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Just spoke to Mrs TJ who is the (legal)brains of this outfit.She says its either binding on both sides or none.
Can she cook and clean as well?
Like any shop a seller can pull out of a sale if they want to
A shop can't if they have stock and money has changed hands - likewise with an ebayer and an ended auction.
It is fair to say i wasnt applauding the whole business just mocking the usual stw over the top reaction.
Exactly which part of telling him it's illegal, immoral and against ebay rules (and that he has unrealistic price expectations) is over the top?
if you buy something from a shop and they're out of stock, they will automatically cancel your order after a set period of waiting and if they have taken your money, refund you. I can't imagine ebay is any different.
Indeed not. However what a shop can't do is cancel a contract (which is what there is once money has changed hands in a real shop) because they decide they don't like the price you're paying when they have stock. No different on ebay, where a contract is made when an auction ends. I suppose psychle could have claimed to have lost it or that his garage burnt down, which would doubtless be taken as reasonable excuses - at least that was the case before he started his thread, and such an action with something quite so unusual would also have made it rather difficult to sell it to the sort of people who might consider paying what he seems to think it's worth.
Actually on the last point, you have to remember that for something rare and "collectable" like this, it's only worth what people will pay. I'd suggest that whilst it might have been worth £200 at some previous point in time right now it's worth £90.
Higgo - Member"Just spoke to Mrs TJ who is the (legal)brains of this outfit.
She says its either binding on both sides or none."
Can she cook and clean as well?
Nope = thats my role 🙁
Here is a link to a report of the case ([url= http://www.minterellison.com/public/connect/Internet/Home/Legal+Insights/Newsletters/Previous+Newsletters/A-B-Online+auctions+and+Smythe+v+Thomas ]link[/url]).
I think this was decided on the basis of the law of equity and you can look this up in Wiki but the following quote illustrates that the general principals were established they apply to most common law jurisdictions.
As with the geographical transmission of any cultural artifact, direct English influence over equity weakened with time and distance. However, the widespread import of printed opinions provided a corrective force, however long delayed. As the colonies gained political independence, each of their legal systems began drifting from the original in an irreversible departure from the English way of making laws and deciding cases. Nonetheless, each former colony acknowledged the reception of the common law and equity of England as a vital source of their jurisprudence.
The comparative question is an easy one to pose. Did English equity develop maturity early enough that all of its derivative systems necessarily tended toward the same doctrines because based on exactly the same set of general principles? Or did the split-offs of any of the colonies occur somewhere in the middle of its development so that substantial permanent differences resulted? One equity? or many?
The answer generally accepted in America, the earliest of the English colonies to gain independence, is the former, that the outcome of a case to be decided today upon principles of equity should be expected to be substantially the same whether decided in the UK or the US. The reasonableness of the belief enjoys strong historical support.
It is worth noting that Australia only created it own supreme court rather than using the UK privy council in 1986. So I don't think my assumption is that unreasonable though hopefully a lawyer will come along to correct me or not.
A shop can't if they have stock and money has changed hands - likewise with an ebayer and an ended auction.
If money had changed hands, which it hadn't... and still hasn't at this point...
I suppose psychle could have claimed to have lost it or that his garage burnt down, which would doubtless be taken as reasonable excuses
Indeed... maybe I should've just lied eh? 😆
I don't even play a lawyer on TV, so my opinion on this is worth exactly what you paid for it, but I'll give it anyway - Mrs TJ has that spot on, that is exactly my understanding of the situation. Anybody who thinks differently is making the erroneous assumption that ebay exists outside of normal contract law (and I'd be extremely surprised if any of the people taking that line have any more legal training than I do).
"A shop can't if they have stock and money has changed hands - likewise with an ebayer and an ended auction."
If money had changed hands, which it hadn't... and still hasn't at this point...
Wrong - did you actually read what you just quoted? The money changing hands bit only applies to a shop, as that's the first point at which both sides have agreed to something. An auction (in real life or on ebay) is different - contract is formed when auction ends. If you check carefully, you'll find you agreed to that when you agreed the ebay T&Cs when setting up the auction.
Indeed... maybe I should've just lied eh?
