Ebay Did Not End Listing After Best Offer Accepted

I received an offer from a seller on an item I was watching, I then sent a counter offer that he accepted the next morning. I did get an email saying he accepted the offer, but when I went to the listing it had this message in a blue bar at the top of the listing.

"The seller accepted your counteroffer of US $65.00. The item isn't yours until you pay. Go to checkout before time expires or someone else buys it first. Check out"

I checked with another ebay account and the listing was still live.

This appears to be new, as I have never seen this before.

I would think that the accepted offer is like a contract and the listing should end.

Has anybody else had this happen to them?

Makes sense. You haven't paid for it yet, so the transaction is not complete. So, it becomes important to pay for your accepted offer right away so someone does not come along in the meantime and buy it.

What is even more normal now is that you actually have to specify a payment method when you make the offer, and it automatically charges that method when the seller accepts your offer.

The reason that this was changed was that sellers were running into the problem where a buyer would offer on an item, the seller would accept, and then the buyer would drag their feet paying...

John

Yes, this is the new normal. If you look at the stamp page and click on manage offers you will see it marked as Pending. Someone else could still buy it until they pay.

John


Yes, although the transaction is not complete, once the seller accepts your offer that is an agreement between both parties.




So now ebay want you to check every 10 minutes to see if any of your offers have been accepted, that is just not realistic.
Not only that, a buyer is going to get very upset if an item that a seller agreed to sell and they agreed to buy, suddenly gets sold to someone else.




Although a lot of sellers have this option checked (many don't even know about it).

At least for now it is still an option, as a seller I do not have this option checked and never will. In all the years I have been on ebay I have never had a problem with non payment. And it also discourage multiple purchases.

Of course I realize at some point ebay will probably force it on everyone whether they want it or not, just as the did with IPR (Instant payment required).




Sellers always had the option of requiring instant payment on store items and more recently on offers. so that should not be a reason. As I said above not everybody wants this, and many sellers don't even know about it.

Okay sorry for venting, but this forced me to rush to accept a couple of other offers from the same seller, one I was going to do another counter offer on, and I also wanted to verify that he would refund the multiple shipping charges.

Mike

Edit: correct typo

risny




If this is the new norm, then ebay should make it very clear that the acceptance of the offer is not binding until payment is made.

But even then it is still very troubling, who wants to constantly monitor (I believe for up to 3 days) if the offer/s they made have been accepted. And then have to stop what they are doing to make a payment, to ensure it doesn't get sold to someone else.

It takes seconds to press "pay now" - just get on with it.

The changes have been driven by too many slow or no pay "buyers" and as you are being noticed that the contract is not finalized until payment is made, you are aware of the need to pay to secure the item.

Most seller will understand this in cases of multiple offers in play which require immediate payment with an individual shipping price. When ask on multiple make offers, they usually refund the overage shipping charges when shipping is combined. Do understand that the sellers are required to ship any purchases quickly,after payment is received, to stay in the lowest ebay fee structure. They are not allowed to wait days for you to make other purchases.

What is taking so long to decide on the other items?

GeoffHa




You first have to know that your offer has been accepted before you can pay for it.

Of course it is not the end of the world, just another of Ebays irritating new policies to make things worse.

Parcelpostguy,




See my reply above, sellers have the option for instant payments if they want, except in auctions.
So there should be no need to force it on everybody.




I have had 100's of offers accepted over the years, both as a buyer and a seller. Every one (until now) the listing ended upon acceptance.
This is an absolutely new policy, so no, I did not know that the listing would not end.
It was not in the email notification.

I am also well aware that sellers have to ship quickly once payment is made, or be penalized, an even better reason not to require instant payment, it discourages multiple purchases.




They were dependent on acceptance of the first offer being accepted, and as I said I was going to make a counteroffer on one and verify combined shipping.
Yes, I know most sellers will, but it is always a good idea to verify. And yes he did.



edit: remove my reply from quote

I had an item sit for days with "offer accepted". It took the guy close to a month to actually pay for it. I would not have wanted the listing to be down during that time.

Alub




If you go into your setting there is an option to require pre-payment info for best offers.

If you can't find it let me know and I will try to find it for you.

Alub

They buried it pretty deep.

