously it's lost since you claim you did not get it, and it was never returned to sender."

Well, today I finally got my refund (after enough nagging). I also got an email from my 'favorite' search saying that Golden Axe Warrior was newly listed. Click over and seller jthomp22 (with even worse feedback) is selling the same item, from the same location (Islip Terrace, NY) with the same 'unknown' status on the manual. Bastards!

Anyway, just fyi. I'll put a link to this thread in the bad seller sticky thread. Now I just have to decide whether or not to ruin my perfect feedback by negging her.

[rcgamer]

report him. Ebay is now enforcing strongly their policy about sellers maintaining a good approval rating. If he falls under 95% in a 90 day period ebay will start hitting him with some penalties.

[Porksta]

Report him and it freezes his Paypal. Then they get pissed.

Although it may only be for buyers and not sellers.

[Griking]

Put the guy on your blocked bidder list, forget about him and move on.

[Damaramu]

I believe the term was "seller non-performance".

[Cornelius]

I believe the term was "seller non-performance".
This is correct.

I did report her (Jill Thompsett), and included the emails where she lies about the post office losing it. eBay asks that you include the email where "the seller refuses to sell you the item that was properly won." This of course makes it impossible to file a complaint that they will accept, since the lost item excuse covers their ass. I did actually get a prompt response requesting 'that email', which of course doesn't exist.

Like I said before, I'm not really surprised this happened because of their lousy feedback. I'm just annoyed that they can get away with this for so long (the bad feedback, all with retaliatory negs, goes back a long ways, always with the same M.O. Hopefully rcgamer is right, but this seller is using multiple IDs, so I hopefully that is taken into account as well (though I doubt it).

[Griking]

Like I said before, I'm not really surprised this happened because of their lousy feedback. I'm just annoyed that they can get away with this for so long (the bad feedback, all with retaliatory negs, goes back a long ways, always with the same M.O. Hopefully rcgamer is right, but this seller is using multiple IDs, so I hopefully that is taken into account as well (though I doubt it).

If you knew that the seller had bad feedback and a lot of retaliatory negs then why would you have even bid on one of her items and put yourself in this situation?

[Cornelius]

If you knew that the seller had bad feedback and a lot of retaliatory negs then why would you have even bid on one of her items and put yourself in this situation?
I'm not really in a situation, as you put it. I took a chance that I'd get a game I've been looking for for a while at a good price (5.99, well, I think my max bid was 1.42, so 6.41). I used paypal, so money wasn't going to be lost outright, and I probably would have risked the 6 bucks anyway.

Other risky things I've done lately: walked out my front door. :o

[Porksta]

You risk losing alot more than $6 everytime you use your credit card.

[ryborg]

I used paypal, so money wasn't going to be lost outright, and I probably would have risked the 6 bucks anyway.

Yeah, I've done this several times, too. I have no problem buying from sellers with bad feedback because if the transaction goes awry, I can always get my money back fairly easily.


Report him and it freezes his Paypal. Then they get pissed.

Although it may only be for buyers and not sellers.

I love when people just make stuff up and give it out as advice.

[Porksta]

What am I making up? When you file a complaint their Paypal gets frozen so they can't do anymore transactions.

[Kitsune Sniper]

What am I making up? When you file a complaint their Paypal gets frozen so they can't do anymore transactions.

... I think they only freeze the amount the dispute is for. So if the dispute was for $7, he can't access those $7.

[Porksta]

No, they will freeze the whole account. Or maybe when I was doing it the amount he used was all that was in his account, therefore not allowing him to spend any.

[rcgamer]

Kitsune is correct, paypal freezes the amount that is in dispute . If they $300 in their paypal and the dispute is for $7 then $7 will be held until the dispute is settled.
I know this is true because I had a scammer try to do a dispute saying they never received the item . Luckily I had all the prood I needed and then some and paypal denied the claim.

[Kitsune Sniper]

No, they will freeze the whole account. Or maybe when I was doing it the amount he used was all that was in his account, therefore not allowing him to spend any.

I think they freeze the entire account if something goes really bad. Like I dunno, lots of people filing reports against the seller. But I'm probably wrong. :)

[ryborg]

I think they freeze the entire account if something goes really bad. Like I dunno, lots of people filing reports against the seller. But I'm probably wrong. :)

It takes serious charges to have your PP account frozen, not just a few disputes. I'm a serious seller and I always have an open dispute or two. No big deal. I've had my account back when the service was known as x.com and I've never been frozen.

The most common reason for an account being frozen is when a CC linked to the account is reported as stolen, or if a PP debit card is used in such a way to create a red flag. For instance, buying several thousands of dollars worth of items and returning these items a few days later. Do this enough times and your account will be locked until a PP rep speaks with you over the phone to make sure everything is okay. This happened to a friend of mine.

[Trebuken]

I've been told by sellers that they 'lost' the game and so are refunding the money. It was never anything too exciting or expensive so I did not bother. I left positive feedback for them anyways, just to avoid the negative. It's good to know that I can file a complaint though; I like to give something back to the sellers who do not accept the risks of selling at auction.

[Cornelius]

I've been told by sellers that they 'lost' the game and so are refunding the money. It was never anything too exciting or expensive so I did not bother. I left positive feedback for them anyways, just to avoid the negative. It's good to know that I can file a complaint though; I like to give something back to the sellers who do not accept the risks of selling at auction.
The complaint is anonymous, too. They sent me an email stating that they would take appropriate action, yada yada yada, according to their policies (i.e. they *might* scratch their butts and pick their noses, but that's about it). For privacy reasons they couldn't tell me what that action would be, but that it also assures that my info and whatnot remains private.

[Moo Cow]

It takes serious charges to have your PP account frozen, not just a few disputes. I'm a serious seller and I always have an open dispute or two. No big deal. I've had my account back when the service was known as x.com and I've never been frozen.

The most common reason for an account being frozen is when a CC linked to the account is reported as stolen, or if a PP debit card is used in such a way to create a red flag. For instance, buying several thousands of dollars worth of items and returning these items a few days later. Do this enough times and your account will be locked until a PP rep speaks with you over the phone to make sure everything is okay. This happened to a friend of mine.

I think it might be based more on percentages. For instance, if you've sold 1000 items but just had a 15 disputes, it wouldn't be out of the normal.