What should I do, ebay problem:

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Posted By: Erick Lewin

I recently bought a card 2/11 on ebay of Miller Huggins 1915 Cracker Jack SGC40, it had a BIN of $150. I jumped on it because it seemed like a very good price. I payed for it immediatley and then today

I got a message from him on ebay "Dear yanksfan09,

I must say you got me. I missed the mistake and priced it at $150 instead of $350. It got priced somehow as a common."

I then noticed on my items won page that the item link was no longer there and it said he was no longer a registered user. I then checked my email:

Hey- Sorry but ebay shut me down dut to some kind of issue with a listing. Trying to resolve the issue but I have decided not to sell the Huggins as a result. I will refund the shipping ins. as well as the paymant when it arrives.

I told him I already had sent payment. I then went to paypal and saw the money was unclaimed so I cancelled the payment sent. So, hopefully I should at least get my money back once its not being held anyomre. I don't know what these holds are about but I think I should be getting my money back.

Assuming I do, I'm still pretty P.O.ed about not getting this card! I was very excited about the buy. I am chosing to leave this guys information and name out for now. At least until I hear a response through email and/or my money is back in my account.

Any thoughts on what I should do? Should I out this guy now? For all I know he could be a contributor here, not sure...

E. Lewin

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Posted By: Kyle

Could be a mistake by the lister-it happens. What is his feedback score? Was his account temp. or indefinitely suspended? Paypal is all about buyer protection so you should be ok no matter what. As what to do with the seller? We'll see what others think.

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Posted By: Steve

Not sure I understand what the problem is?

He says he made a mistake and priced it wrong.

The money that you sent went unclaimed and it will

hit your account.

The fact that he is now NARU is probably a coincidence.


Maybe offer him 225.00?

Ask yourself this, is this a card that you would sell for 150.00?

If it is in fact a 350.00 card then why not cut the guy some slack?


He is under no obligation to sell it to you simply because you

hit the BIN.

I'm sure another will turn up. Maybe for not 150.00


Steve

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

If it were me I'd just get my money back and move along...sounds like the guy made a mistake at that price and nothing you do is going to make him send you the card.

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Posted By: Erick Lewin

his number was 462 and it was 100% positive. I dont know the story to his "NARU". He says he's trying to fix it with ebay. I think if he was a reputable seller he would sell me the card. I think maybe he's using his being NARU as an excuse to get out of this deal that he didn't want to do. He listed it, I payed for it; that's how I see it. I should get my card, but it looks like I'm out of luck. I also don't think the 150 was an extremeley low price for the card either especially with the economy. It was low, but him wanting to list it at 350 seems too high. Maybe 200- 250? I'm really not even sure to any past sales of this card in this grade and don't subscribe to VCP. Either way I feel that he should make good on this sale that he listed. It doesn't appear that I'll be getting the card though.

E. Lewin

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Posted By: Erick Lewin

Steve, I was under the impression that once I did Buy it now he was obligated to sell? Is that wrong? If he was still a registered user could he just say he's not selling it without any recourse on my side?

I think I'll just let it go, but I don't think it's right.

E. Lewin

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Posted By: Steve

Erick

No he is not because he says he priced it wrong.

NO contract because their was no meeting of the minds.

I'm no lawyer but I had 3 lawyers all tell me this

when it happened to me.



Maybe one of the esteemed lawyers here will chime in

and back me up. I could be wrong but that is my understanding.


Sorry this happened to you btw.

Steve

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Posted By: leon

I slept at a Holiday Inn once but I am no lawyer. That being said I DO think there was a meeting of the minds when the ebayer listed it and the buyer bought it. That is a contract. Now, the fact a mistake was made is another story but I don't think it negates the contract to buy or sell it. The seller made a mistake and wants to back out. I can understand that but I still think it was a contract. Personally, if I really wanted the card, I would counter offer and see what happens. Otherwise, I think moving on is a wise move. regards

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Posted By: Steve

Leon the point you are missing is that he (seller)
says that he made a mistake. He was under the impression
that he listed it at 350.00. Or at least that is how I understand the OP.

I said I was no lawyer in my post so their was no need to ridicule me.

I simply was stating an opinion that 3 lawyers have told me when
I had a similar experience.

Had he listed it at 150.00 not knowing the value and then later
found out he had underpriced it then I'd agree with your scenario.

Hopefully one of the lawyers here will chime in.


