Ebay rules on "Buy It Now" and the seller cancelling (a Katie misPrice)

[Kumagoro]

To cut a short story short.

I bought a brand new monitor on ebay (buy it now) dirt cheap and paid via paypal.
Now the company have said in an email outside of ebay they will give me a £20 voucher as it was a glitch in there pricing system etc.

Has anyone else had any experience of this and what was the outcome.

Cheers.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I suppose they could have made an excuse that the item broke and just refunded you the money. Is it a paypal voucher,or a discount voucher for the store??

[Kumagoro]

Well they put the price up after I bought it and there are more than 10 available. The voucher is for their store off ebay I reckon. The problem is the stuff I am interested in is £20 more expensive from them, so it kind of makes it pointless.

[Bluecube]

If you paid by Paypal, claim for a refund through Paypal. Contact eBay as well. Sounds like a bit of a scam to me.

[Kumagoro]

I think they are legit, problem is if I just get a refund I wont have got anything. Ideally I want the monitor or a proper good deal on other stuff.

The problem is if I go through the resolution centre whats likely to happen? are they supposed to send me it as they have stock and took my money. will they just get told off and ebay get to keep their fees and I am no better off?

[Agent]

http://forums.hexus.net/general-disc...uses-sell.html

See Saracens posts

[DDY]

I've cancelled stuff I've put up on the bay before for other reasons, but I recall on the list of valid reasons to cancel include a listing mis-price.

[Kumagoro]

Thanks for the link agent, I dont know why I bother with google I will make sure I use hexus search first in the future.

Well it seems getting the monitor is not likely to happen. I do however have a good bargaining chip in that they have no feedback yet and who wants to start with 100% negative feedback haha.

[MadduckUK]

[KeyboardDemon]

The seller listing an item at any price doesn't constitute a contractual obligation on the part of the seller, the contract is only completely valid once the seller has accepted your payment and shipped the goods, until then either party can withdraw. At least that's the general understanding I have of trade laws.

The fact that you have been offered a goodwill gesture of a £20 voucher means that the seller recognises that his mistake may have inconvenienced you and you still get a better deal as a result of this when you use your voucher. I think you should take the voucher but leave neutral feedback explaining what happened to other people interested in buying from the seller.

[Saracen]

The seller listing an item at any price doesn't constitute a contractual obligation on the part of the seller, the contract is only completely valid once the seller has accepted your payment and shipped the goods, until then either party can withdraw. At least that's the general understanding I have of trade laws.
....

Generically, and not specifically in relation to eBay .... not quite.

Shipping the goods isn't the point. And not all contracts have goods to ship, such as services.

The point is to be clear exactly when a contract is made. Once it is, then the general principle is that it's binding, though as with anything legal, there is usually a list of "except for's ...".

By and large, a contract requires :-

- an intent on both sides to be bound
- offer
- acceptance
- exchange of consideration, or at least, the "promise" to exchange.

These don't always mean what they appear to mean. For instance, "promise".

If you take your car in for a service, there's an implicit promise that you'll pay once the work is done. You certainly won't get away with refusing to pay by claiming that as no consideration has been exchanged, and you didn't explicitly promise you pay, there's no contract.

Online, things can be a bit tricker. A LOT depends on the exact terms and conditions of the deal (presumably, in this case, eBays) and what they say about when a contract is formed, and therefore, binding.

Generally, a shop displaying goods, and pricing them, is NOT an offer. It's merely an "invitation to treat", and invitation to the buyer to make an offer. So, it's not enforceable ... though misleading pricing may be an offence.

Online, there have been cases where misleading prices have been held by courts (lr felt, short of court action) to be binding, but there have been cases where courts have ruled that they were not.

IIRC, the Argos case where a computer error (or data-entry error) had a £399 TV listed at £3.99 was found in Argos' favour - i.e. unenforceable, as it as pretty clearly an error, and nobody can have seriously thought Argos intended to enter into such a contract. A later Kodak case, though, ended up (IIRC) with Kodak initially claiming to not be bound, but then chickening out short of court, though whether it's because they felt they'd lose, or whether the publicity was so damaging that win or lose, they'd lose, will probably never be known.

But the fallout from those, and a few other, cases, was that most firms (with any smarts at all) are very careful about their online T&Cs, and especially, about precisely when the contract is formed, and it isn't even necessarily when a card payment is taken.

As for the current case, I have two thoughts.

First, I wouldn't even like to comment on whether I think they can avoid supply, if pushed hard enough, and if it went to court.

Secondly, for ther value concerned, is it worth pursuing as far as a court case, and is it worth them defending it? If not (and I'd say it's not) then what the law says doesn't matter much. It's more about how far either side are prepared to push it, how far both are prepared to take it, and who chickens out first.

And it's often that that is the case, and not the actual law that matters. And that is one situation in which the nature of the seller can be critical. You are far more likely to get a cooperative and generous response from a major company with a good reputation (say, John Lewis) than with a sole individual on eBay, or small trader on eBay.