Caution - Unethical Seller

Gaucho

I have been selling on eBay since about 1995. I have 540 feedback entries and every one is positive. I have never had to refund a payment for an item a buyer was dissatisfied with. I have never given negative feedback, even though I sometimes felt put upon. The closest I got was not entering feedback at all.

In the end, you can't take anything with you. But the good will of those who knew you is a legacy worth protecting.
 
Scary to think people will sell their good name for a few bucks. I have customers who owe me $630+ and $240+ and wonder about even that. When I die I hope to not owe anyone anything, and can't understand why anyone goes through life screwing other people.

The guy bought the parts for a price, decided to sell later and set the no reserve starting price low, and when he saw he was going to lose a few dollars he traded his integrity for those few bucks. Like I said, it's scary.

Life is full of deals that end with profit and some that end with loss, some people clench onto a few bucks that tight? Must be a wage slave punching a time clock.
 
Did you contact Gunbroker about it or just the seller? I didn't see that you actually contacted them and they didn't have any response? Even Ebay makes an attempt to make a good resolution when they can.

I'd like to at least hear what they said in repsonse to your complaint to them. You could still contact them and file a complaint so it's on his selling record in case he does it again.
 
I listed a bunch of boxes of "rarish" French ammo on Gunbroker that belonged to a friend. I trusted that the details that my friend supplied to me were accurate including the fact that he said he checked and found that there were 20 rounds per box for a total of XXX number of rounds. And he wanted to receive a specific price for the ammo based on his actual cost for it.
After someone bid on and won it, I picked up the ammo to ship it only to discover that there were only 15 rounds per box instead of 20 rounds which increased the price per round by 25% since there were 25% less rounds.
So I sent a detailed explanation of "my mistake" to the buyer and gave him the option to either buy the ammo at the higher price per round (the amount of his bid) or that I would cancel the entire sale, hopefully through Gunbroker.
The buyer was an experienced ammo dealer who was really understanding about it and bought the lesser amount of ammo for the original price that he bid.
I couldn't very well manufacture any more of the ammo to supply the number of rounds advertised and I wasn't about to pay for my friend's misinformation. Mistakes are made because of human error, and this honest mistake was able to be ironed out with the right amount of communication. A new deal needed to be made through a meeting of the minds. There really is no deal unless there is a voluntary meeting of the minds with all of the terms being known and agreed upon.
There's a Latin legal saying, "Justice is that which appears to be just".
 
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To Buymore

Yes...and this is worth noting.

There is a link on Gunbroker auctions for buyers to report situations exactly like the one I experienced. I assumed they would contact the seller, inform him that his unwillingness to complete the auction was a breach of policy, and threaten to revoke his selling privileges if he continued to abuse buyers.

But all it really does is to refer the cheated buyer to the feedback link.

I have found no way to get GB to do anything more than that. In fact as I went through the process, I was informed that GB acknowledges its limited power in forcing sellers to adhere to GB policies. Of cource this is not true. They could delete the seller.

But as was pointed out before, it is unlkely that they would ever side with the buyer, since they make no money from the buyer. One might argue that it takes a buyer to make a sale, and that it is the sale which results in payment. To that, I can only respond that they seem very reluctant to exercise any control over the seller. This, to me, is an indication of where their heart is.

I would hasten to add that trott2holland has 17 feedbacks which present him as the first cousin to Jesus Christ himself. My one "F" did nothing to hurt his rating (Still A+).
 
Guess What!

Perhaps you recall in a previous post that I reported that trott2holland's relist of the item resulted in a no-sale because 45.00 was less than the reserve price. I am absolutely certain that while the auction was active that 45.00 bid was shown as not meeting the reserve.

I just checked and the finished auction is reflected as a completed sale with the reserve price, still at 45.00, having been met.

So apparently the seller on Gunbroker has the option to reduce the reserve price after the auction closes.

I am having a very bad reaction to GB policies.

trott2holland will probably post negative feedback on me in retaliation for my honesty.
 
You did the right thing Doc by leaving negative feed back.
I just had a bad experience on GB. I bought a recoil pad, ended with my opening bid of 22.00. Seller has a automated check out and this check out bumped the price to my max bid of 26.00, a 4.00 increase over the closing bid. Then he wants 12.00 to ship a 2oz item. I sent two e-mails with no response. I see he just complained to GB about me as a non paying bidder. I guess we well just swap negative feed back, 52+ and 1- Oh well.
 
MCB

One of the responses last night prompted me to do a bit more checking.

