New member looking for ebay advice

[rainagain]

I recently bought an accident damaged 2004 Renault Megane, the damage was to the drives door and rear quarter.

 

Including delivery the car cost me £450, I have since bought a second hand drivers door and alloy wheel to replace one of the two damaged wheels it was delivered with (could only get one off at the local scrap yard due to the locking nuts!).

 

I have beaten out the rear quarter and it now only needs a skim of filler and paint to make good the repair, however my shifts at work have changed and there's no way I can get the time needed to finish it. So I put it on ebay and the auction finished with just two bids at just over £500 so I'm making a loss with regards to what I've spend on parts alone, not to mention my time.

 

Although this isn't ideal I was glad that it sold for a reasonable amount, however I said in the ad that the winning bidder should pay my £50 via paypal on completion of the auction, with the balance payable in cash/bank transfer when picking the car up. I contacted the winning bidder and congratulated him on his bargain and asked him to please pay the £50 and when would he like to pick the car up. But he didn't reply, I contacted him a further three times over the next week but still he didn't reply. Then all of a sudden he contacted me saying he would soon be dropping off a car nearby and would arrange to pick up my car at the same time. I replied ok please tell me when and also reminded him that he still hadn't paid the £50 deposit as per the ad.

 

Yet again he's failed to respond to me! What should I do now? I can't offer it to the other bidder as after placing his bid he asked if it had MOT/tax and then replied he wasn't interested when I said it didn't. Should I just re-list it and then ask the original winner to pay me any difference if it sells for less? By placing a bid he did agree a contract with me, which he is failing to comply with. The car is being stored on a friends driveway and he wants the space back!

[Wilko220]

I think your mistake began at the scrap yard, where you should have hammered a smaller socket over the wheel nuts...

[Jim Bell]

Sounds like you've been trying to sell a car on eBay.

Probly better to sell it for less, to an verified ungrateful Autoshiter.

[RedSparrow]

Welcome!

You will find approximately 1,000,000 stories on here of people dealing with ebay timewasters, there's a couple of threads too. I'm afraid there's probably not a lot you can do. Be prepared for the twat to turn up and try to give you half the auction amount, if he turns up at all.

[meggersdog]

Hit him with a non paying bidder strike and move on.Ebay is full of mongs, Gumtree is full of pennyless twats who want you to deliver three counties away for free so your only real option is Autotrader for a cheap £9.95 two week ad.

[Cavcraft]

That X amount deposit is what's knackering things for you. As a rule one of two things happen when you state that on an eBay advert: it either gets ignored by the winning bidder or people just don't bid at all.

I'd stop mithering him about it, give it until the end of the week or whenever he said he would collect and re-advertise it if he doesn't.

 

You have nothing to lose doing it like that as if you keep pestering him he's going to think you're a pain and not buy it anyhow.

[rainagain]

Sounds like you've been trying to sell a car on eBay.

Probly better to sell it for less, to an verified ungrateful Autoshiter.

 I'd sell it to anyone! Does this site have a sale section I can only see a 'general chat forum'?

[rainagain]

I think your mistake began at the scrap yard, where you should have hammered a smaller socket over the wheel nuts...

lol this is stopped by the hardened spinning steel ring round the bolt.

[catsinthewelder]

What you need is a thin cold chisel to cut that off,  then it's just a case of selecting the smaller socket of your choice.

 

  Worked on my Migraine when I left the only remaining locking key on it after driving off  (the neighbour found it 2 days after I'd spent an afternoon helping my friendly tyrefitters remove them all)

[cort16]

Best thing to do is cut your losses. If you can get him to agree to cancel the sale through the dispute section you'll get your fees back. This happened to me with my smart car and you just have to brush it off and move on. Stick it on autotrade it's only 10 quid if the car's less than a grand. It seems you need to least at go through at least one failed transaction with some ebay titwanger before you sell it. Even though ebay make extra ££ from all the failed transactions if they don't sort it out people will stop using it as there's nothing really to stop nob ends bidding on stuff they have no intention of paying for.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

He’s not going to buy it. If he was at all serious he would have paid the deposit as per your perfectly reasonable instruction. Fook him off with a NPB strike, leave him a positive feedback calling him a twat and either try again or advertise it elsewhere. I’d love to see some stats about how often this actually happens, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the eBay motors auction success rate was as low as 25% nowadays.

[autofive]

what about the flip side of the coin?

 

i won a car on ebay on thursday

 

i message the seller straight away asking when i can pick up/does he want a deposit/how does he want paying

 

eventually i get a reply that i can pick up TODAY (last friday) or saturday morning

 

i reply that i cant organise a recovery truck that quickly, but im quite willing to come and give him a fat deposit on the car

 

saturday morning i get a reply, no deposit needed pay in full on collection when would that be?

 

monday i reply

 

im going on holiday says he but 'my mate will ring you with location of car etc.'

 

Its monday morning, hes not answering his phone or ebay/text messages and 'his mate' has not rang me

 

This is going to end well.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Sounds like you are dealing with a massive shitkicker,  at least in this case you are the buyer so I think you can neg him in the face without fear of reprisal

[autofive]

I have found the location of the car, by cross referencing ebay photos and google earth, but it's lock-up so i still dont have a door to knock on.