Steve

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Posted By: Chris Counts

I agree with Leon ... when the buyer listed it, and you bought it, a contract was agreed upon. This has actually happened to me twice. The first time it happened, an eBay seller posted an ex-mt 1955 Bowman set, listing each card at a time. He intended to put a $1 minimum bid on each card, but somehow posted a BIN instead. I quickly bought most of the stars. In response, the seller sent me an email confirming his mistake, and he conceded that, as an eBay seller, he had an obligation to selling me all the cards at $1 each (Mays, Aaron, etc.). He suggested, however, that if I disregarded the transaction, he would let me have any one card of my choice for $1 (Mantle was off-limits). Under the circumstances, I didn't hesitate to accept his offer, because it seemed so fair. I was happy to get a great card for $1, and he was thrilled he only lost one card for $1. It turned out to be a perfect transaction for both parties. The second one involved a bunch of old postcards ... the seller intended that each one have a minimum bid of $5, but he put BINs on them instead. After clicking the $5 BINs on a bunch of great old early 20th century postcards, I offered him the same deal: If he let me have one for $5, I'd disregard other transactions. Like the first seller, he conceded I was entitled to all the postcards, and he happily accepted my offer ...

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Posted By: marshall barkman

Sounds like alot of drama over a mistake. If the guy made a mistake which can happen when pricing cards then why would you want the card? I understand it was a good deal but he probably did make a mistake so gice the guy a break.

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Posted By: barrysloate

I would cut him some slack too, given it was a mistake, even if you are disappointed. Why hold him to a posting error? Life is too short.

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Posted By: Steve

Chris are you saying that if someone lists a card for 1.00

when they intended to list it at 1000.00 that you are entitled to it?

I think you just got lucky those 2 times and those two sellers were standup

guys.

Steve

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Posted By: Steve

My last point here and one I should have
stated earlier.

A judge would be the person who decides if their
was a meeting of the minds.

If someone listed a card for 1.00 and meant 1000.00
the buyer could sue that person and possibly win I guess.


Steve

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

I don't think I could in good conscience let a guy sell me a 1950's star card for $1 if I knew it was a mistake.

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Posted By: Jim VB

FWIW, VCP show the last Huggins in SGC 40 sold for about $178 a year ago.

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Posted By: Erick Lewin

Thanks for responses and advice all. I'll let this go as long as there are no hiccups with my money being refunded from paypal. I probably would have immediatley let it go and been more understanding if he hadn't shown up as no longer a registered user when i first saw this. When i saw that, my first thought was that he may have did that himself to get out of the deal and that I may never see my money again. I then saw that the paypal payment hadn't been processed yet and I canceled it. It seemed really fishy at first so i brought the issue here. After thinking about everything, I'm moving on and more understanding of his plight.

I do think the guy could have handeled it better than just saying (paraphrasing)"you not getting the card". He could have offered me it for somewhere between the prices but didn't. i don't think I'll offer him anything or do business wih him again if he is reinstated on ebay. Either way, like you said, Life's too short. I'll move on and consider it a dead issue as long as my money is in my account, which it should be I think.

Thanks to all for advice.

E. Lewin

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Posted By: Erick Lewin

Jim, thanks for that tidbit of info. That's very interesting. I was thinking maybe 200-250 in that grade. That is why at first I didn't think it was an error because it didn't seem TOO low. I thought the guy definatley could have gotten me to bite for maybe 50 bucks more, but I didn't know how much I'd go beyond 200. I just thought I had found a good deal. But Oh well, I'm moving on...

E. Lewin

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Posted By: DJ

When you click that BUY IT NOW button, transaction complete and that seller IS obligated to sell that to you at that price.

Sure we all make mistakes, but this isn't a HUGE mistake, just a slight improvement on what happens on eBay daily, which is asking more for something than it's worth.

If you went to a card show and saw that exact item there priced "as is" and you lay down the money and walk away with it, how would you react when the seller came charging back at you to tell you there was a mistake and he wanted to cancel the transaction, handing you back the money and ripping the card from your hand.

You should let it go. We have all had issues with sellers on eBay and it's a feeling of being duped in some way and I know how you feel.

DJ

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Posted By: Eric B

Sorry. If a seller makes a mistake then he is NOT obligated to sell. There is undisputed legal precedence on this. And it is clear that when he immediately said there was a problem that there was a mistake. Afterall, why would he complain for a sale he wanted?

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Posted By: Douglas

This deal is obviously over and done with, and if both parties can move on, then all the better.

However, I always thought that the sale was a legal binding. It states this when you confirm your bid on an item, that it is indeed a legal contract between the seller/buyer. I have no ties to either side of the story, just that a sale is a sale. My thought is that the seller was probably initially happy with the BIN price, but then realized more $ could be made, so backed out on the deal. I could be completely wrong, but a sale is a sale. Or should be.

