Ebay seller playing funky with reserve

Is the seller trying to get his 'reserve' price? If so, I think he's out of luck. He failed to set a proper reserve, and he's bound by the terms of the auction. If the guy meant to set a reserve of $1875 and just forgot, and if your buddy is a nice guy, he could just let it go and let the seller relist it. But I'd look for the proper procedure for that, to guard against the selling dinging your friend as a NPB.

Jon

I see nothing strange, there is no reserve. Just a messed up auction.

Its called non performance, report it to ebay.

From ebays policy page: What buyers can do if they feel a seller has violated the Seller Non-Performance policy

If a seller has refused to complete a sale, and payment has not been sent or payment has been refunded, report the seller. Make sure to include a copy of the email documenting the seller's refusal to complete the sale with the full message text and complete email headers when making your report.

Here is the link to report the seller:

Good Luck

Tom.

ISTR being high bidder on a Carrol dividing head many years ago from someone that had intended to set a reserve but forgot. The closing price was less than the intended reserve price but the seller refused my offer to pay the reserve and shipped for the closing price. I believe that his name was Jon too - sound familiar?

Mike

I was sorta thinking I'd made that mistake myself, but couldn't recall the particulars. How's that dividing head been working for you?

Jon

Seller is also avoiding ebay charges by not having a reserve properly set up and insisting on its existence. Since he had a week to withdraw the auction and did not take the opportunity, the auction stands. Might need a bailiff to enforce the sale though :-(

Mark Rand RTFM

E-bay has changed the way stuff is sold... I use a program that uploads my items for sell... I was helping a friend at his home to sell his first item... The selling screen had no place to chose the reserve price anywhere... I told him to set the starting price at the lowest price that he would let it go for... There was no place anywhere to set the reserve .....

That's the way of it.

Here's his first response.

"I see that the winning bid was $590.01. You probably read that my reserve was $1875. I would be willing to come down a little from $1875, But this machine is practically new."

My friend responded back.

"Why didn't you use the reserve price feature? If you don't want to sell it at what I bid then you will have to fix it with ebay so I don't get a negative feedback and it doesn't show me still owing you. $ 700.00 was my max bid. I don't want to get into an argument over a mistake."

Your friend is unlikely to get his way, but he should tell the seller that the ended auction is a valid contract, enforceable in courts, and that the seller should perform. Besides, the seller is an idiot if he wanted to sell that thing for his states reserve. A neg, and reporting him to ebay, is certainly a must here.

Once I did get my way on an ended auction like this, and once I did not. The case of a miller maxtron welder, ended for $510, did not work, and the case of a new in box allen bradley starter, for $0.99, did work. The maxtron guy got a big fat neg and a report to ebay.

Ok, sounds like your friend is on top of this. I didn't think that the seller might be pulling this to avoid full fees as he would have faced had he enabled a proper reserve. Guess I'm too honest to foresee shenanigans like that....

Hope it goes well for him.

Jon

Ignoramus16741 wrote in news:T4OdnVUx8tasyqLanZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

From my experience thats not likely to happen as Ebay themselves refuse to provide further info or support the buyer, instead appear to supportthe non performing seller instead.

I had much the same happen. Buyer wanted more cash, I refused and told them to abide by the auction rules and the auction closed normally without reserve. No further response. Contacting Ebay was a joke as they send you around and around. Thier eventual response was a mail teling me how *I* can tell the Seller how *they* can cancel the auction with my approval and so the seller can recover his fees. When I responded that I didn't want to cancel the auction and why would/should I help the seller when they are at fault Ebay reponded that if I didn't I could get a non paying bidder report (NPB). When I acarefully laid out the problem and indicated that I wanted to persue it in law EBay reponded saying that they would deal with the Seller, that I could not now get a NPB report and that I had no case to persue unless Ebay provided further and complete information, which they would not do as the auction was 'reasonable and completed in unusual circumstances'. When i pursued that the auction disappeeared and the agebts could no longer find the transaction...

Following day I got a NPB. Took six weeks to get it removed...

What happened, did they ask for a loading fee, or what?

Ignoramus16741 wrote in news:IpmdnaLaEshw5aLanZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

Nope. Auction was for a vehicle. I drove down to see it and check it over. A few problems but ok for what I wanted. Auction closed normally at a reasonable price without reserve. Seller demanded about 2k more than closing 'cos he claimed that was what he owed. Wouldn't sell at the price. Ebay only corresponded regarding helping the seller avoid fees and if I didn't comply I'd get a non paying bidder response.

I hope that you left him a neg and reported him as a non performing seller.

The seller responded back that he would take care of NPB with ebay. He stated that he looked and could not find anyplace to put a reserve when making the listing.

Then maybe he should not have posted the listing?

That seller deserves a full featured neg and a seller non-performance report. Certainly the buyer should not cooperate in helping the seller avoid fees.