Go to My Account
Preferences
Selling Preferences
Your Buyers
Manage who can Buy
Buyer Management
Buyer rules
Check - "Require all buyers to provide payment method before they make an offer"

Hope I got it right



I see they now also have one for auctions, I hope it is not widely used

Yes for auctions "instant payments" is a thing, specifically the buyer will be charged in 60 minutes after the auction closes. Here I will point out a trend you may not have noticed, but since ebay began, the time allowed for making payment has been lowered and the current changes are just lowering that time more. Additionally the changes are system wide, not just for stamps. Other moves such as having the sellers list with "free shipping" (yeah, right) is not a problem in many areas, but for stamps it is for when shipping is hidden within the sale price, there is no reduction for shipping when buying multiple items from one seller.

[q]They were dependent on acceptance of the first offer being accepted, and as I said I was going to make a counteroffer on one and verify combined shipping.[/q}

You also mentioned you have not had any non-payment issues. Good for you but your experience does not a trend make. it, non-payment (as well as claimed non-receipt) is a significant problem for many. But an unpaid or slow pay buyer keeps the item off the market slowing the receipt of the sale price for the seller and the transaction fees for ebay. Again, you need to consider this system wide, not just for stamps and not just for postal shipping. At least one of my philatelic purchases arrived at the Fed-Ex warehouse on a pallet with my required warehouse pickup. I had to unpack (de-pallet it) to get it to fit in my car. It was a large and heavy old Toledo Parcel Post Scale, not one of those little three or twenty pound parcel post scale jobs. It was a bit of an adventure too as I was advised to come pick up my "cast iron pipe fittings" Eventually the seller advised that was how the item was marked for shipping from a pipe supply company (methinks the seller was getting free for him shipping,wink, wink). When I finally got to Fed-Ex for the pick up I ask why no one would simply tell me what was on the pallet, it clearly was a scale not pipes or pip fittings. Answer: Fed-Ex requires employees to quote from the shipping documents, not what they see.

When I am planning to deal with a new to me seller, I ask first about combining shipping/refunds of forced ebay overcharges before I move to bid or buy from them. My only snarky answers can from sellers who had an item of philatelic interest but generally sold non-philatelic items.

Now here on SCF, you do not link your ebay selling in your profile. I was looking to see if you shipped world wide or limited buyer to just certain areas. Such a limitation is a loud indication the seller has had or expects trouble from buyers in the excluded areas.

Now to follow up on your comment above to alub, sellers in some mandatory payment information prior to bidding, offering or buying, the seller at time has the option to change from payment in one hour ( ebay default) to payment in seven days.

I am certainly not looking forward to this going mainstream.
This also seems like it would affect sniping programs, prevent them from executing your bid.

Unfortunately I am also well aware of ebay requiring instant payments more and more. And that stamps are only a very small percentage of the business, and ebay's desire to get their fees quick, etc. etc. That doesn't mean I have to like it, just that there is not much I can do about it. But I am trying to hold out as long as possible, as I have always hated IP.
This is what years ago made me go to free shipping, I got tired of refunding all the extra shipping.
What you say about free shipping (that it is not really free) is only partially true IMO.
Although some sellers will mark up some items to make up for it, not all items can be marked up enough to cover the full cost, especially the lower cost items. And Higher cost items have it somewhat included, but most sellers are not going to change a $100 to say $104 to cover shipping again IMO.

As for combined shipping I try to get clarification first, but it is not always possible.
Luckily most sellers do, but there are exceptions

I have had very few non-payments, so I don't consider them an issue, I have also had some Items not received claims mostly international, but I still ship WW.

I checked my profile, although the homepage took a while to load it did take me to my ebay store.

As for instant payments for auctions lets hope most sellers pick 7 days (if they have the option) not one hour.
Not that I need 7 days but I would think it would give buyers more of a chance to check for other items of interest.

Edit: typo

If you're interested enough to make an offer on an item, you should be interested enough to keep an eye on your e-mails, and pay if an acceptable counter-offer is made. If I had a to-and-fro on price with someone in an actual shop, I wouldn't agree a sum, then come back and pay a few days later.

Geoffha

I'm sorry, but I disagree, first the offer was sent to me unsolicited, I just counteroffered. Do you really want people to constantly check their emails for up to 3 days for an offer that may or may not be accepted. How often should they check, every 10min, 30min, how about while driving, it is just not realistic.

I realize ebay is trying to become more and more like Amazon, they have been trying for a very long time, thus the move to more more IP'S, but they are still not like a regular store.

I am not trying to get away with not paying, but once an offer is accepted there should be a reasonable amount of time to pay without the chance of somebody else buying it