Section 2.4. Buyers Woes and What to Do About Them

2.4. Buyers ' Woes and What to Do About Them

Shakespeare knew that "the course of true love never did run smooth"; sometimes, the course of commerce takes a bumpy road, too. Most eBay transactions begin and end without a hitch. But the eBay world isn't perfect. This section describes some common problems buyers face and what to do about them.

2.4.1. The Seller Cancels Your Bid on Your Very First Auction

Sellers have the option of canceling bids or blocking bidders from their auctions. They don't have to give a reason. Some sellers are wary of new buyers with no feedback and will cancel bids from zero-feedback buyers if they see them. From a new buyer's point of view, this stinks. How can you earn feedback if you can't even bid?

You have a couple of options.

One option is to email the seller (use the "Ask seller a question" link on the auction page). Explain that you're new to eBay but you understand the rules and are serious about bidding. Emphasize that you know that a bid is a binding agreement and you intend to follow through if you win. This sort of communication will convince many sellers that you're sincere and will lead them to let you to bid on the auction.

Note: Sellers can set their auctions to automatically block bids from buyers with a negative feedback score or who live in countries the seller doesn't ship to.

The other option is to build up your feedback rating by buying several inexpensive items quickly, paying up even more quickly, and leaving good feedback for the seller. (BIN auctions, on Section 1.4.3, are great for building up a history on eBaya couple of clicks and you've bought the item, and you don't have to wait a week for an auction to end.) After a sale, you can politely request feedback from the seller with an email that says something like, "I received the rainbow-striped toe socks today and was very pleased. I've left you positive feedback and hope you'll do the same for me." As long as you pay promptly and focus on good communication, your feedback rating should increase.

Tip: Don't plague a seller by sending daily emails demanding feedback. Some sellers leave their feedback in batches, so it might take them a while to get around to yours. Others choose not to leave feedback at all. Remember that feedback is voluntary. And if you make a pest of yourself, you might get an unwanted negative.

2.4.2. You Made a Mistake in Your Bid

Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, you make a mistake in your bid. Typing 3599 when you meant to type 35.99 can be an expensive mistake. Or you might make a bid and then think of a question to ask the seller, but the seller doesn't answer your emails and you're starting to have doubts about dealing with this person. Or you go back to check out an auction to see whether you're still the high bidder, and the seller has edited the item description to say, "Oops! I typed in 14K gold but the ring is 14K gold- plated ." If you make a mistake while bidding or change your mind about the auction, is it too late to take your bid back?

You can retract a bid, but only in certain circumstances:

• You made a typographical error . If you typed in the wrong amount, you can retract your bid, but you must specify the correct bid immediately after the retraction. If you retract your bid for this reason without submitting a new bid and eBay finds out, you could be NARU'dsuspended from eBay. (How would eBay know? The seller might report you.)

• You can't contact the seller . This reason doesn't refer to a seller who's simply slow to respond to emails. If a phone has been disconnected or an email is returned to you as undeliverable, then you can use this option.

• The seller changed the item description on you . If the auction page changes to show that the item you thought you were bidding on isn't what the seller has up for sale, you can retract your bid.

Note: Buyer's remorse isn't a valid reason to retract a bid. Once you've bid on an item or clicked the Buy It Now button, you can't change your mind just for the heck of it. That's one big difference between eBay and the local mallyou can't simply return something if you decide you don't really want it.

To retract a bid, go to the navigation bar and click "services," scroll down the Services page to Bidding and Buying Services, and then click the "Retract your bid" link. (eBay asks you to sign in or confirm your password.) Most of the Bid Retractions page is a lecture on why you shouldn't do what you're about to do. At the bottom of the page is the Bid Retraction form, shown in Figure 2-13.

Tip: If you want to retract a bid, try contacting the seller first and asking them politely to cancel your bid. The seller has no obligation to do so and will probably refuse , but sometimes a sympathetic seller will help you out. If the seller cancels your bid, you won't have to worry about a bid retraction appearing in your Member Profile.

Figure 2-13. To retract a bid using this form, type in the item number (from the auction page), select your reason for retracting, and then click the Retract Bid button. Avoid retracting a bid unless you have a valid reasonbid retractions become public knowledge, and they don't endear you to sellers.

Bid retractions come with a ticking clock. If you placed your bid more than 12 hours before the auction is due to end, you can't retract it during the last 12 hours of the auction (although you may be able to sweet-talk the seller into canceling it for you). If you placed your bid during the last 12 hours of the auction, you must retract it within one hour of when you placed it, or the bid stands.

Sometimes retractions are unavoidable. But don't take back your bid unless you really have to. A count of the bid retractions you've made during the past six months shows up in your Membership Profile, as shown in Figure 2-14, for all the world to see. Too many bid retractions will make sellers block you from their auctions. You can also get NARU'd if another user (like a disgruntled seller) reports you for having too many retractions.

