Do you guys ever get a good deal, pay for it and all, only to get it cancelled because someone else messaged them and offered them more ?
Not one to name drop but it happened to me and actually the other person lurks here, just kinda crappy eh. Happy for the seller, but still a lil salty haha. Been 7 days and still havent gotten my money back from paypal so thats even more annoying
Yes it has happened multiple times to me and there is no way around it. If you see a great deal you’ve gotta just buy it quick and stay quiet and hope to get that tracking number. There is no way you can compel anyone to sell/ship to you if they decide to rescind for whatever reason, just be sure to leave negative feedback in that case. I always do.
One time it happened to me it wasn’t even actually a message from another seller it was just that I bought it within about 5 minutes of listing and they found that strange that I bought it so quick. Had I waited it out I would have likely missed out and I don’t know how long I would have waited for them to not think it was too fast. I actually ended up buying it again once they relisted and they cancelled it again… We ended up finding a price through messages a fair bit higher than the original but I was still happy with. They were mad at me when at the end of it all I left them negative feedback on all the transactions.
You always leave negative feedback in that scenario? Seems kinda harsh imo, I mean of someone doesn’t do their research and lists a $400 card for $50 I can’t really be mad if I buy the card and they decide to take a $350 offer that someone else PM’s them. I mean it’s really easy to make a mistake if you don’t know the cards well enough, and I personally wouldn’t wanna punish someone with negative feedback for not wanting to lose out on a ton of money. I guess it also depends on the offer, like if it was a $45 purchase and they cancelled my purchase because someone else offered $50 I’d be a bit more salty. I get where you’re coming from, I mean it is kinda the sellers fault for not doing their due research, but it just seems a bit cruel to me haha. Everyone makes simple mistakes and I don’t think they should lose $1000/have their reputation tarnished for it.
@willyboy an eBay sale is a contract. Both parties, the buyer and the seller entering into it are supposed to honor it’s terms and go through with the sale once complete. If the seller doesn’t do enough research to properly price their item beforehand or if an auction goes “too low” that is on them. They need to be held accountable for their mistakes. Again I cannot compel them to ship to me and honor the price but I damn sure will hold them accountable for that mistake through a negative feedback. Theoretically if it was someone like @smpratte or @thecharizardauthorty who listed a 5 figure card with a couple zeros left off then exceptions could be made and I would allow someone to cancel for an honest clear mistake without negative feedback. But for the typical example of lack of research the accountability will ensure that in the future they are more well researched and less likely to err again. I gladly leave the negative as a service to the eBay community in likely increasing the quality of seller moving forward.
Same goes from the selling side. Anyone who wins my auctions or buys my items I do not allow to back out and I hit them with an unpaid item strike if they fail to follow through. Regardless of the sob story reason or whatever they come up with like their kid bidding on their phone. Hitting them with the strike allows other sellers to screen out the problem buyers and serves to likely prevent them repeating the action in the future. Lack of an accountability is a big general issue with the world today.
I think all above I said is fairly clear and logical and would be agreed upon by most.
What becomes more murky is the action of the other person offering more. All I can say definitively is that it isn’t black and white whether they were “wrong” in any way. Many sales may or may not complete and you can make the argument that they would not know whether the original sale was successful. The other argument you can make is that they were being altruistic in informing the seller of the more true value of their item and preventing the seller from getting what some people would argue is “ripped off” in realizing a much lower return on their item than it may have been worth. Again all fairly sticky and debatable concepts though.
I mean shouldn’t they as extremely experienced sellers with a hell of a lot more money to throw around be held more accountable for such mistakes and breaches of said “contract”? Imagine a financially strained ebay seller with little experience in pokemon cards lists a mint 1st edition “no holo” error Dragonite for $5-$10 because he has no idea the error exists, would you leave him negative feedback for taking a several thousand $ offer? At what financial difference do you draw your subjective line? Everyone’s finances are different and for some $100 mistake could be the difference between being able to pay rent or getting kicked out on the street. I guess in the end it comes down to how sympathetic you decide to be towards people who make honest mistakes, I agree that they are obligated to sell it to you if you buy it and it’s a breach of contract if they take a higher offer.
Excellent point. Just last week I purchased a Misaki golem for 5$. The seller obviously listed it by mistake as they had some 4 figure cards listed as well, so I assume they had some knowledge of the hobby. The seller apologized and refunded me within 5 minutes of my purchase. They then relisted it for 350$ lol. I definitely feel slighted but I don’t think I’ll leave negative feedback, probably neutral.
There are plenty of high volume sellers who have little to no money. You would be surprised how many “big sellers” have to cycle their inventory due to debt. I know businesses (outside of Pokémon) that have 3 million in sales and about 3 million in expenses.
I personally honor mistakes. I’ve severely underpriced cards on occasion. Also actually input errors can occur. If the seller gives me an explanation I would be sympathetic, but that is just me.
Yeah of course there are always exceptions to everything, but as far as trends go I feel like high volume sellers are more likely to have deep pockets than low volume sellers, they got where they are somehow right? And yeah I’ll typically honor mistakes as well, but I do so because I can afford to and I weigh the downsides of loss of profit/negative feedback. If there’s a guy just getting into the hobby trying to sell a card that he can’t afford to take a $100 loss on and I leave negative feedback it’s gonna leave a shitty taste in his mouth regarding the hobby as a whole. Plus if I’m compassionate towards people making simple and honest mistakes on ebay then perhaps I’ll be afforded the same luxury if I fall into that same situation.
