AuctionCut

I had an auction that just ended this morning..

Last night, I had received an email from EBAY entitled "Notice: Administrative Bid Cancellation".... It went on to say:


This email is to inform you that any recent bids placed by <ebay user> may have been by an unauthorized third party. We are now in the process of restoring the account to its true owner.

If this person was the winning bidder for the transaction then the transaction in question should be considered null and void. You may relist the item and request a credit for the Final Value Fee. When a seller submits a final value fee credit request, unpaid Items are automatically identified by our system. Our system will then keep records of the credit requests that are received from sellers regarding transactions that were not completed.


What confused me is that the user was still making bids on my auction.. I researched the guy and found that he had 3 VERY NEGATIVE feed backs that were really recent.. Then nothing for a year back, then many good Feedbacks from Aug 2006 on back.... So, nothing between Aug 06 and Aug 07 and then very very BAD feedback in Aug 07. If permissible, I will be happy to post this ebay user's ID..

Anyways, flash forward to this morning.. I canceled that guy's bid and the auction ended with another high bidder..

Now, it turns out that THIS high bidder is similar to the guy I canceled. He doesn't have any recent NEGATIVE feed back, but he also doesn't have ANY Feedback at all since Apr 2005... He hasn't responded to two emails. One sent thru EBAY and one sent directly to his YAHOO address.. I was able to confirm the purchaser thru online White Pages and even left a voicemail message simply asking to confirm the purchase...

Reading back over all that, I come across as a little paranoid.. I mean, all I really have to go on is lack of activity since 2005... But, the fact that it's a high end item ($300+) and the notification from EBAY, I guess I am a little jumpy..

I guess I just wanted to find out from other EBAYers whether or not I am all up in arms over nothing and I should just wait a bit or if this is something I should dig into further..

Thanx and apologies for the "novel"...


Michale

If permissible, I will be happy to post this ebay user's ID..

Sure, go for it.

I guess I just wanted to find out from other EBAYers whether or not I am all up in arms over nothing and I should just wait a bit or if this is something I should dig into further..

I always listen to my gut feeling - sometimes you just seem to know a bidder isn't going to pay. If in doubt cancel the bid if your able to.

Mark wrote:

If permissible, I will be happy to post this ebay user's ID..

Sure, go for it.

The one EBAY warned me about is wcdancer41
EBAY nuked his account already...

Mark wrote:

I guess I just wanted to find out from other EBAYers whether or not I am all up in arms over nothing and I should just wait a bit or if this is something I should dig into further..

I always listen to my gut feeling - sometimes you just seem to know a bidder isn't going to pay. If in doubt cancel the bid if your able to.

Yea, unfortunately, the auction is ended.. I am going to call again tonight and try to get an answer one way or another. Even if I hear a "AUCTION!?? WHAT AUCTION??" at least I know that I can relist the item..

I am also thinking of adding the following stipulation:


Invoices are sent out within 3 hours of Auction ending. With items that are over $200, ***RECEIPT OF INVOICE MUST BE ACKNOWLEDGED WITHIN 12 HOURS*** or item may be re-listed.


Do you think such a stipulation is:

A. Reasonable??

and

B. Allowable??


Thanx for the reply..


Michale

I've often thought about T&C's like that on some high value items thati have listed in the past, but it is not really enforceable within the confines of eBay.

As it stands at the moment, you can only start a Non Paying Bidder dipute after 7 days of non-payment, and then a further 8 days before it's officially cancelled and eligible for a relist credit. By all means you could relist it after a shorter period, but if the original buyer comes back to pay for the original purchase you are left in a sticky situation.

The alternative is to insigate a mutual transaction cancellation, but the other party has to agree to this, so the ball is still in their court.

There are ways to restrict who can bid - bidders with paypal only, feedback restrictions, countries you dont ship to who dont have credit cards on file etc - this is the link for the UK site - http://offer.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dl ... references I guess the "co.uk" can be swapped for a ".com"

That's some great info.

Thanx SteveW...