Figure 2-14. You can see why this eBayer would want to keep feedback private. Besides racking up a negative every other day for the past month, she's also retracted better than a bid a week for the past six months. Bid retractions appear just below the Recent Ratings table.

2.4.3. You Don't Hear from the Seller After the Auction

Buyers, especially rookies, can be understandably impatient to get their stuff. But here's another way in which eBay differs from the mallno instant gratification. You have to have a little patience.

eBay suggests that the buyer and the seller establish contact within three business days after the auction ends. Note business days. For many sellers, eBay is their business. They want to relax a little on evenings, weekends, and holidays, just like everyone else. So if you win an auction on Friday night, Monday is day one of the contact period. For similar reasons, if you don't receive a response to your email within a couple hours of sending it, chill out and give it some time. The seller may be in a different time zone or may not live at the computer.

2.4.3.1 When to contact the seller

Even after you wait the recommended three days, not all sellers will get in touch with you. Some simply ship the item after they've received payment. Having little or no contact with the buyer isn't the best way to do business, obviously, because it makes customers anxious. If you haven't heard anything within three or so days after you've paid, email the seller to ask whether your item has shipped.

Tip: The email you receive from eBay at the end of the auction contains the seller's email address. If you didn't save this eBay email, you can contact the seller by going to My eBay Items Ive Won, and then clicking the seller's ID, which takes you to the seller's Member Profile page. From there, click the Contact Member button. Or go to the auction page of the item you won and click "Ask seller a question."

If time keeps passing without a response, you can request the seller's contact information and try to get in touch by phone. See Section 2.3.2 to find out how to get the phone number of an eBayer you're doing business with.

Tip: Spam filters are great for keeping the junk out of your inbox, but sometimes they trap legitimate email. If you don't get a response from a seller to email you've sent from your own address, your emails might be disappearing into a spam filter the seller (or the seller's Internet service provider) set up. Try calling, or use the Contact Member button on the seller's Member Profile page to send your email. Emails sent via eBay go both to the seller's email address and to the My Messages section of the seller's My eBay page.

2.4.3.2 When to report the seller

If you call and email and still can't contact the seller, it might be time to file an Item Not Received report, found through the Help page's Security Center link (Figure 2-15). You should try to contact the seller for at least two weeks after the auction ends before you file a report, though; eBay won't even let you file a report until 10 days have gone by.

Figure 2-15. To report a seller who refuses to sell you an item you won fairly and paid for, use this form. You must supply the seller's eBay ID and the item numberthis information is on your My eBay page in the Items I've Won section and in the notification email you get from eBay when you've won an auction.

If you've paid and the seller hasn't sent the item and won't respond to your attempts to make contact, take these additional steps:

• File an eBay Item Not Received (INR) report . eBay gives you up to 60 days after the auction ends to file a fraud alert. Don't miss that 60-day deadline, though, or you're out of luck. If you need to report a fraud, find the auction in your My eBay page, and then click the "Report an Item Not Received" link.

  If you paid with PayPal, start your complaint process with eBay. When you've finished filling out the "Item Not Received" form, eBay sends you to PayPal, where you can let PayPal know about the problem. Later, if PayPal finds in your favor, it issues a report to eBay about the seller. But if you skip the eBay process and go straight to PayPal to get your money back, eBay will never know there was a problem. Since INR reports are what get a bad seller kicked off eBay, it's important to go through eBay's channels first.

• Notify your payment provider . If the seller has accepted your PayPal payment, you must file your claim with PayPal within 45 days of the transaction; PayPal allows up to three Buyer Protection claims per buyer per year. If the seller hasn't accepted the payment, you can simply cancel it. With BidPay, you can cancel your money order request if it hasn't been marked "approved" or "mailed" on your BidPay History and Status page. If you used a credit card, the purchases you make on eBay are covered by the card issuer's standard protections , so you might be able to chargeback the payment. If you paid by personal check, call your bank to see whether the check has cleared. If not, you can usually stop payment.

  Note: If you used a credit card to pay via PayPal, file your claim through PayPal before you contact your credit card company. If you don't follow PayPal's procedure, PayPal could suspend your account. Later, if PayPal denies your claim, you can still call your credit card issuer and see if they can help.

• File an eBay Buyer Protection Program claim . After you've filed a fraud alert, eBay processes it and sends you an email telling you how to file a claim. You must file your claim within 90 days of the auction's end. Again, don't let that deadline slip by!

When you buy, it's nice to know that eBay has procedures in place to protect your purchase. Most of the time you won't need them, but if you encounter a rare deadbeat seller, be sure you know what your optionsand their deadlinesare.