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Posted By: Jason

The seller in question was me. The NARU deal was an issue from a previous account that I had CHOSE to terminate long ago (6+ months). I talked with an ebay supervisor today and the issue can be cleared up if I choose to return to ebay. At any rate, I did misprice the Huggins by mistake and Erick nailed it the night it wnet up. I had fully planned on going through with the transaction (reason I said you got me). When the issue reared its ugly head with eBay I told him that I would just keep the Huggins considering I did not see any payment made in my paypal account. As of today my paypal balance is $0.00. I am guessing either Erick never paid or he did pay and withdrew payment before I saw the balance. I am a very reputable seller as people I have dealt with on here will tell you. I have spoken with some high profile dealers on the ebay matter and I am not going to get into that on here, but they have sided with me.

Erick-

If you are going to whine about the $150 deal I will gladly still sell you the card at your winning bid. I personally would have not made the seller own up to a simple typo, but it is what it is and certainly not your fault. Let me know if I need to reserve the card for you.

Jason

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Posted By: Jason

Erick-

I also did email you after the fact and offer it to you at what I paid which was $350. Please do not leave facts out and say "I do think the guy could have handeled it better than just saying (paraphrasing)"you not getting the card". He could have offered me it for somewhere between the prices but didn't." I did try to be reasonable. Also I am NOT binded by an contract with you on that card. If I wanted to not sell it, I have that choice despite what is being said. Also I would have more than likely went ahead and sent the card even after NARU incident if I would have seen $$$ in the paypal account at which I say $0.00. At that point I decided to just keep the card.

Thanks
Jason

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Posted By: Robert

About a year ago, this happened to me. I threw up a signature on eBay and mispriced it. Someone jumped on it and got a $100 discount. The Mantle signed 5x7 photo sold for $50, instead of $150. Oh well. My fault. Gotta be more careful. When that person presses the button, it activates a contract. I would like to see what legal precedences there is. There is mention throughout here, but I find it hard to believe and I'm sure the ebay fine print says it all. I also don't think the word "whine" is justified here. He is frustrated that's all. My two cents-

Bob

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Posted By: leon

My comment about me not being a lawyer had nothing to do with your post about not being one. I was just mentioning I'm not positive of the law either. I did disagree with you, technically, but I wasn't ridiculing you. That would be stupid. This is just a friendly debate. If someone listed something and I bought it, and they said it was a mistake, I would let them out of the contract.....and that is what I believe happened when the BIN was hit. No need to get personal about it. take care

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Posted By: Jason

Look,

I do not want any more confrontation about this issue. I will honor the sale. Like I said I would have sent it more than likely if I had actually seen payment in my paypal account after the ebay issue. Erick, I apologize for your experience and wish you the best of luck no matter what you decide. It certainly was nto your fualt that you found a deal and took advantage of the situation. Please email me your decision.

Jason

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Posted By: Alan

I always like when both the buyer & seller end up detailing the entire situation on this message board then kiss & make up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-LhyAVzDBI&feature=related

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Posted By: Anonymous

Well I was about to go to sleep before I saw the last posts:

Jason, i just sent you an email saying I was done with the issue and was moving on and considered it done. Did I not? I never devulged your name or any of your contact information here. I was merely discussing the issue here for advice before I did anything.

So why the:

"If you are going to whine about the $150 deal I will gladly still sell you the card at your winning bid. I personally would have not made the seller own up to a simple typo, but it is what it is and certainly not your fault. Let me know if I need to reserve the card for you. "

Jason

Hey I'm not whining about anything. I was merely trying to decide my best course of action, if anything; and didn't "out" you here. I don't understand the need for saying I'm whining here.

You listed a card, I bought it; and IMMEDIATLEY paid for it through paypal. How am I in the wrong at all? I did send the payment immediatley and then I canceled it after I read your email that you weren't going through with the sale and you were NARU. You're darn right it's not my fault. I had said I was moving on and considered the issue closed. I believe it does say when you click buy it now you are entering a binding contract or something to that effect on ebay, but that's besides the point.

Keep your card. Let's end this now. I'm sick of discussing it. I tried to be very fair and civil without calling your name out here. You dragged it out. Keep your card.

E. Lewin

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Posted By: Joel

when an item is listed you also confirm the listing details before listing the item. so a mistake would have to be made two times. I often see people think a seller is okay to get out of the listing if they claim to make a mistake in the listing price. but when a buyer could possibly enter a wrong bid amount most think they are obgliated to pay the amount of their mistake.

with justsnipe and other snipe services bidders enter their amount once so one mistake is all it takes. but a seller enters the sales price and then confirms the price before the listing becomes live....if meeting of the minds is an issue...it did occur. the seller listed for price X and the buyer agreed to buy for price X...

