Is This Fair? Best Offer Saga...

[sparkles48]

I'm sorry, but I feel like it's fair game on ebay, first come first served. if she wanted to make the auction only for you, she could have made it a private auction with you as the only allowed bidder. I have a feeling if you ask her she may say "sorry, the other buyer got to it first", she just wants to sell her stuff and she probably knows you have no recourse (neg feedback etc)

Ebay no longer allows private auctions with select allowed bidders. It's part of their new policy.

I'm sorry this happened to you chloehandbags =( It sucks that you spent all this time trying to get this bag and someone else who didn't do a thing benefited from your negotiations.

 

[bbagbubba]

Chiming in with everyone else, this is very disappointing! But maybe it will all work out, in the end!

A similar thing happened to me--I asked a seller about adding a BIN for $xxx. I didn't hear back from her for several hours and assumed she wasn't interested. Then, in the middle of the night she replied saying she would add the BIN. Well, she did and someone else bought the bag, before I could even respond!

This is a sticky area, and I think it really takes an experienced seller to negotiate this properly. The best way to do it (but a bit more risky), is to have the seller send you a paypal request for amount agreed upon, and when payment is rec'd, the seller ends the auction.

 

[chloehandbags]

she never told you that the person agreed, did she? she just added the bin for that price?

Yes, she did.

Here is her email:


Hi x,

Thanks for your message. It's ok with my client - I will go ahead and change the listing now.

Best Wishes,

y

you're right, it isn;t fair. but as my mother always said life isn't fair. she kept saying it too even as i stamped my feet and cried about how it should be. i think the bottom line is she did it, another person bought it and according to ebay they're the one who has the binding contrat with the seller. you might be better off finding another one and letting the drama with this seller go...

Thanks for your advice.

I'm more than old enough to know that life isn't fair, I just don't think we should lie back and complacently let it take advantage of us, that's all.

When I asked 'Is this fair?', I meant 'Is this moral and/or legal?'.

Maybe I should have said that, but I didn't want to sound too long-winded.

BTW, I'm far more interested in UK law regarding contracts, than I am with eBay rules.

Also, there is no drama with this seller, why did you think that there was?

 

[chloehandbags]

Chiming in with everyone else, this is very disappointing! But maybe it will all work out, in the end!

A similar thing happened to me--I asked a seller about adding a BIN for $xxx. I didn't hear back from her for several hours and assumed she wasn't interested. Then, in the middle of the night she replied saying she would add the BIN. Well, she did and someone else bought the bag, before I could even respond!

This is a sticky area, and I think it really takes an experienced seller to negotiate this properly. The best way to do it (but a bit more risky), is to have the seller send you a paypal request for amount agreed upon, and when payment is rec'd, the seller ends the auction.

That's a good idea!

Sorry that happened to you, too.

 

[chloehandbags]

Hi, sorry this happened to you. I have been in this position lots and lots of times. I used to stay up half the night waiting for the seller to E-mail me saying that they had re-listed the item with a BIN LOL. I have also had people buy the item before me...so then Im very very angry lol.

LOL!

Thanks for your sympathy and for making me laugh, Socialite!

 

[chloehandbags]

Ebay no longer allows private auctions with select allowed bidders. It's part of their new policy.

I'm sorry this happened to you chloehandbags =( It sucks that you spent all this time trying to get this bag and someone else who didn't do a thing benefited from your negotiations.

Thank you, sparkles!

I wonder why they no longer allow it?

Is there some sort of scam that people can run via private auctions, do you think?

 

[winternight]

Well if you were just asking her to make it a BIN Ebay auction then I think you must have known someone else could buy it before you? Right? As for legal - if your agreement with her was to make it into a BIN auction that anyone could bid on, well then there isn't any sort of 'breach' here as far as I can tell. Legally I doubt there is a contract at all b/c of the lack of consideration - then again you're in the UK - that's different maybe.

I'm sorry you missed out on the bag but I'm confused as to why you think she should break her contract with the other buyer? Anyways I hope it works out.

 

[chloehandbags]

Chiming in with everyone else, this is very disappointing! But maybe it will all work out, in the end!

I hope so!

A similar thing happened to me--I asked a seller about adding a BIN for $xxx. I didn't hear back from her for several hours and assumed she wasn't interested. Then, in the middle of the night she replied saying she would add the BIN. Well, she did and someone else bought the bag, before I could even respond!

