I recommend all add penguin767 to their eBay blocked list.
He he made a £100 bid, followed by a £101 bid for a Martin DJrE I’m selling. On the second offer I declined stating I might consider £102 hoping he would make his 3rd and final offer so I could decline it and not have to deal with him anymore.
Since then I have received 15 messages in the last 12 hours stating I’m now legally obligated to sell this to him, demanding my address details, threading legal action from his QC mate, to get his mates to bid on my other items to ruin the auctions etc.
Clearly the guy is a nutcase and one to avoid. I can see from his feedback he’s done it before but has had it overturned by eBay. And by the looks of it he buys guitars regularly.
Ive reported to him to eBay and they “are taking action”, whatever that means.
Admin suggestion: Can we create a sticky feed where people can add dubious eBayers so we can all add them to our blocked lists?
Comments
1 - The overhead of dealing with it for the modmins is too high.
2 - We're going to get sucked into arguments over stuff that happened on eBay all over the place and sellers/buyers there who think they've been wrongly accused.
3 - While I'm happy with policing this site for scammers as much as best-efforts will allow, it's most definitely not our job to police eBay/Gumtree/Facebook/etc as well.
Sorry
Recently I had a set of alloys up. Guy bids, wins them, then 3 days after the auction had ended I still hadnt had payment, and I get a message from the buyer saying 'his mums in hospital in spain, so he cant buy them now and to relist' all the usual shite.
Ebay obviously took their % cut from me because the sale 'happened', so I had to go through the process of claiming it back, which I did get.. so I'm no money down but still have the wheels.
I've had several selling pull out after an auction has completed, as they've not liked the final value. They've made excuses like the item is damaged to avoid a bad profile on eBay, but they have every right not to finalise the deal if they don't want to, no matter how frustrating it might be.
If people make stupid bids, just decline them. Or better yet, set a sensible auto-decline limit then you don't even need to see them.
It's like the people who send messages to delusional sellers - just steer clear of the nutters altogether, no good will come of trying to reason with people who are clearly beyond it in the first place.
Do not tell low-ballers their offers are too low, just ignore them.
Do not tell sellers their items are overpriced.
Do not reply, do not engage, do not pass Go, do not get into an argument with an idiot - they will drag you down to their level and then win by experience.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
“I’ll be advising the ‘winning’ bidder of the situation at the end of your illegal auction - it’s only fair, don’t you agree?”
“If you had any sense you would follow my advice and correct this situation now thus saving yourself trouble and expense.
Bye for now - see you in court.
Robert Alan”
“I’ll give you until tomorrow at noon to accept your obligations under our legally binding contract. I sincerely hope you do as I would hate for you to be financially punished with damages and my legal costs.”
“I have now consulted my genuine legal adviser (QC) who has confirmed he will be happy, considering our friendship, to do this for me ‘Pro bono’. You’d be best just to concede now. Otherwise he’ll be asking for damages and his normal fees to be paid.“
“That’s fine I’ll raise a complaint. I’ve also asked my friends to bid for me so it’s blocked until EBay sort it out.”
“I’m sure, like me, you wish to avoid any unnecessary unpleasantness. I am an OAP living on pension but I am a reasonable Christian man.”
Where do these people come from!
For myself, I have added them to my blocked buyers list!
Good shout, I’ve only spoken on on chat with eBay about this. I’ll request a call tomorrow.
Make sure you block him from bidding or buying on your auctions and phone eBay tomorrow. Don't respond to any messages in the meantime.
I'm also far from convinced one person could actually enforce a sale on another because an eBay auction is not a true auction as defined in legislation. eBays status means it doesn't act and perform in the same way as a true auctioneer. And regardless of what ebay might tell people or internet opinions (even from lawyers) as far as I'm aware there is as yet no legal precedent as there have been no test cases on this in the courts.