So, let me ask this...

What if I call the guy tonight and he denies that it was him that made the purchase/bid??

How would I go about freeing up the item immediately for relist as far as EBAY is concerned?? Or do I even need to worry about that??

Thanx again..


Michale

(must try to type better in this post...!)

If you can make contact and he denies it, then it would suggest that his account has been hijacked, contact eBay through live help - https://cschatlb-na.corp.ebay.com/chat. ... onSellerHP
and they will get straight onto it - it's one of the few areas where eBay do react pretty quickly.

The transaction will be cancelled, and you will be free to relist straightaway.

Given the value of the item it is likely to attract the more nefarious element of eBay, so setting tight buyer requirements will help to reduce the risk of it happening again. It's an unfortunate hazard when listing digital cameras, mobile phones, iPods etc.

OK now things have gone from weird to downright wanky....

After putting in a NON PAYER Dispute with EBAY, I relisted the afore mentioned XBOX 360...

THAT auction just ended today.. Within the last few minutes of the auction a High Bidder jumped in and won the auction... Lo' and behold, the Feedback of this High Bidder is the same as the bidder from the previous XBOX 360 Auction.. Some Great Feedbacks and then NOTHING for the last nine months...

Now, call me paranoid.. But it seems to me that not one, not two, but three different bidders on the same item that have great feedback that is almost a year old and nothing in the interim.... Well, that just smacks to me of too much coincidence... Especially when you consider that it's been a couple hours and I have yet to get an acknowledgment of the receipt of the invoice and a phone call to the High Bidder is un-returned..

So, I have to wonder.. Is this something that is a normal part of doing business on Ebay?? Or has anyone else noticed this trend??

Now, you are probably saying, "A few hours?? That's not enough time to wait.." And you're probably right.. But it is evident by the way this Bidder jumped in at the last moment, that he (or she) was present at the end of the auction... So, it just seems incomprehensible to me that someone would be there, but not acknowledge any attempt at contact..

Add to that, the weird "LET'S BE FRIENDS" spam I get with ONLY the XBOX 360 Auctions and I have to ask myself...

Or am I just being wigged out and overly paranoid?? Or is something wanky going on....????


Michale

Update on this..

This morning, when I got to my computer, there was a couple emails from the winning bidder above..

The return address was
="mailto:service@intl.paypal.com">service@intl.paypal.com <intl.pay.cash@OfficeEmail.net>

And it stated that a payment was made to my PayPal account but that it won't be released to me until after I ship the XBOX 360 and provide PayPal with the tracking #..

Now, I may have been born at night, but it wasn't LAST night... What even MORE confirmed it as a scam is that the email went to my EBAY email address and not my PAYPAL email address.. These two email addresses are different for just this reason..

I also received a return call from the real owner of the account last night. He confirmed to me that he had not made any purchase thru EBAY and would get with EBAY first thing to rectify this..

So, another scammer bites the dust...


Michale

Seems like your having your share of bad luck. Are you planning on relisting it again? Perhaps the safest option would be to use a Buy-It-Now with immediate payment required.

At least your familiar enough with eBay to release it was a spoof, whereas a lot of new users would have got caught out by the email.

Mark wrote:Seems like your having your share of bad luck. Are you planning on relisting it again? Perhaps the safest option would be to use a Buy-It-Now with immediate payment required.

At least your familiar enough with eBay to release it was a spoof, whereas a lot of new users would have got caught out by the email.

I was fortunate enough this time that the next highest bidder bought it right up. As soon as I got that phone call from the real owner of the account, I made a SECOND CHANCE offer and it sold within hours. And there was only a $5 diff between the highest and the second highest bid.. So that worked out well..

I looked on EBAY recently and it seems this scammer tired the same thing on at least two other auctions for relatively high value items...

Just for the record, the user name is 'dahuston21' but keep in mind that the REAL dahuston is not the bad guy.. I only mention that because, if this dahuston get's his account back, I would hate for him to be penalized for the actions of some scamming jerk...


Michale