It isn't easy but there is a way to get Gunbroker off their dead a__ __ and give the buyer a little help.

I have openned a case and will see what they do to rectify my situation. Might be you could get some help too.

In my case the item has already been sold. I no longer want it because I want nothing from this deadbeat. (Obviously I would complete the auction to stay within the bounds of GB.) I think it would be cool if they would force him to sell the item to me at my first winning bid, That means he has to default on the second auction (unless he has two grips from an 1851 Navy). Negative feedback from both me and the other guy....

Nice to dream.
 
doc,
you stick to your guns, you did right by posting negative feedback, people like that are the ones that make honest folks mistrust others. for the life of me, i can"t see how a person could be dishonest like that. ok, he might have made a mistake on his item he was selling, BUT, he should have been man enough to go ahead with the deal. esp, since it was no fault of yours.shame that theirs people like that out there....good day doc.
 
Starbucks et al.,

Thanks for the support Starbucks.

Here is a little gratification.

I posted the following to GB:

"As you can tell by examining the auction listing I was the high bidder on this no-reserve auction. When I contacted the seller, he informed me that he did not intend to accept payment or to mail the item since my winning bid was not high enough. He stated that he had changed the wording of the auction after the item had received a bid which in his mind, changed the parameters of the auction and gave him the option to decline to complete the auction. He subsequently relisted the item under listing 173190960. I monitored this new listing continuously finding that the bid had gone up to 45.00 but that the reserve price had not been met. I now see that the auction was completed successfully at 45.00 which is an indication that the seller reduced the reserve price to complete the sale. The seller's refusal to complete the auction in which I won this item is a clear violation of GB policy."

This was the reply from GB with 24 hours:

"Yes it is. We will address the issue with the seller and you have already posted appropriate feedback for the seller regarding his failure to complete the transaction. He will not be able to post feedback for you."

Okay Okay, GB is not so bad.

Tnx,
 
Good for you Doc!

Thanks to people like you we can all feel more comfortable using services like GunBroker to conduct legitimate and honest business. Kudos to you! :cool:
 
Roger...Out

Thanks Clem,

I don't mind telling you I was releaved to learn that they had blocked any opportunity for the seller to log negative feedback.
 
Well done, Doc.

I have been burned several times at the big auction site, both as buyer and seller, and never gotten ANY action AT ALL from them. :barf:
 
I've heard eBay doesn't take much of any action to punish winning bidders who don't pay.
And they also take a very long time to refund the auction fees when those winning bidders don't pay.
Someone did that to my son and that person is still bidding on eBay today.
Also according to my son, negative or neutral feedback has not been allowed to be posted by eBay sellers for a long time now.
 
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I pinch my nose

I started as a member of eBay quite a while ago. In the time I have been bidding and selling, I have seen the site change from a one which attracts mostly individual sellers and folks who are genuinely looking for deals, to one which is so highly commercialized that it is more like a visit to Walmart. I am very careful how I used the service now.

I think the marketing environment for Gunbroker is very much like eBay only on a smaller, narrower and more restricted scope.

I wonder if people who go to Gunbroker if eBay permitted the sale of firearms.

BTW, Cap, Your son is correct. The options for sellers are a) Positive Feedback and b) Leave Feedback Later. The site does not prompt feedback until there is a record of the winning bidder paying for the item. Of course once that happens, positive feedback is appropriate. Perhaps if the auction goes unpaid, the seller can give the buyer negative feedback. Your son would know that better than me since he was the victim.
 
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I have just about quit using auction sites because of experiences like these. Too many times the seller, seeing his items going for less than he wants, ends the auction, even after accepting bids. "Item is for sale locally" should not be allowed, its simply a way to end an auction if the seller isn't getting the price he wants.
 
It's hard to not pass up things on internet that you want. But unfortunately you don't have it in your hand when you buy it. If it ain't right then you send it back if you can--HASSELL. We buy guns and send 1/3 back because they are not up to par. The ones on display are marked up just slightly but they are there for people to see and hold before they purchase. I'm glad I didn't quit my day job to retail these. "The Smokin' Gun" Spartanburg,SC
 
Definition trap?

Is it possible there is a definition trap here? Folks get so used to describing repros as the original model that it can be a problem. A Italian repro is NOT a "Colt 1851 Navy" and original Colt parts are not available from Dixie. What exactly was he selling? If they were repro parts from an unidentified maker, I doubt they would properly fit another maker's gun or even another gun by the same maker.

If they were original Colt parts, then they should have been worth a lot more than the mentioned prices.

Just my $.02.

Jim
 
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