If a seller came to me and explained the situation, I’d probably be sympathetic.
But I don’t have any sympathy for a seller who just cancels the sale and then sells to somebody else. As the buyer in that scenario, you are in the right–the two of you entered into an agreement with equal bargaining power through a third party. If one party doesn’t do their due diligence, why should the other party suffer the repercussions? Again, I’d be sympathetic if the seller was courteous and honest about it, but that’s just a favor provided by the buyer–if the seller is not going to extend the buyer the same courtesy, then why should the buyer do it when the seller is in the wrong?
I’ve never had this happen to me, but I would leave negative feedback (which I do not do lightly–in hundreds of eBay transactions over 10+ years, I’ve left negative feedback only once).
Along with shipping charges, there’s no such thing as “money”.
I pretty much try to stick to the rules.
Awesome opinion from everyone, I enjoy seeing wveryones take on it!
My personal experience was that the seller had an idea of what he had, told me specifically that he wanted me to have a bit of an uppeice because I was buying a lot. Then cancelled and gave me a sob story, and I checked their sold listing and sold to another fella. Whom coincidentally I know of as a member here.
I spent 3 hours on the phone with this person to get the price, it wasn’t just a random listing and cancellation. I even went to buy 40 cards more from good faith, but they cancelled the first big lot and left this one just fine. Its quite irritating actually. I do agree that ebay is literally a contract. When you commit to buying something, you buy it. I’ve taken L’s before because thats just on me. I dont just get to say no ?
It’s just crazy to me. I left them a nice message yesterday about how the 40 card lot came in and i said water under the bridge, and no reply. Thats more irritating.
There’s a difference between an accidental typo and failing to do your research, establishing a contract at a given price and backing out when you no longer like the terms. In one situation the contract was created under incorrect parameters and the other has someone breaching their end of a contract because they changed their mind. I would have a lot more sympathy for one situation over the other.
Also, I don’t see what the seller’s financial position has anything to do with this principle.
At a fundamental level can you explain the difference? In one case the seller failed to do their due diligence by not double checking the listing before clicking “list item” and in the other they failed to do their due diligence by not fully researching every variant and conditional factor of the card in question. They’re both preventable mistakes, and in a TCG that’s been around for 20 years with thousands of niche variants that can make magnitudes of difference in price, I would argue that the latter is a much easier mistake to make. In both scenarios the seller listed the card for less than it’s worth because they failed to take in all of the info available to them, not everyone is as deeply knowledgeable about the Pokémon TCG s people here on efour. In eaitehr case the seller simply failed to recognize a condition of the “contract” by their own error, I’d be sympathetic either way, but I suppose I can understand why some people aren’t. I don’t really get the “moral” difference between the two, that philosophy just seems like it arbitrarily favors people who are knowledgeable about the TCG, but everyone starts somewhere and most make mistakes along the way.
The difference between those situations is in the understanding of the parties. If the seller puts a typo in the listing, the buyer and the seller have a different understanding as to the terms of the transaction they are entering into–specifically, the price. If the seller doesn’t value an item in line with the market, that doesn’t affect the understanding between the parties regarding the terms of the deal–both parties nevertheless think they’re transacting for the same dollar amount. In the first case, you can argue there was no contract to begin with. The latter is just a bad contract for one party (which doesn’t necessarily mean that party should get screwed, but the situation is less sympathetic to me when you just don’t put in the proper effort to value properly on eBay vs. for example getting pressured or misled by somebody more knowledgeable in person).
Life is full of situations in which an issue arises but nobody is necessarily “at fault,” but the only resolution to the situation is that somebody is going to get the short end of the stick. If that’s the case, I think the more culpable party should take the consequences, even if that party didn’t necessarily do something morally wrong.
Ill post this with the caveat of I haven’t read fully all of the prior material in this thread, but my two cents on the situation is as follows:
I have a lot of experience working in retail, and sometimes things get priced wrong. Often times things are on sale that go off sale and price tags arent changed. Other times there is a price increase and the price tag isnt changed. Whenever this happens, the store has to honor that original price tag even if it means that they lose a few extra dollars. The same should apply to ebay. If you list a $100 card at $50 and someone buys it at that price, then it is wrong to back out of that deal even if someone offers you more money. The other person has effectively bought that card once they have paid. How mad would you be if you went into a store and bought a candy bar for $0.50 and paid for it just to have the person behind you offer $1.00 for the same candy bar? Would the store ask you to give it back or cancel your payment? No. The candy bar is yours. You paid for it. The store knows next time to mark the bar higher. Ebay is an online marketplace where sellers have online stores. In no other physical store can the store demand that you return a product that you paid for. The same should be true here.
Lol I think its happened to everyone…
Even me, I’ve spent days negotiating a deal, get a good bundled price.
Then the seller gets cold feet or greedy, and resells elsewhere or someone else ends up buying it.
Just part of the game.
Happens to me a lot. Most recently a couple months ago I bought two shadowless base boxes for $2,500 each. Some jealous person decided to say “I didn’t get that crazy good deal then the buyer wont either” then proceeded to tell the seller they were worth way more than they sold them for. My order eventually was cancelled.
One ebay seller I spoke to sold a nm gold star latios as well as a nm frlg charizard ex for 30$ each. I tried to talk him out of mailing them to the buyer (cancel the order), but I had no luck. 
Maybe it’s scumbag like me you are talking about here but we dont always win; some ebayers honour their sales no matter how much money they could have received.