 

this could get messy......

 

[Jim Bell]

Wan a dag?
Gwan it's gud lack!

Take a dag.

[fordperv]

Only if ya buy me mam a caravan

[Morgan84]

Maybe try to find the time/motivation ( not always easy ) to get the car finished off, and then keep it or sell it on and maybe come out of it a bit better off perhaps ?

[hairymel]

think you have not quite understood ebay's car section.

 

when selling cheaper cars you attract a special sort of twat.

 

a large percentage of winning bidders either do not ever contact you or piss you about.

 

message them via ebay with a time limit for collection (you should have put this in the listing)

 

if not collected then submit a non paying bidder dispute and you should get the fees back.

 

as far as i recall with my last non-selling seller! , ebay say that property and car auctions are not binding! (worth noting if you go to collect a car and its a bag o'shite.

 

the deposit thing is counter productive as it will discourage genuine bidders and the mongs just ignore it.

 

my advice let it go and move on.

 

also you are not likely to get a non mong bidding more than scrap money for a bent megane with no mot.

 

ignore the bodywork for the moment and get it moted - you can then use/sell it a lot easier.

 

my opinion only sorry!

[hairymel]

sorry for the condensed text - the full reply box thing is broken for me and all my line breaks are removed when i post via the quick reply box

[Cavcraft]

You're right Mel, but all the 'small print' in the world doesn't distract these morons. These are the sort of people who look and think 'Oh, I like red. That car is red, red is a nice colour'. Then they bid on it, win the listing and haven't had the nous to fucking realise (until it's too late) that it's miles away and has a mis-matched wheeltrim so they shit out.

[Pillock]

So eBay Motors auctions are not legally binding?

And a seller can't neg a buyer?

And if the seller did complain that a buyer walked away from a "deal", because it's not binding then eBay should do precisely sod all about it?

 

Hmmmm. Sounds like an excellent business model. I mean "way of pissing off genuine sellers". On the plus side it means people can bid up every shonky purplehorse-style overpriced shitheap without any comeback.

[rainagain]

I thought it was legally binding:

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/gds/LEGAL-ADVICE-REGARDS-BUYING-AND-SELLING/10000000001449898/g.html

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/ebaymotors/help/buyerguide/buy_vehicles.html

 

As the bid means the buyer has formed a contract with you

[rainagain]

Quick update the buyer contacted me earlier this week wanting to pick up today, I replied with a suggested time, guess what he never got back to me!

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Get his address off eBay (request contact details) And order him a load of pizzas, super tenalady samples etc. Also go on a few ambulance chasing websites and give them his phone number.

[Tetleysmooth]

I will never attempt to sell a car on ebay again.

Only did it once. Geezer hit the buy it now button, but never contacted me or tried to collect the car.

Because the sale was completed in ebay's eyes, I had to pay the fee.

Never ever again.

Couldn't leave neg feedback either.

[rainagain]

I will never attempt to sell a car on ebay again.

Only did it once. Geezer hit the buy it now button, but never contacted me or tried to collect the car.

Because the sale was completed in ebay's eyes, I had to pay the fee.

Never ever again.

Couldn't leave neg feedback either.

I hate the way you can't leave negative feedback to buyers anymore, it lets them mess sellers about as much as they like and get away with it

[Jim Bell]

Top Tip:

(Should be in the top tips thread)

Advertise a car on eBay as a Classified Ad at a price higher than its value (so nobody clicks buy it now). Mention OR OFFERS in the listing.

People will still message you and ask what's the lowest youll take.

Invite them to view. Do a low cash deal (they'll think they've got a bargain).

Cancel eBay listing.

 

Celebrate with wine and further ill-advised vehicular eBay purchases.

 

That's the Shitpeas method. And is rolling a 90% success rate.

 

No timewasters!!

[Cavcraft]

Just have something in the background with your phone number in it. The smart ones will twig and give you a call

[hairymel]

sorry bastard formatting and no quotes either cavette the small print is just to stop the non contact/payment dragging on with me getting more annoyed every day - no contact in 3 days then i start the npb process and usually weigh the car in out of frustration anyway! rainagain was a few years ago when i tried to get a seller to actually sell me a car i 'won' deffo told by ebay then it was not a binding contract for motors/property in their t&c's although before that time mr bickle had won a court case for a 'non seller' so things may have changed. ebay have really dropped a bollock with no neg for buyers and hidden bid histories - when buying shill bidding is rampant and leaves a dirty taste in my mouth when its obvious i an having my bid inflated and selling is spoilt by mongs who have no intention of paying for anything. bahh!!

[EssDeeWon]

Bit late now but Autotrader 9.95 for 2 weeks beats Ebay all day long! Recently sold my 155k MK4 Golf 1.8T GTi, I had no less than 15 enquires and got the full asking price because of all the interest, some guy sent his son to collect it and didn't even look round the damn thing before driving it off, but it was a bloody good car!

 

General consensus is that if you want rid asap for any amount then stick it on the bay, Or if you don't need it gone tomorrow for peanuts then use Autotrader, plus ebay is pretty expensive IMHO. 

 

My 2 bobs worth.

 

Regards,

Stephen.