I have been trying to get rid of our old 50s Lightfoot fridge for ages now. I put it on ebay for the fourth time on Sunday, not expecting any interest, although I did recategorise it under "collectables/vintage/retro/1950s" this time. Lo and behold, I got an offer, with the rider, suggested by the prospective buyer, that I reclassify it under "buy it now" for the offered price, so the buyer could snap it up. So I did.
Unfortunately, someone else was watching and bought it through ebay before the person I had promised it to.
I emailed the original buyer to check it wasnt the same person, but it wasnt.
I accepted the ebay bid, as I felt contractually obliged and emailed the original buyer to apologise (what else could I do? He had suggested the "buy it now" manoeuvre).
Now I am getting a load of aggrieved emails complaining about "I thought we had an agreement" etc.
Apart from the fact that I hate upsetting anyone, what should I have done? Upset the new buyer (and ebay) by turning them down and withdrawing the ebay sale after it had been made? Or upset the first buyer, like I did, by abiding by ebay rules? I had, after all, made an agreement with them. I think I stuck by the rules.
15 comments:
you did fine honey. So the guy lost a fridge, he'll get over it. Theres no contract until the actual bid has been made. In other words, theres not much that could have been done. *hugs, stop beating yoruself up Hutetrees
You did the right thing. Not your fault the the other guy was not quick enough!!
ttfn jane
Buyer 1 only suggested Buy It Now so that he wouldn't have to enter a bidding war. You did nothing wrong.
Sadly I suspect you would have got more for it if you'd left it as an auction.
What else could you have done, it was his idea, so he must have realised that what happened was possible. Unlucky for him, but not your problem, he should have been quicker. He didn't buy it so he can't give you a bad reference!
I agree with MMM. I reckon you should have left it as an auction.
You did completely the right thing, with the possible exception of trying to accommodate this fool. They asked you to do X, you did X and they lost the sale. They tried to beat the system and the system whupped their ass.
Tell your aggrieved buyer that you honoured your deal by changing it to Buy It Now. Tell them eBay does not supply a way to block other buyers and you were as surprised as the buyer was that someone else snapped it up, however you have to play by ebay's rules.
If you get negative feedback, respond with "buyer tried to outwit eBay and lost, is sore about that"... oh wait, they can't leave you negative as they didn't complete a transaction with you... That'll be why they're so pissed.
And now repeat to yourself "do not respond to emails asking you to change the sale terms" 50 times.
Yep, what they all said! You helped, he failed. His problem.
what you could have done is set the auction to buy it now and have it as only approved bidders can bid on it and let the first guy be the only approved bidder...
but agree with everything MMM said.
Your conscience is clear on this one.
I've had people ask me to change auctions several times. I normally respond with "The auction will remain as is - good luck if you choose to bid"
But you did the right thing anyway. As already mentioned, your agreement with buyer 1 was to change the auction to Buy It Now. You fulfilled that.
Go on, tell buyer 1 to fuck off. You know you want to. His problem, not yours :)
I agree with O'Mally, if he sends you another email tell him to fuck off.
You did exactly as he wished and he didn't snatch it up and thus made himself more vulnerable to losing it by having it listed as BIN.
I went through a stage of selling vintage linens on Ebay and every time someone asked me to change it to BIN, I told them the auction would stay as is and those were usually the very auctions that got multiple bids. The buyer was trying to screw you and other potential buyers from a fair auction and instead, he got screwed. Nice. Obviously, he is an ass by his actions afterwards.
I'm not sure that you have to worry about bad feedback as I am pretty sure only the people involved in the sale get the option to leave feedback.
I hope he leaves you alone soon.
Ooh, that classic rock and a hard place scenario!
I think you did the right thing, rules is rules???
Ehmm… all of the above! I have nothing to add :)
Yep. This lot all speak wisely. You did the right thing (with perhaps the minor exception of trying to accommodate this idiot in the first place...). Well done on selling the fridge. :)
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