EBay seller will not honor auction - advice

Then there's the other side that has to do more with one's mental health and wellbeing.  Is it really worth getting into a big fight over this?  The amount of aggravation just may not be worth it.  Sometimes - and I'm not saying it's so in this case - but sometimes it just isn't meant to be and it might cause more heartache than it's worth.  Sometimes it's better to just forget it and get on with our lives.  Remember life is too short to spend a lot of it on being irritated, aggravated, and unhappy.  Personally, I think I'd chalk it up as the one that got away and walk away from it.  There will be other RVs and maybe they'll be better than this one.  JMO.

ArdraF

I am aware that when you list an item on E-bay you agree to sell it for the auction price so long as the reserve is met.

I am told E-bay will fight for the buyer on this (Since it's their reputation that suffers)

As for you and someone else bidding against each other in the closing seconds

There are several "Auction-steeler" services out there.  This is a very common practice on E-bay, even E-bay has such a service

When I'm bidding on something I want I wind up making my bid usually in the last few seconds.

Sorry if you already mentioned this, but are you anywhere geographically close to this dealer or were you planning on traveling a long distance to get the trailer?  I would be concerned that once you arrived, the trailer will NOT be in the shape you expect if it's even still there.  They could probably wholesale it for $20k the day before you show up, and then you're the only loser.  I'm kinda with Ardra on this - it's possibly too good of a deal to actually happen.  Report the seller to eBay, Paypal, get your deposit back (which is better than LOSING money on the deal, which happens often enough), sleep easy, and keep on shopping.

I hope it could work out for you, but I'm afraid the effort will not be worth the outcome.

Well, I agree with the aggravation part (life's too short and all that), but I think in this case, it's going to be worth the aggravation.  The primary aggravation in this, in my mind, would not necessarily be the loss of the trailer, but the fact that these people are doing what they are.  If Pat just let this go, how many other people will they possibly do this to?  How many have they done this to before this?  No, I'm with you on this Pat, and I say make 'em pay.  You seem like a very reasonable person, and you know your limits.  I have a very long fuse...I don't let very many things ever get my tailfeathers in a ruffle.  But when something does happen to burn that fuse, I will go after it and not give up until a resolution has been reached.  It doesn't happen very often, but this I think would certainly be one of those cases!  Good luck, and keep us posted.

I'm not saying I wouldn't report them to E-Bay and PayPal because they should be stopped from doing this to other folks if in fact they are being dishonest, but I don't think I'd carry it so far as to getting into the lawsuit hassle.  That's where the aggravation and irritation just become too much.  Then it would be time to walk away.  I'm reminded of a relative who kept going to court "on principle" and it went on for about ten years, much to the detriment of the entire family and that person's own health.  Everyone kept saying it's time to quit, but principle was more important.  Guess what I'm saying is you have to know when it's time to draw the line in the sand and when it isn't.  Some things are worth fighting for and others are not.

ArdraF

Well I have had a problem with a seller on eBay.  In order to protest to eBay about failure of a seller to provide what they sold, eBay requires you to wait 30 days before filing a complaint.  That is ridiculous, but it is their rule.  You should immediately file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau against the dealership.  You can do that on-line - https://odr.bbb.org/odrweb/public/GetStarted.aspx .  Perhaps they can do some good, but I doubt it.  The auction price is larger than would be accepted by small claims court.  Looks like your only course of action is an attorney.  I'll bet the dealership is betting on that and that you will not go to that much effort.  Still file the complaint with eBay when they will accept it.  They will at least shut the dealer off from using eBay, that is until the dealer signs up under a different name and continues the same type business.

Good luck

patlewis said:

...Why do I think that? Look closely at the bid history and tell me what you see. My winning bid on this trailer happened in the last few seconds of the auction. Someone was bidding against me at the end, but they just weren't fast enough. How about all the bids on the last day by the same person raising their own bid all afternoon? That person didn't even have any feedback. Legit? Hrmmm, I don't know.
...

Click to expand...

