I tried handling this peacefully . . . Now what do I do?

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Nothing you really can do. The sellers keep going along with it and nothing about it is illegal. About all you could really try to do is convince a seller it's in their best interest to keep doing business with you and honor the sales or you will take your business elsewhere. Of course that probably won't do anything but you really have no leverage other than trying to get them blacklisted by other dealers which doesn't really matter for eBay anyway

 

I'll wait to see what others may say, but I think you have little recourse against that buyer. As you mentioned, it's very easy to set up new buying accounts and the buyer may even change their IP (use different devices/different locations) to make it harder for ebay to catch them (which ebay likely doesn't care about....unless they are losing significant fees from sales outside ebay).

This may be a case where you need to give the seller a negative (especially if the canceled items happen with the same seller). Or contact ebay with the evidence that the seller told you they canceled a sale and see if ebay will scold the seller for breaking the rules.

 

I'd like to think that a reputable eBay seller would never go along with this. It must be against eBay rules (as 5d has indicated above) and to go along would only imperil their continued existence as an eBay seller. I'm guessing these are not big name sellers.

 

I suspect there's more going on with this buyer than is realized. Why would this buyer habitually contact sellers after the end of an auction and offer more money? If it was an isolated occurrence one could argue the buyer simply came upon the auction after it was over. What is the benefit to the buyer in making a habit out of doing this? If I was a seller and another buyer contacted me (especially if the buyer is new) I would be inclined to think it was some sort of scam.

I've been using eBay since 1999 and only once has a buyer tried to jump in and buy an item I had won after the auction was over; this buyer was kind enough to ask me if I would mind letting it go to him.

In terms of suggestions what you can do, I feel I could make some good ones but the title is conflicting in the sense it is written that you've tried to handle the situation peacefully (indicating a peaceful approach hasn't been working and that you're giving up on utilizing a peaceful strategy) while at the same time in your post it is stated not to make suggestions which "cross the line" (which is interpreted to be the opposite of handling the matter peacefully-- which it would seem the approach you now desire to take). Maybe I'm just overthinking this.

 

sounds like a scam. kind of like shill bidding.

 

Really, I would blame the sellers that compromise their integrity after the auction ends. I would be beyond frustrated if someone was poaching my auction wins!!

 

You might try approaching the cheater with a different angle. Try selling the coin to him at his buy price. Obviously he is paying more than the final auction price. He just doesn't want to get into a bidding war. You may not make as much, but, at least, you are not losing out totally. If he thinks you won't sell him the coin at his price he probably will continue in his ways. It may be hard to make a peace offering, but, I don't see any other recourse either.

Now if it is a coin for your collection, well, then the gloves come off.

 

Any seller that cancels an auction after it is complete to sell it outside of eBay is violating the terms of service. A negative is warranted and also you should go after the seller with eBay.

We’re told as buyers and sellers that purchasing a coin on eBay is a contract yet people seem to ignore that when it suits them without consequence. I had a seller tell me once that he was canceling the transaction because he thought he would get more for it. EBay basically told me there was nothing they could do.

 

Call eBay customer service.

If he's using eBay messaging to contact them, it's a clear violation of the T&C and will get him NARUed. They'll also block accounts using the same identifiers (credit card, bank account, address, etc.)

 

My response to the seller was that he should have put a reserve on it if he was unwilling to get less than $x for it. And I agree with your sentiments about eBay. I rarely use it anymore.

 

Could you just do your buying with a separate ID? It wasn't against eBay's rules last time I looked.

Or maybe you're saying this person is targeting more based on item and would do this either way? Never heard of this issue before, sounds beyond frustrating.

 

I agree that this is an issue with the sellers. Whether it's one guy stalking you, or a different person each time, the sellers are backing out of a completed deal, which is flatly against eBay's Terms of Service.

You might be able to get eBay's attention if those deals were happening outside of eBay, but as long as it's done through eBay relisting, "they got theirs".

How many different sellers are we talking about? How many separate auctions? Any indication from those sellers that the same guy is doing this for other auctions from them, or is it only the ones you're bidding on?

If it's bad enough, you might try setting traps for him with cooperating sellers. At the very least, you could make him end up paying a lot more for the coins he wants...

 

I'd call Ebay, they may not do anything but it's the best option you have. I've had this happen a few times and one time I was pretty P.O.'d as I had already paid for the item. The seller never shipped and it took over a week to get my funds back due to the timing with a holiday weekend in there. In that case the seller flat out admitted they cancelled my sale because another person sent them a message offering more after the sale was completed. I didn't know the buyers name but I called Ebay and they said they'd take care of it as they had the proof in my message and proof in the seller's messages. Now reporting it may also impact the seller but imo if they aren't ethical enough to honor a completed sale that's their problem not my own.

 

Just wondering if the seller isn't in partnership with the guy who is trying to get the coin after the buyer buys the item. The he contacts the seller say the sale was cancelled because it didn't bring what he wanted.

 

I would make sure that on any of the comments you are allowed to make is that you tell everyone that the seller backed out on his deal with you and give him a negative mark. Make sure not to fill out any information about anyone until you are done dealing with them. This way you can put down exactly what happened , and it does take a year for that negative to be removed from the sellers info. He will lose a lot more because of the negative mark then he would had he sold you the coin. The negative will turn people away, and he may learn that you have to honor your deals with people. Good Luck !!

 

In those cases they would either just take the fees from the sellers, or band the sellers. Small sellers are much more likely to get banned and charged, if its a big boy nothing will happen to anyone.

If they're all doing it through eBay than there really is nothing you can do other than to threaten to take your business elsewhere unfortunately.

Because it's not a contract. Buyers are allowed to back out of essentially as many sales as they want so sellers are allowed to as well and they will tell you they can't force anyone to ship anything.

Now if they come up with a system where buyers are expected to pay like if they purchased from Heritage or DL or Legend ect than that could change. But as of now they have no interest in attempting to make buyers pay every time