Ebay warning
 

Last week I made an offer on a card for $18.50, shipping was free and stated that both on the offer page and the seller's item page. The buyer accepted my offer but added $2 for shipping. Ebay automatically accepted the offer for me and invoiced me for the price of $18.50 + $2 or $20.50. They did not give me a choice to decline even though the buyer changed the agreement by adding a shipping charge. I have spoken to two reps and a supervisor and in the end they said to wait for the buyer to open an unpaid item case and then dispute that. The buyer has not responded to my emails explaining why I want to cancel the transaction and Ebay says they will not cancel it, the buyer has to. All in all, they are saying that the seller can change the terms after the offer and there is nothing they can do about it. I tried to explain that this should be considered a counter offer since the terms were changed but it was like talking to a brick wall. In ten years on Ebay I have never seen or heard of this discussed anywhere but something has to be wrong here.
Thanks for letting me vent as this just has me in a tizzy and I do not have enough anxiety meds to use them on this.
B1ll D0nalds0n

Just pay the $2 shipping and then give him a negative review.

I thought about that, but according to the Ebay supervisor he could have added any amount he wanted and it still would of gone through as a purchase even though I had not agreed to the terms of sale with the added $.
It would still not be considered a counter offer and I would still have to pay or receive an unpaid item strike and then have to dispute the strike. Although $2 may be considered reasonable, he could of added $5 or $10 or $100 and I would still not be able to simply decline the new offer but would have to dispute it through Ebay.

That's interesting - and a useful caveat for all Bayers who were not aware of that particular pitfall. Sorry it had to be you to bring it to light, but thanks for the information.

When I made a BuyItNow offer earlier, it let me ask for "caveats" and I could have put Free Shipping as one. Maybe next time, try that. I did them on the cellphone app; maybe it works differently than the website for this type of purchase.
(I have done some other things on the cellphone app that the website controls would not let me.)

Link to original auction?

Not sure how to link but the item listing # is 151371464906. Both the auction and the best offer form had free shipping stated on them. I did not feel that I had to add a note saying they could not add more for shipping. Also, I have bought many items from best offers and this is the first time this problem has occurred. I offered $18.50, the buyer accepted the offer and added the $2 for shipping, and Ebay automatically said this was ok and placed it on my purchase page. I could care less about the $2 but this is not how best offer supposed to work.

My experience talking to ebay AND paypal
 

Trying to have a reasonable conversation with ebay (paypal has been worse) in my experience has been like talking to a brick wall. They play by their own rules and change them as needed to suit their purposes. I have done thousands of transactions on ebay and paypal. The overwhelming majority have been seamless. The exceptions is where they just plain suck! I will not bore you with the details - let most of that go a while ago. I encourage you to check out the following:

http://complaints.paypalsucks.com/

and

http://ebaysucks.com/


They are essentially the only game in town doing what they do at the level they do it - my choice is to deal with the truth or choose to do business in some other way. I choose to continue to do business on ebay (with paypal)only because the exceptions in my case have been ........well, exceptional.

That's the one. Free shipping and I looked at my offer and that was free too. Ten years on Ebay and first problem that was not resolved with a phone call. However, this last month or so have had to call them 3 times with glitch issues of one kind or another.

Seems like a legitimate beef to me, I'll have to keep this in mind when making offers.

Has the seller responded at all? Don't pay and that should get the issue resolved to some level. The seller doesn't appear to have a leg to stand on to charge shipping, so maybe once they don't get paid, they will fix the invoice and you can pay what you offered.

Sent 2 messages to seller and have not received a reply. The Ebay supervisor told me to not pay and then I could dispute the non-payment strike. I think that should all come about in a few days. I told the seller I was not upset with him just with Ebay for accepting the offer for me.

The same happened to me I got in touch with the seller and he refunded me the shipping

Just entered Bizzaro Land. Looked this morning and it is marked as paid and shipped. Checked Paypal and no record of the payment being made by me. Also checked order details and it comes up invalid url request. Looked on other auctions won and it worked for those. So I guess Ebay is now not only accepting offers I did not make, it is also paying for them???

non-bid
 

You had better bid on a nice 52 Mantle then! Or not bid on one and eBay will hook you up!

the Ebay solution
 

It looks like Ebay paid for the card for me. Good for me and good for the seller I guess. No explanation from them as to why, but they did not give me the Ebay bucks for the purchase. Drat! Now, how do you leave feedback for Ebay?

Hey Bill - you are REALLY gonna go thru your meds if you keep calling eBay!

Like Bill and Howard, 99.9% of my thousands of eBay deals have been great. From what I've read, ebay's original credo was "people are good" and it really is kind of amazing how well it usually works.....until it doesn't! Calling them is a joke. It only works as well as it does because usually they aren't involved.

But it's the only game in town and....just like some abused women (or men)...we just keep coming back. I will have to be aware of this particular scenario.

I think ebay paid for some cards I won!

They'll lose on each such deal but they'll make it up on volume.