That part seems legit to me.  You have to consider the timestamps on the bids --
 
"p***m" put in a bid of $11,000 on 7/13 at 8:30am.  This beat the previous high bid of $7,700.  By ebay's rules, his bid only displays as $7,800 at that time since $100 is all he had to beat the $7,700 bid by.  But p***m has committed to pay up to $11,000 if the bidding goes higher.

So all seven bids by "g***o" and "w***x" up through 7/17 at 8:40pm are just them offering more & more and discovering that p***m still has the high bid.

Finally, w***x breaks through p***m's bid with a bid of $11,100 on 7/17 at 8:48pm.

You make an undisclosed bid at 9:55:10.  All we know for sure is that it was higher than $15,255.57.  Your bid is displayed as $11,200 at that point.

"i***k" makes a bid of $15,155.57 fifteen seconds after your bid.  Since his bid was less than your bid, you are still high bidder at that point.

The auction closes nine seconds later and your high bid is locked in at the minimum $100 bump above i***k's bid. 

You win.

If anything is curious about the bidding it is that i***k makes the opening bid of a penny higher than the minimum and then makes no other bids for 5 days before coming back in 9 seconds before the end with such an odd amount.  Perhaps he was using an auction sniping program to automatically throw in his bid.

Since I live in Tucson  I am in the position to give you my opinion about this dealer. They are REAL small fry and just looking at them from the outside they do not portray a professional impression, as far as I am concerned. We would not even consider to go to this dealer to look at RV's. That is my two cents worth.

Mariekie

Reality check...
I think we all agree there appears to be some significant malpractice on behalf of the listing party.  They are definitely someone I would not want to do business with.  Their mumbo jumbo about the bees, is well...just that!  You have options to report the matter to a variety of agencies, (ebay/paypal, local D.A's office, BBB, perhaps DMV etc.) but filing a lawsuit, IMO is simply not worth the cost or aggravation.  After all, other than some emotional distress, what is your actual loss?  To this point only $250 deposit which could be returned at any moment.  I bet few attorneys would be willing to take the case on contingency, there simply isn't enough up-side.  Forking out the initial $1500 - $5k, to get the legal civil ball rolling isn't worth it.

Sure the dealership should be taken to task and perhaps prevented from listing on ebay but that doesn't necessarily get you the 5r for the winning bid price.    Filing a breach of contract lawsuit could be tied up in court for months, if not years.  In any event, I doubt any court (except maybe Judge Judy - now there's a thought) would award you the unit because the dealership was remiss in their half of the contract.  Your damages are virtually non-existent because you have no actual loss.  You can't really lose something you never had to begin with unless you have an additional loss by acting upon a  promise which they failed to keep.  The remedy in a civil  damages claim (tort) is to make you whole and, save for the $250. you already are.  Breach of Contract claims are not torts but typically take a lot of $$$ and possibly years to adjudicate.  Some might argue that you are 'out' the 5r, but that's not the case because you still have the $15K + you were willing to spend.  Now had you sent the money and they refused to return it or provide you with the unit, that's a different matter.

The fervent bidding toward the end of the auction, is suspicious.  It appears that someone, perhaps at the dealership, was driving the price up hoping to get a more realistic value. (ebay has a term for that).  But that being said, why would they not put in their 'reserve' amount (say $29K)  as an unseen high bid?.  That way your high bid would not have 'trumped' theirs.  In any event, Ebay would be able to identify the bidder and where they were bidding from.  I would definitely give them the strongest possible negative feedback as soon as possible, so that others may be aware. 

BT

Buddy is right, the trick to preventing an auction would be to put in a bid of a real high number, like 30k.  This way a real bidder would have had to bid more, and then they would have sold it. 

They had no experience in eBay, you can tell by their number.  They likely would not even have thought of this ploy.  They just screwed up and missed setting a reserve.  Does this mean they should sell it to you at about an 8000 loss?  I don't know.  According the eBay rules, yes.  Can they afford to do that?  Based on the local knowledge, I doubt it. 

Do I believe the bee story?  No. 

