Bear with me on this one please, being something of an Ebay novice. I won an auction on some bike bits at the weekend. Now, within 24 hours of winning, the seller has opened a case to cancel the purchase claiming that they have sold the items to someone else. In a second message they have contacted me asking when they will receive payment… Now where do I stand on this one? I would have thought that they should honour the sale to me, as winner of the auction, and that 24 hours is not an unreasonable length of time to wait for payment. I have declined their “request” to cancel the purchase as I would like the bits, won the auction, and intend to pay the winning bid for them. What are my options & what would you do?

FWIW – the bits were not exactly a steal, a pretty fair price I thought, and the seller has good feedback etc.

Thanks for any advice, seasoned ebay veterans.

If you want them then pay for them, a lot of sellers ask for payment within 24hours of the auction ending…

Sounds like a bit of a scam, have you tried searching for them elsewhere to see if the items are for sale on another forum, or try searching for the seller to find out if they are genuine

Khani – yep, I’m familiar with that, but would expect it to be in the item listing if that was the case. I’m sitting here 24 hours later though having received the cancellation request with no warning though – a bit OTT I thought.

Andyha – they seem to be genuine enough from what I could see on ebay – not exactly selling loads of stuff, or loads of bike stuff… So not a serial scammer there at least. Dunno where I’d do more detective work though….

If you pay for the goods via paypal and they dont turn, you are covered by paypal anyway.

I have done what your seller is doing, in my instance I sold a phone the winning bidder with 1 feedback did not pay. As I left him over 24 hours when I offered second chance to the lower bidders no one took my offer, so I had to re advertise. This time I said no one with less than 10 feedback bid with out emailing, of course someone did and won.

I immediately offered it to the second highest bidder who paid. The other chap contacts me 24 hours later saying he’ll pay in a week when his pay comes in. Pain in the arse from my end.

Anyway to answer your question, contact the bidder asking to clarify what is happening and that you intend to pay him by paypal. If he says the items are gone you can leave him a negative feedback, he can’t leave you one. He will still have to pay the fees as you declined his offer to cancel.

Hope that helps.

I would have thought that they should honour the sale to me, as winner of the auction

I don’t think you’ll find there’s a lot of “honour” on Ebay… if they’ve sold em to someone else, they can’t sell them to you.
You can contact Ebay and complain, but I’d just move on.

tails – I have done that, so will wait and see what the reply is – can see your POV in your situation, but I’m clearly intending to pay via paypal (ie right now if they haven’t sold the stuff elsewhere, and have told them that), not leaving it as long as I can… I guess it’s just wait and see what they say and if they are pissing about then leave them negative feedback and move on (as DezB says).