This is a sticky area, and I think it really takes an experienced seller to negotiate this properly. The best way to do it (but a bit more risky), is to have the seller send you a paypal request for amount agreed upon, and when payment is rec'd, the seller ends the auction.

Yes, I can see how that would be a bit risky.....in theory, the seller could take your money and carry on running the auction.

If you were going to do that, I think you would definitely need to put a note on the payment, stating what it was for (with the auction number).

If nothing else, hopefully this thread is throwing up suggestions for how sellers can try to ensure that a specific buyer can buy their item.

Sorry that happened to you, too. Why on earth would a seller add the BIN in the middle of the night? :blink:

Was she in a different time zone?

 

[Balchlfen]

I am sorry to read what's happened and I really hope it turns around and works out for you Fingers crossed!

On the question of "Best Offers" - the UK site only allows each buyer to make one offer and the seller must either accept, decline or let the offer expire. There is no "counter-offer" option

On the US site each buyer can make up to three offers and the seller can actually counter-offer - it is much more flexible

Goodness knows why the UK site is so restrictive

 

[peppy]

Sorry that it didn't (or hasn't YET! fingers crossed!) turn out right for you. Just had a thought, perhaps seller could have listed for more (like her earlier auction) but with a Best Offer option, and she accepts your offer and no-one else's.....although I can see a potential problem where if someone offers a higher price, the seller understandably will be very tempted to accept that instead. Anyway, hope you get good news from the seller soon!

 

[peppy]

And oh yes, another alternative is for the seller to set up her auction such that she has to pre-approve all bidders, and obviously she pre-approves you only.

 

[Balchlfen]

Well if you were just asking her to make it a BIN Ebay auction then I think you must have known someone else could buy it before you? Right? As for legal - if your agreement with her was to make it into a BIN auction that anyone could bid on, well then there isn't any sort of 'breach' here as far as I can tell. Legally I doubt there is a contract at all b/c of the lack of consideration - then again you're in the UK - that's different maybe.

I'm sorry you missed out on the bag but I'm confused as to why you think she should break her contract with the other buyer? Anyways I hope it works out.

I think you are right about there being no contract because of the lack of consideration - it's the same here in the UK

But I am sorry for Chloehandbags as she negotiated hard for the item and was effectively gazzumped by someone else (albeit a totally innocent ebayer). She did ask the seller to let her know when she was changing the BIN to make sure she was around to click the BIN button on time. I can't speak for her but reading this thread I don't think she expects the seller to break her contract with the new buyer but maybe just expected the seller to make a tiny bit of effort to explain the situation to the other buyer in the faint hope that they might understand and step aside.......

 

[hlfinn]

is it moral? really?

she held up her end of the bargain, you asked for a bin she added it. technically it's not her fault someone came along before you and snapped it up. yes, as i said this has happened to be before too and i know how it feels and it feels just awful. i was good and upset when it happened and i bet that other buyer was laughing all the way to the bank with their deal of the century.

what she did was perfectly legal. you are upset that you didn't get the thing you wanted and that makes perfect sense. but take a step back. imagine you were the second buyer and someone else was the one who asked for the bin etc. would you say oh ok here you take it or would you say finders keepers i bought this first and in good faith?

in a way this is a call to sellers to see how to handle this sort of transaction but i also think it could go the other way and discourage sellers from adding bins in the middle of the auction. i bet the seller feels awful about the whole thing but her hands are tied.

and the drama i meant was the emails and the going back and forth. it was not a judgement call.

 

[winternight]

I think you are right about there being no contract because of the lack of consideration - it's the same here in the UK

But I am sorry for Chloehandbags as she negotiated hard for the item and was effectively gazzumped by someone else (albeit a totally innocent ebayer). She did ask the seller to let her know when she was changing the BIN to make sure she was around to click the BIN button on time. I can't speak for her but reading this thread I don't think she expects the seller to break her contract with the new buyer but maybe just expected the seller to make a tiny bit of effort to explain the situation to the other buyer in the faint hope that they might understand and step aside.......

Good point. I agree. Maybe the buyer will turn out to be flaky anyways.

 

[hlfinn]

it sounds like you'll end up getting the bag anyway if the seller doesn't get the check in time