I've been an eBay user since the late 90's.
I was in on the ground floor ... I've seen the site and service go through just about every change, scam, service upgrade, and loophole exploitation that you can imagine, but it seems that more and more on a regular basis - strangely in the unique case of video game based auctions - I'm faced as a buyer with disappointment after the closing bid almost EVERY TIME.
Recently I've noticed that some sellers have found an interesting loophole in eBay's services - they'll list an item (in this case a game of average to high value) at a low starting cost of 99 Cents or a Dollar, and in the event of the auction ending on that listing cost with only the maiden bid of that cost, they'll email the buyer with an email that explains :
"I'm sorry, the item that you have bid on is currently out of stock, if you have paid via PayPal, I will be refunding your payment shortly, I'm sorry for the inconvenience, thank you."
then the seller will go on to immediately refund your payment and open a mutual non-payment/non-shipment dispute with eBay so they can get credit on the cost of listing the auction.
I've gotten a few of these communications from eBay shortly after the seller refunds my money, and even in the event that I state clearly on the dispute that the non-shipment was NOT MUTUAL, I've never gotten any further communications regarding the matter, and all of the sellers in question are still operating in full capacity.
Why are sellers exploiting this loophole instead of selling their games at the low low listing price?
Well, obviously so they can attempt to score a higher profit on said game, and once they've fully refunded your payment, eBay is not as it appears, willing to attempt any further punitive damages on the seller. (Especially in the event of such a low sale price.)
Have you gotten one of these types of "out of stock" emails? Check the seller in question a week later and see if the game in question is suddenly re-listed! It probably IS!
Now, I digress. In my most RECENT eBay buying situation I suspect I'm being exploited yet again.
This time I attempted to purchase (via the starting bid price of $39.99, NOT the Buy It Now option of $49.99) a Gen X Dual System from a seller that appeared to have 100% positive feedback, and only had ONE of the systems in their listings. I figured everything looked kosher.
A day after winning, and sending immediate payment - I'm hit with YET ANOTHER "sorry, this item is out of stock" emails. When I attempted to correspond with the seller, with simple, logical questions like
"How is a SINGLE item that you have listed suddenly no longer available to me at the time of auction close? (Which is a violation of eBay's TOS.) Did you sell it to some other 3rd party outside of eBay? (Which is also a violation of eBay's TOS.)"
all I'm met with is more robotic responses along the same lines as the initial email "I'm sorry for any inconvenience this has cause you, as soon as I have another one of these items I'll send it out to you, it might take a week, but it could take longer. I'd be more than happy to offer you a refund."
Now, yes, a refund has been offered - and that would be the easy way out of all of this, however, I feel that eBay game buyers are being faced with a MAJOR, GROWING issue - the bogus "out of stock" email and/or the "re-listing for higher profit" scam.
Of course, the nature of the near-anonymity of eBay makes it impossible to prove that this seller is doing that ... but at the very LEAST they're violating eBay's TOS by:
A.) Listing an item that they do NOT actually have in their possession.
B.) Choosing to sell/offer the item to a 3rd party during the course of the item being listed for auction.
As a longtime eBay seller, I can't IMAGINE EVER listing an item for sale that I didn't actually POSSESS ... and I just can't wrap my brain around the concept of telling somebody that "Um, sorry, I don't have it any more." after they've freaking PAID.
I'm not so much looking for "answers" to my dilemma, since I know that eBay won't do anything about this ... I'm actually just looking for your thoughts on the matter ... what would YOU do, or HAS this type of thing happened to you recently??