Well you could have, though you really ought to have quoted the whole of that sentence rather than snipping (and maybe go back and read it now) if you think that would actually have been a good idea - the bit at the end about making it rather difficult to sell on later.
Do you want a bigger spade?
nope...
P - aren't you Australian?
psychle - Member
bite me
😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆
I'll just go and see if I can find that spade for you.
Yep, I am... British to though, dual citizenship (amazing who the UK government will let in eh? even morally bankrupt eBay scammers like me... the Daily Mail should do something about it really!)
aracer - Memberpsychle - Member
bite meI'll just go and see if I can find that spade for you.
😆 😆 😆 😆 😆 😆
Wow, good work Clouseau! 🙂
Not quite quick enough on the edit 😉
OK, my understanding on this is
any price is called an "invite to buy", even if advertised a shop does not have to sell at this price, however once payment has been recieved the contract them becomes binding.
aracer - Member
go to hell you eBay scamming douche bag!
How dare you say that to me! I shall be reporting you to the mods immediately, expect a banning post haste you cad!
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😉
😆
aracer - MemberThe money changing hands bit only applies to a shop, as that's the first point at which both sides have agreed to something. An auction (in real life or on ebay) is different - contract is formed when auction ends
ok assuming that what everyone has said is correct regarding the differences between sales and auction outcomes is correct.
you are forgetting that this is not a house, or a car, but in fact a small piece of a bicycle.
all this flannel is irrelevant tbh, how many "you didnt sell me that saddle like you said you would" ebay court cases have you heard about?
any? er no
ebay can impose whatever t+cs they like, but they cannot and will not enforce them.
the albeit bitter truth is that the buyer could possibly take the seller to the UK small claims court, but if he wins, (and i would be amazed) he would incur costs that would be prohibitive to his initiating his claim in the first place.
"i lost the shifters"
"er ok case dismissed"
bonk goes the gavell
ebay can impose whatever t+cs they like, but they cannot and will not enforce them.
Depends what you mean by "enforce".
the buyer could possibly take the seller to the UK small claims court, but if he wins, (and i would be amazed) he would incur costs that would be prohibitive to his initiating his claim in the first place.
You seem to misunderstand how much it costs to use the small claims court.
"i lost the shifters"
So long as you haven't started a thread on STW about it...
"but the nasty man said he didnt want to sell them any more, and and it might have been him in the internet as well..."
Bonk goes the gavell......
Please educate me as to the costs of the small claims court from sweden?
Losing them wouldn't be an acceptable excuse before a court, the claimant could source equivalent components from elsewhere and claim the difference between what he paid for the "new" ones and what he would have paid had the seller not breached the contract.
EDIT: Costs are generally awarded against the person who breaches.
"but the nasty man said he didnt want to sell them any more, and and it might have been him in the internet as well..."
I should think there's a perfectly decent audit trail there. Remember civil law is based on balance of probabilities - I'd suggest it's quite clear which way the balance goes on this one.
Please educate me as to the costs of the small claims court from sweden?
Fairy nuff - I thought we were talking hypotheticals here given psychle does seem to have agreed to send them (I think he's seen the light, though I'm fairly sure he also realises there's no way he could now relist them and get a better price - the point being there are ways of addressing things like this without involving the courts).
So how many ebay based small claims cases have their been for small bits of bicycles then?
362 at the last count.
*Strokes chin
Chinny reckon?
I would guess Chinny is probably right.
So how many ebay based small claims cases have their been for small bits of bicycles then?
How many people have decided not to send their small bits of bicycle after the auction finished? How many of those went on an internet forum to publicise the fact?
It is worth noting that Australia only created it own supreme court rather than using the UK privy council in 1986. So I don't think my assumption is that unreasonable though hopefully a lawyer will come along to correct me or not.
This is not correct. After the Australia Acts, the status of the Privy Council as last court of appeal was removed for Australian litigants. The [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Court_of_Australia ]High Court of Australia[/url] was not newly created at that time - it was created by the Constitution of Australia Act and existed since Federation. (Actually a couple of years after - it took the Federal Parliament a while to agree on procedural laws).
