Is it bad in eBay's eyes for a seller to cancel a sale?

[Tiger289]

I’m an 83 year old eBay seller and I need some help. 7 days ago on April 18th I sold a book on eBay for $147.97 and I sent an invoice to the buyer. Nothing happened and last night I notified eBay that the buyer had not paid. Today I received (thru eBay) the following message from the buyer:

“ON APRIL 19, 2017 I sent you this message regarding this manual:

Greetings.
A couple of days ago I looked at this 2005 Mazda Tribute service manual and the price was $124.00.
That’s a lot of money, so I saved the link to my bookmarks so I could think about it.
I logged on yesterday and opened my bookmarked page and the price still showed as $124.00. When I clicked to add to the cart, the price changed to $147.00 +.
That is definitely more than I am willing to spend so I tried to cancel the transaction. For some reason I was not able to do that. The only thing I could think to do was to “save for later” and try to contact you. Nowhere on that page could I find a way to send you an inquiry.
Today I received an email requesting payment.
I’m sorry. I can’t pay that much for the book.
Would you cancel the order, please.
Sincerely, xxxxxx”

My eBay account shows that this is the first message that I have received from this buyer. I did not receive the message that he says he sent on April 19th. My 100% positive feedback totals 2,153 and I have never had a buyer ask that a sale be cancelled. I don’t mind cancelling the sale, but I have two questions: (1) How do I do this?, and (2) Will eBay hold a cancellation like this against me? BTW, this book was never listed for $124.00. Thanks in advance for your help. You are a wonderful group of people.

[JJCatfinder]

You know, I think they do give you a demerit or whatever they call it for cancelling a sale because they figure that usually it is because you were selling the item and then couldn’t find it or forgot to take it down. But, as I understand it, that doesn’t show up to buyers and it doesn’t affect you until you reach a certain percentage of “demerits” (I wish I could remember what they call them). But you have to get a handful before you are penalized in any way by eBay. If the person DOES leave you a bad feedback and you have the emails in the eBay system, they might remove it if you call the.

[whiskey]

No. Cancel the transaction and make sure that you choose “at buyer’s request’ or whatever. It doesn’t count against your metrics if that is the reason. Nevermind that they are a lying sack of excrement. Cancel it for that reason, relist it, and move on.

[So Cal Joe]

Whiskey is correct. make sure you choose “At Buyer’s request” for the reason.

It shouldn’t affect your account negatively.

Unfortunately, I have a lot of cancellations on my “Local Pickups”.

[Jo]

To cancel, go to your sold items and choose <more actions> on the right hand side of the item. Next, choose cancel in the drop down menu. It should then ask you to choose the reason for cancelling.

[eCommerce411.us]

Cancellation of the transaction is under the Resolution Center… The above is true as well as you need to be sure to close the case after 5 days if the buyer hasn’t accepted your cancellation. Otherwise it will be marked against your as a defect and you are only allowed 5 before it becomes an issue

[MDC Galleries & Fine Art]

Yes to eCommerce statement. When we go on vacation and change our handling time to extra days we always send an email to remind the buyers that it will be two weeks [or whatever] before we are back and will ship. It is shortly after this that we get several requests to cancel due to assorted reasons and we do just as eCommerce says. Go to the Resolution Center and choose to Cancel an order and put the reason as Customer Requests. BUT MAKE SURE you create a reminder that at the 5 day mark you go back to the Resolution Center and close it out. That way you avoid any defect / ding on your account. Ryanne uses this method also. Jay has said that they get several requests to cancel orders sometimes when they are away on their long travel trips.

And for “Unpaid Item Cases” we have signed up for the “Unpaid Item Assistant” and have it set for 4 days. The UIA opens a case for us after 4 days, sends the buyer an email to pay up or else and then closes the case automatically. We personally send the buyer a pay up polite email after 2nd day and again on the 3rd day. After that the Automatic Unpaid Item Assistant takes over.

But with the personal buyer requests you have to do this manually. Really very easy.

Mike at MDC Galleries in Atlanta

[eCommerce411.us]

Also, as a seller, I believe you have 30 days to close the case. The 5th day is the earliest. However, if you’re concerned about the defect rate or disqualifying as a TRS, you need to close the case before the 20th of the month, a sellers evaluation date.

[Tiger289]

Thanks so much to everyone for their wonderful help. When I tried to cancel the sale, I found that I couldn’t cancel the sale because there is an open case. Then when I tried to close the case in the Resolution Center it seems that the seller is unable to close the case until waiting at least 4 days after the case was opened. I guess that I’ll have to wait out this time and then close the case and then cancel the sale.

I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the forum and the help I have received. Thanks again, Wayne

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