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Posted By: Mark

Hello to All ,

It states on every e-bay listing ...

' Seller assumes all responsibility for listing this item '

He asked $150 , he should sell for the price listed , it makes no differnce if it's a mistake or not .

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Posted By: Dave F

That did look pretty bad Jason to throw the "Eric, if your going to whine about it". Eric thought he had bought the card that you listed...and as someone else said even after putting in the "mistake" BIN price you still had to look at it again and hit the confirm button to activate it. I'm really wondering how easily it would be to even make that mistake.


Maybe I see it differently, but when the guy came on here asking for advice with a situation where he obviously did nothing wrong (and doesn't even mention your name), I'm not sure why it benefits you to say "if you're gonna whine, I'll honer the sale". You know what, you should have honored it to start with....this isn't the first incident in recent history on the board...weren't you just involved a few weeks ago with a sale where you were blamed for the shipping of an item (and you blamed that on someone working for you that didn't package it well?)

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

I think Erick is in the right here. And it's not like the card was mispriced by $1000; it sounds like Erick got the card for about $30 less than what it might be worth. Does every BIN have to be 200 to 300% overpriced? If Jason had made a gross mistake with the BIN price I'd have more empathy for him but that's just not the case.

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Posted By: Steve Murray

"Sorry. If a seller makes a mistake then he is NOT obligated to sell. There is undisputed legal precedence on this. And it is clear that when he immediately said there was a problem that there was a mistake. Afterall, why would he complain for a sale he wanted?"

I repectfully disagree:

The legal principle as to whether there is a binding contract is whether there was a "unilateral" mistake of fact or a "mutual" mistake of fact.

Here the seller made the mistake, not the buyer. As a "unilateral" mistake it is not voidable and is a binding contract.

With that said I would take the position that most here have: Recognize that the seller made what appears to be an innocent mistake and let it go.

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Posted By: Jim VB

Jason,

Why is it that you seem to get more than your fair share of these "deals gone wrong"? You seem to have one or two disputes a year, either with Ebay or various sellers.

No accusations from me, but I'm just wondering why.

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Posted By: Jason

Joel-

I did not get a chance to look over it for I listed using turbo lister and listed it witha about 270 more items at the same time. That is how the mistake was made.


Erick-

I apologized publicly. I never saw any type of payment through paypal so I assume that you removed it before I checked it out.


Dave-

THe issue you are bringing up was about 7-8 months ago and it had to do with supposedly some cards getting dinged corners in shipping. Let's not beat a dead horse here.


Jim-

Only the issue last year and this year. Last year's involved supposedly bad shipping on our end. I mailed a guy 20+ exhibits and he said 4 got dinged corners. He then negged me and aired it out on the forum after I questioned the issue. It is strange that 4 cards in a stack of 20+ would get damaged and others be fine. He wanted partial refund and before I had a chance to offer return for full refund he negged me and that got the ball rolling.


Jeff-

You are correct. It should not be a big deal and I should have just sold the card at $150. Again, when I checked paypal I say $0 so I chose to reminate the deal considering I had an issue with ebay to deal with. I can see what Erick was unhappy. I would have rather kept that card for $150 considering I paid quite a bit more 2-3 years ago. It is not like it was mispriced over $1000 and if we would have went forward looks like we wouldn't ber here discussing it. Again I offered to still honor the deal and I apologized to Erick. I do not know what else I can do.

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Posted By: Don

Post above said this:


"I repectfully disagree:

The legal principle as to whether there is a binding contract is whether there was a "unilateral" mistake of fact or a "mutual" mistake of fact.

Here the seller made the mistake, not the buyer. As a "unilateral" mistake it is not voidable and is a binding contract.

With that said I would take the position that most here have: Recognize that the seller made what appears to be an innocent mistake and let it go."

------------------------------

A year or two ago, a major auction house (can't remember which one), listed a bunch of coins on ebay that were worth hundreds of dollars each, for $1 BIN's. (This was all discussed on the CU coin forum.) Their intent was to start at $1 and have a reserve at $xxx, but an incompetent employee listed them wrong.

Needless to say, they would not honor the bids. Should they have? Does it make a difference that it was an obvious error rather than the difference between $150-$250?

Also, the same auction house did the exact same thing a month later and again refused to honor the bids. Does that make a difference?


Personally, I tend to look at these issues as black and white, either you have a binding contract 100% of the time regardless of circumstances or you don't, which means the bidder can back out at any time as well. Honestly, I'm not sure which side of that fence I'd fall on though. I guess that's why these things get sorted out one at a time.