Pointing to an Australian decision abut eBay is vaguely interesting because English (and other common law) courts are likely to take a similar decision but not really helpful for two reasons: firstly, Australian decisions aren't binding on English courts, and secondly, this is such a hoary old question that there will have been twenty zillion billion English decisions about when a contract is formed at auction.
In any case, Sale of Goods Act specifically spells it out: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/RevisedStatutes/Acts/ukpga/1979/cukpga_19790054_en_8 TJ is absolutely right - the buyer's bid is an offer, the termination of the auction (by hammer or by time) is acceptance and a contract is formed.
Who bears the risk during transit depends on the common intention of the parties, the specific terms of the contract (if any) and whatever the default position (usually in Sale of Goods Act) is. Who bears the risk doesn't determine who owns the property.
You must be a real lawyer, konabunny?
Interesting point there:
until the announcement is made any bidder may retract his bid
that would suggest that whatever ebay's policies might be, you can retract a bid at any time for any reason on a UK ebay auction, since English (or Scottish - I'm guessing it's the same for this) law applies.
1) No, I'm not, and even if I was a lawyer's advice outside a retainer is (generally) worthless, so I should be ignored like any other pillock with an internet connection, and if anyone has a more credible explanation, believe that instead!
2) I don't know, I was wondering about that second bit. Perhaps the eBay rule could be justified by some sort of complementary contractual obligation exists between eBay and the buyer. In other words, when you sign up and promise not to yank bids, is that a contractual promise which creates an obligation on top of what statute provides? I'm stabbing in the dark here.
Here is a [url= http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/buy/questions/retract-bid.html ]link[/url] to what ebay says regarding retracting bids. They say that you enter into a contract when you bid which seems to conflict with the Sale of Goods Acts. However, there is no suggestion that the Seller can enforce the assumed contract but rather the "penalty" for retracting before the timit limit appears to be negative feedback and ebay can take action against your account (I presume suspend or cancel it) which would not conflict with the Sale of Goods Act.
As far as KB comments are concerned on my citing an Australian case, I stand corrected on the creation of the Australia High Court as the Supreme Court for federal law but it is also true to say that the UK Privy Council remained the ultimate appellant court in matters of state law until 1986.
In addition, I never suggested that an Austrlain decision is binding on a UK court, I was suggesting that as the laws in both countries developed from a common heritage it was a useful indication. However, to say that gazillions of decisions have taken place which "trump" that common heritage is too simplistic as absent specific Australian authority, the Australian Courts can be influenced by foreign decisions, especially the UK's, although I make no suggestion that they would be binding.
However,the Sale of Goods Act appears to trump all of this pseudo intellectual masturbation, it appears TJ was right and I was a bit of a pillock with an internet connection. But the sun is shining, so I am off out!
I had something similar to this happen to me a few years back.
I was bidding on a frame on eBay, I placed my max bid and left the auction alone, as I usually do, and was outbid late in the auction. Fair enough, seemingly.
Then a regular STWer posted a thread about said frame (It was definately the same frame and person, no question) saying it hadn't sold for what he wanted so he "got a 'mate' to bid" on it. Shill bidding basically.
So I threw the brown stuff at the fan and scored a bullseye, and got an apology.
So anyway, some months later I saw this same frame on the classifides, sold by the same person, for a lot less than my maximum bid on eBay. Which brought a wry smile to my lips, let me tell you.
If I was the buyer in this case, I'd pay up and collect my goods. Then immediately see if I could turn a profit on it, before posting the link on this thread.
But am am evil, it has to be said..... 😈
I'll bid on that item Peter!
Perhaps we could get the price up to £250?
I'd pay £6 for them.
OK, I [i]am[/i] a lawyer, but I'm not a specialist in Australian eBay law.
I'd have guessed there was a contract for the sale and purchase of the shifters. BUT, if psychle doesn't fulfill his end of the bargain, what has the buyer lost? If he's paid his money, he's lost the money. So psychle has to give it him back. Now, the buyer is in the same position as he would be if psychle hadn't double-crossed him - he has the value of a pair of horrid stars'n'stripes shifters. Psychle has the horrid shifters.
Has the buyer lost the benefit of getting the shifters cheap? Psychle thinks so, which is why he was considering welching on the deal. But it's not really clear that "the market value" of the shifters is different to what the highest bidder in an eBay auction is prepared to pay.