The bidding action, not suspicious, it always looks like this, and with automatic bidding, it will often look this way. 

Posting on the ripoff site isn't going to get them ready to help you out.  They do have a customer feedback portion of their websie, if you want to really get them ready to put more bes in, post there.

For what it's worth, I was in a similar situation a few years ago (I was the high bidder in no reserve auction and seller refused to sell) and basically ebay told me there was nothing they could do about it - if it's a no reserve, the seller is SUPPOSE to sell but the can't (and won't take any steps to) force the seller to sell.

Unfortunately, ebay really does very little to help buyers in any way.  Completely unrelated to this but a few years ago, I purchased a hot tub from a seller with good feedback.  After a few months of getting the run around, I filed a complaint with ebay (first filed complaint in October and then filled several others) - they finally suspended his account in the last week of January.  At the same time, I had also suggested that they contact all the winners of his auction and ask if they had received the product - they told me they couldn't do that and could not give me the names and / or userids of his winners.  Between the time that I first filed the complaint and the time they suspended he appears to have 'sold' approx 50 hot-tubs.  I know of at least a few dozen others that were scammed as I was by the same vendor.  Losts of us filed complaints with ebay and with the police enough that there was an investigation.  Because I was curious, I kept asking the policeman in charge for updates.  I believe it took him about 1 month to get ebay to release information on the seller and his other 'buyers'.  Ebay would not release any information (including simple things like list of all his auction winners (which technically you can just get by doing a search on completed items) until he was able to get a court order.  In the end, I'm not sure if any thing ever happen.  Last I heard the case had been transferred from Houston PD (who I was in contact with) to the FBI (because it was a big enough case and was international) but from what I saw, ebay certainly did not go out of their way to help (if you're curious about this, you can just google 'Steve Lanni' and you'll find lots of references.

Whatever happen?  Did these dealer get taken out?

When push comes to shove Ebay doesn't do much when sales go bad. They make a lot of noise about it in their advertising, but  drag there feet when anything happens. In practice, they can't do much anyway - they have no authority over anyone - but they really don't ever do more than send a message to the errant seller asking him to comment on your complaint. If the seller is bad enough they may ultimately ban him/her, but their income comes from sellers, not buyers, so they don't come down hard on sellers. They just don't want buyers running around saying nasty things about ebay or losing confidence in the ebay marketplace, so they go they go through the motions of a complaint procedure.

When I bought my motorhome through a private seller on ebay I drove the 100 mile trip each way to look at it before making my final offer and then went back the next day after the offer was accepted with a cashiers check. The seller and I exchanged check for title at the license branch after she had her bank call my bank and make sure the CC was valid.
That is the only way I would do business on ebay.


Woody

The Consumerist picked up the story last night. I had to laugh out loud when I saw the picture that they used.

I hope to hear from Nelson RV or their attorney today. I am not holding out a lot of hope, but I want to make every effort to do this the easy way first.

Thanks everyone for your advice and comments. This is a great community you have here. Everyone is so helpful.

Wow, you got some press!  That can only help, at least to warn others of this seller if nothing else.  This is a very interesting story, especially since you are following through and not "cutting your losses" immediately... as I probably would have done.    Good for you!  Just don't let the battle ruin your quality of life in any way.  Keep us updated too!

I saw it in the Consumerist RSS feed today.  Other than the graphic showing a class C, the story was as you posted it here.

I talked to James Nelson 45 minutes ago. He followed up with this e-mail:

Dear Mr. Lewis,

As per our conversation this afternoon, I James L. Nelson II of Nelson RV will transfer the 2007 Sandpiper 325RG 5th wheel to you in accordance with your bid on EBay. As agreed, you may have your representative inspect the vehicle before the transfer.

Thank you for your patience,
James L. Nelson II
Nelson RV

It looks like James is going to do the right thing. I called the news reporter to give the update. I say it isn't over until it is over, but it sure looks like things are going the correct way now.

Thank you all who gave me good advice. I sure am glad I didn't have to involve an attorney.

After all this, I do hope you're happy with the trailer.  Good job.