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Posted By: Fred C

IMO the moment the BIN was hit a contract was entered. Does anyone read the information that ebay posts when you do this? It's like "make an offer". ebay will let you know that you are submitting a bonafide offer that must be adhered to for the time that is stipulated.

The seller has a blemish free feedback (over 400 feedbacks). That would tell me that his explanation of it being a mistake is probably plausible. It's my decision at that time to either let him off the hook or just try to understand his position.

If it were grossly mispriced it would be obvious. If I were the seller I'd probably look at the sales history of the card and if I found out that it was within 25% of a previous sale price I'd just let it go because it'd be hard to argue the case of it being grossly underpriced.

NO offense to anyone here but this forum is being opened up to a lot of "sour grapes" and "bad deal" threads. Perhaps Leon and crew could make a new categorey called "Deals gone south". Anyone with a story could post it there. There are always two sides to a story and a lot of times these threads degrade, fast.

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Posted By: marshall barkman

Awwww come on Fred we have to have some fun from time to time.

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Posted By: Brian McQueen

Since nobody has posted this yet, I thought I'd go ahead. Below is the actual verbiage Ebay places on the page right before you hit the "Confirm Bid" button to bid on an item. And yes, this is a copy and paste job on my part

I'm glad this issue seems to be close to being resolved, but to all the people who have said that Ebay purchases are not binding contracts, I would respectfully disagree.


"By clicking on the button below, you commit to buy this item from the seller if you're the winning bidder. You are agreeing to a contract -- You will enter into a legally binding contract to purchase the item from the seller if you're the winning bidder. You are responsible for reading the full item listing, including the seller's instructions and accepted payment methods. Seller assumes all responsibility for listing this item."

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Posted By: Fred C

Brian - I guess that cut and paste pretty much says it all.



Marshall, it would be ashame to completely cut out some of these sour grape threads because the train wrecks they produce can rival some of those stories about Britney Spears. Well, maybe not that good but some come close. We all huddle next to our computer screens and hit the refresh button waiting for the next comment and/or insult to be flung... holy cow it's like a soap opera sometimes.

Edited to add - yes I need to get a life

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Posted By: Eric B

2 problems Brian. First, that statement refers to the buyer, not the seller. Second, just because it's Ebay policy doesn't make it legal. Like if someone sold his wife.

BTW, all you need to do is google up "price mistakes legality" or something similar and you will get a bunch of references that talk about how a pricing mistake is not a legal contact. Happens all the time, especially with print ads where the printer makes the mistake like saying a new car is $89.99 when the ad was supposed to say $8999. When the error is small the store often honors the mistake to keep goodwill.

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Posted By: boxingcardman

The law is actually more complex. A court generally will enforce a contract despite a unilateral (one side only) mistake unless the mistake is an obvious one to the point one where a reasonable person would realize it was an error. Offering a $1,000 card for a $1 BIN would very likely not be enforced in court. Offering a card that is perhaps $50 or $100 underpriced for $150 would likely be enforceable because the mistake is not obvious.

Sic Gorgiamus Allos Subjectatos Nunc

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Posted By: Brian McQueen

A couple things - when I read "Sellers assume all responsibility for listing this item" that tells me that the disclaimer includes both buyer and seller. Making sure that you've got the correct amount listed in your BIN seems like part of the seller's "responsibility" to me.

I also think that as big of a deal as Ebay is, they're going to have some of their own lawyers and legal professionals looking over their Terms & Conditions page, selling/buying policies etc....I don't believe that anything they have down in print is there "lightly" if you understand my meaning. It seems to me that there would be no way that they'd allow something like that to be up on their website if it wasn't truly enforceable by law.

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Posted By: Bilko G

Just so you guys know, i feel very sorry that this happened to the both of you.

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Posted By: Jason Duncan

Erick-

I sent the Huggins last week. Please let me know if you received it and when I could expect the payment.

Thank you,

Jason

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Posted By: Anonymous

I was under the impression Jason was no longer selling on ebay.


Leon, sorry I misunderstood you that day.


Steve

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Posted By: Erick Lewin

Hello Jason,

I just got the card in the mail today. I didn't know if you had sent it or not. I'll be sending the money over now. Thanks again, glad everyone can put the issue to rest.

E. Lewin

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Posted By: Ted Sherman

Similar situation happened to me, only Vintage*investments (Jason again) had an ebay auction. Then upon payment received, the item was claimed to be sold off ebay. Funny it was also a 1915 cracker jack. When does it end Jason, honestly.