So I'm not convinced that there's much of a claim here. There may be liability, but it'd be tricky to prove loss.
The rememdy of "specific performance" of contracts, in which the seller is made by court order to hand over the goods, is not very likely to be granted by an English court in the case of said horrible shifters, although perhaps they're rare enough that it would. Don't know. 🙂
Now, the buyer is in the same position as he would be if psychle hadn't double-crossed him
Sigh... just to clarify, again, I have not double-crossed anyone and I have not ripped anyone off... I sent the buyer an invoice for payment on Saturday, interestingly (perhaps) he hasn't paid at this point...
Sigh... just to clarify, again, I have not double-crossed anyone and I have not ripped anyone off... I sent the buyer an invoice for payment on Saturday, interestingly (perhaps) he hasn't paid at this point...
Just to clarify
YOU were going to doublecross him but YOU got caught out.
Don't you just hate assh0les that back out of an ebay sale because their item doesn't sell for what they want:
[url= http://classifieds.mtbr.com/showproduct.php?product=52041&cat=all ]Tossface Seller[/url]
I stand corrected on the creation of the Australia High Court as the Supreme Court for federal law but it is also true to say that the UK Privy Council remained the ultimate appellant court in matters of state law until 1986.
No - or at least, not quite. High Court of Australia is the ultimate court of appeal for all matters of law in Australia, whether they emerge from state or federal law. The Privy Council was the ultimate court of appeal but its decision was not binding because it was a UK court (is there even such a thing?) but because of its imperial status. A decision in England & Wales would not have been binding on an Australian court before or after the Australia Acts.
to say that gazillions of decisions have taken place which "trump" that common heritage is too simplistic as absent specific Australian authority, the Australian Courts can be influenced by foreign decisions, especially the UK's, although I make no suggestion that they would be binding.
I'm not sure where you're getting that claim/argument from because afaics no-one's made it. The point about there being no shortage of decisions about auctions and whether contracts have been formed is that if you're in England and trying to work the question out, there's no real benefit in searching for obscure decisions from the other side of the world and wondering how they might apply in your own jurisdiction because you can just refer to any one of the decisions which have been made in England!
The rememdy of "specific performance" of contracts, in which the seller is made by court order to hand over the goods, is not very likely to be granted by an English court in the case of said horrible shifters, although perhaps they're rare enough that it would.
Equity requires clean hands. Whoever would buy such hideous shifters is obviously a twisted individual whose hands could never be clean.
The contract would also be unenforceable in the courts - they would never regard the trade in such minging gear to be in the public interest. 😉
If you sell enough kit on there, it'll go full circle. I've sold more than my share of crap on there, didn't get what I wanted on a few bits, but some stuff has gone for silly money. The only reason I can think off is time of the month (and no, I don't mean Arsenal are playing at home, more like pay day). Send it, take it on the chin. You'll make it back, thats eBay unfortunately, should have stuck a reserve on it.
Just out of interest, what was you selling?
Pete G55 - very true. I've sold photographic kit which has gone for a fair bit less than its true worth. I just suck it up. I also sold an old, beaten up Belstaff jacket from the '60s to a Japanese buyer for £600. It cost him nearly £100 to have it shipped over too!
Just read through the whole thread, not seen the aforementioned article, but seems it takes all sorts.
To the OP - massive cock up on putting this up on here, should have just taken it on the chin, if the item was listed UK only and you had a foreign auction winner, just sent them a new invoice with silly postage charges. They either pay or dont. Their own fault for bidding on a UK only item. Free to relist if you have problems with original buyer. Problem solved. I'd agree with previous posters that this is the kind of thing that makes ebay a pain in the arse and sometimes not worth the hassle.
PeteG55
I don’t think it is a massive cock up telling everyone personally I think it is perfect to know what seller is like I mean how low can you get.
The Privy Council was the ultimate court of appeal but its decision was not binding because it was a UK court
WTF? A court existed but it's decisions were meaningless? I don't think so.
My memory is that it was the ultimate appeal court for the Commonwealth. No doubt a brief wiki at work will reveal all!