2.4.4. You Bought It Now when You Meant to Bid

The way to avoid this dilemma is to read what's on your computer screen before you start clicking buttons . The Buy It Now process is very different from bidding. When you bid, you type in your maximum bid and then confirm it. When you use Buy It Now, you have no opportunity to specify a bid. Instead, eBay takes you to a page called Review and Commit to Buy (see Figure 2-16), which lists the item title and number, the BIN price, additional charges (shipping/handling and insurance), and payment methods . eBay also reminds you that you're making a commitment to buy the item when you use BIN. Even the button you click reflects the binding nature of what you're about to do: rather than Confirm Bid, it says Commit to Buy.

So if you goof, it's possible that you just clicked a series of buttons without reading carefully , thinking you were bidding or putting the item into a shopping cart. Fine. But don't expect the seller to accept that as an excuse . When you click the Commit to Buy button, you're agreeing to a legally binding contract. Most sellers will hold you to your purchase; if you don't pay, they'll file an Unpaid Item (UPI) dispute, which will result in an Unpaid Item strike against you. Too many strikes from different sellers and you're out of the gameyou get NARU status and are suspended from using the site.

Figure 2-16. eBay gives you plenty of warnings that you're really about to buy something when you click the Buy It Now button. Always be sure to read the page carefully so you know what you're about to do when you click the button.

Note: An Unpaid Item strike doesn't affect a buyer's feedback rating, but buyers and sellers both can leave feedback for auctions involving unpaid items. UPI strikes are a private, administrative matter between a nonpaying bidder and eBay, but unhappy sellers canand dospeak up loudly in the Feedback Forum when someone doesn't pay.

Occasionally, a sympathetic seller might take pity and agree you don't have to pay. But you can still expect that seller to file a UPI dispute against youit's a necessary part of the process for the seller to recoup the fees eBay has collected for the completed auction. When you get an email asking if you agree to a " mutually agreed" UPI dispute resolution, say "yes." Otherwise, you'll end up with a UPI strike and an unhappy seller on her way to the Feedback Forum.

2.4.5. You Were OutbidBut Then You Won

Winning an auction you "lost" sounds impossible , but it can happen. When you're outbid and you don't want to go any higher, the natural thing to do is to look for and bid on another, similar item. After all, someone outbid you on that first crystal chandelier, and you really need one for next month's ball. But be carefulyou might end up with two crystal chandeliers when your ballroom has space for just one.

Here's how it works. Say you were outbid. If the winning bidder retracts his bid or the seller cancels the high bid (perhaps because it was made by a buyer who's given the seller trouble in the past), you might find yourself in the #1 spot againwhen you'd thought you were out of the running. In fact, eBay warns you this might happen in its outbid notice, shown in Figure 2-17.

The moral? If you're outbid, wait until the auction ends before you bid on another auction for the same thing.

Figure 2-17. Although most of the outbid notice looks like an invitation to bid again, look in the lower-right part of the box and check out the Reminder that's there. If a higher bid than yours is canceled or retracted, you could still win the auctionand if that happens, you're obliged to buy at the bid you made. Until the auction is over, you may still be the winner.

2.4.6. You Bid Against Yourself

Sounds like a sitcom plotbut it's actually just an aspect of proxy bidding (Section 2.2), in which eBay's computers bid on your behalf . There's no particular recourse for it, but here's the backstory .

Say you're already the high bidder, but you're going to be on a sun-drenched beach in Tahiti when the auction ends ( sans laptop, naturally) and you want to raise your high bid before your flight leaves to make sure you get the item. You go back to the auction page and submit a new bid. Even though you were already the high bidder, the current bid jumps to a higher amount the second you place the new bid.

What happened ? One of the following scenarios:

• If the auction is a reserve auction (Section 1.4.2) and your new bid meets or surpasses the reserve price, your current bid jumps to the reserve.

• If you and another bidder offered the same dollar amount, but you're the high bidder because eBay processed your bid first, your bid goes up by one bid increment (somewhere between $0.05 and $100, depending on the price of the item you're bidding for) to put you firmly in the lead.

• If you lead the auction by less than one full bid increment over the second highest bidder, when you submit a new bid, eBay increases the amount of your current bid to equal a full bid increment over the next highest bid. For example, say your previous maximum bid was $14.92, and that's the current high bid. When you raise your maximum bid to $20.00, eBay increases your bid to $15.00 to make it a full bid increment over the next highest bidder's $14.50. That's not a big deal when you're in the range of 50-cent bid increments, but be aware that bid increments increase as prices climbup to a maximum of $100 (ouch!) for items costing $5,000 or more.

Note: Learn more than you ever thought possible about bid increments on Section 3.3.