EBay Shenanigans

[OzPiper]

I won a pipe on EBay a couple of days ago.

A "Please Pay Now" notice arrived almost immediately

Within 30 seconds another notice came along saying there was "a problem arose with the sale" and "Sorry you missed out on this item".

Since then I have received a couple more notices to pay for the item, but every time I try to pay, my payment is blocked and the same "Sorry you missed out on this item" appears.

Attempts to contact the seller or the EBay resolutions team just results in a hair tearing out exercise. ?

I have been buying on EBay for some years. This is the 1st time I've encountered this problem

Has anyone experienced a similar problem ?
How did you resolve it ?

The pipe is spectacularly beautiful and I have not come across another example previously, so I am loathe to miss out on this one.

 

[ashdigger]

You must have got a great deal. Too good for you and bad for the seller.

 

[Chasing Embers]

I've gotten an outbid notification only to find out I won but never anything like that.

 

[OzPiper]

You must have got a great deal. Too good for you and bad for the seller.

Actually my winning bid was twice my original estimate for the pipe.

 

[bayareabriar]

I tried to pay and something similar happened as well. Found out the pipe was a restricted item because it was a pipe. Couldn’t buy it but I could buy any other one. Didn’t make sense.

 

[sablebrush52]

I won a pipe on EBay a couple of days ago.

A "Please Pay Now" notice arrived almost immediately

Within 30 seconds another notice came along saying there was "a problem arose with the sale" and "Sorry you missed out on this item".

Since then I have received a couple more notices to pay for the item, but every time I try to pay, my payment is blocked and the same "Sorry you missed out on this item" appears.

Attempts to contact the seller or the EBay resolutions team just results in a hair tearing out exercise. ?

I have been buying on EBay for some years. This is the 1st time I've encountered this problem

Has anyone experienced a similar problem ?
How did you resolve it ?

The pipe is spectacularly beautiful and I have not come across another example previously, so I am loathe to miss out on this one.

Download the pictures to enjoy, and move on. With online purchases, better safe than sorry when something weird happens. If this was a legit issue the seller would have returned your contact attempts.

 

[OzPiper]

Download the pictures to enjoy, and move on. With online purchases, better safe than sorry when something weird happens. If this was a legit issue the seller would have returned your contact attempts.

Yup.
I've decided to move on.
A fair bit of money would have been involved.
I don't want the hassles of trying to get a refund.

 

[AJL67]

On the bright side it was twice your estimate so you won’t have to deal with any remorse, at least I’d try to look at it that way.

 

[ssjones]

Although it is very hard to do now, I bet the seller rec'd a better offer from another bidder and somehow found a way to do a private sale (they've really locked this down).

 

[Jimmy_Jack]

I’ve never had this but I’ve had sellers make fake bids to drive up prices. Called the guy out on it and surprise…there were no more bidding wars.

 

[Kobold]

I’ve never had that happen but I’m not surprised.
Sounds like the seller canceled the order (probably because he received an offer that was higher than your winning bid) and it hasn’t caught up with ebays automatic system.
The seller is probably sketchy if that’s what happened so you might have been done a favor in the long run.

 

[guylesss]

I suspect the second notice--regarding a problem with the sale--was key. And that eBay's various default methods of pestering buyers (and sellers) were simply grinding on.

In your shoes, I'd dig to find an actual EBay phone number (or call you back page)--although finding this on their Help pages is clearly designed to make most people give up.

And I would then cross examine one of the few live human beings Ebay employs. This both with a view to getting at least a partial answer about what the "problem" might be, to put on record your poor experience and suspicions of dishonesty about the seller, and even if a long shot, see if there is some happier resolution possible (without putting yourself at risk with a seller you no longer fully trust).

I would also see if you have an option to post feedback--and politely announce your intention to the unresponsive seller to leave a strongly negative comment if he fails to respond and explain what happened.

This said, Jesse's advice to move on is particularly sound.

 

[kcghost]

I've never seen this but stuff happens when your on a platform that is used by millions of people.

 

[Sweet Home Alabama]

Always use PayPal

 

[LotusEater]

Just a thought but If you feel the seller has been dishonest you might want to name him/her/them so that others here can avoid similar misdealings.

 

[OzPiper]

An update:

The seller has contacted me to see if I want the pipe. I do.

It's an EBay stuff up.
I've since received several other reminders to pay for the purchase.
Everytime I try to make payment, the same message "Sorry you missed out on this item" comes up and payment is blocked.

I'll have to see if I can talk to a human at EBay. Not confident of my chances.

 

[AJL67]

An update:

The seller has contacted me to see if I want the pipe. I do.

It's an EBay stuff up.
I've since received several other reminders to pay for the purchase.
Everytime I try to make payment, the same message "Sorry you missed out on this item" comes up and payment is blocked.

I'll have to see if I can talk to a human at EBay. Not confident of my chances.

Good luck with that! I mean that, i started to work on their call center software and shadowed some of their agents, the few in the US aren’t bad but the rest are a crap shoot.

 

[OzPiper]

Good luck with that! I mean that, i started to work on their call center software and shadowed some of their agents, the few in the US aren’t bad but the rest are a crap shoot.

Yup. The EBay customer service is second to none in being absolutely the worst ?
When you try contacting someone, pages of unhelpful crap gets vomited up which gets you nowhere.

I've bought from this seller on previous occasions and he is genuine.

So I'm placing the blame for this whole debacle solely at the feet of EBay.

 

[timelord]

When I moved to Brazil I continued to use my eBay account for a couple of months; then eBay suddenly decided that I couldn't be legitimate because no one moves from Australia to Brazil and they locked my account.

After days of trying to speak to a human and in the meantime sending all the requested information to prove I am the same person I was in Australia I was sent an authorisation code to my Aussie mobile phone - nope, they sent an invalid code and that just screwed things up further.

After a two days of trying to sort that out I gave up.

 

[PipeIT]

Yup.
I've decided to move on.
A fair bit of money would have been involved.
I don't want the hassles of trying to get a refund.

This sounds like website errors/issues.

I must of missed something, what do you mean about a refund?

If you won an auction, then contact eBay and show them this problem. Websites can always have issues, bugs, etc.

Well, if you want to hassle, and I probably would, if you like to use ebay alot, file a BBB report, to see if someone at corporate will reach out to you.

This situation should not be happening, and when the site screws up, they need to correct it.