Bidding for Z1 on eBay - totally screwed

I have purchased many computers on eBay and have a 100% rating. I was trying to acquire a Z1390X for my sister tonight and was bidding over the next highest price, but in the final minute of the auction, every time I tried to outbid the next highest bid I got the following popup:

"SELLER NOT ACCEPTING YOUR BID"

it goes on to say, in smaller print:

"Unfortunately, the seller cannot accept your bid on this item. This can happen for a couple of reasons. For example, the seller may be limiting how many items you can buy from him or her in a specific time period Learn more"

Well, this is the first item I ever bid on from this seller. I have a 100% eBay rating. The seller accepted three earlier bids from me in the same auction.

When I called eBay, they said that they do not see evidence that the seller cut me out of the bidding. They said it was likely due to some random system problem, and that they would investigate it and get back to me.

It was more than frustrating, and leaves me skittish about bidding again, at least for something really important. There were other items I could have focused on that might not have caused this "system glitch" and I could be calling my sister telling her she is the proud owner of a new Z1390X.

Anyone have a similar experience on eBay? Any suggestions as to what to do, other than write it off to big company makes all the rules and calls all the shots? With almost any major vendor, the error would result in a sincere apology letter and some form of compensation. Ebay apparently just links you to their terms of service and says: "tough luck; have a nice day!"

Fitting end to a really crappy weekend.

The good news: no such problems ever occur when buying/selling on NBR.

 

Don't get how you are "totally screwed" ... did you spend money (out of pocket) for something you didn't get and won't get your money back? Doesn't sound like it.

Post a link to the auction. Sounds strange....

Get over youself..... "really crappy weekend"; if this (can't buy something on eBay) is the biggest problem you have this week, you'll have a good week. No need being a drama queen.

 

agreed...

/10char

 

Werent you just trying to sell a Z13 on ebay recently?

 

Just posted this in two other threads where people are trying to get their hands on a Z1.

The outlet has a new coupon rolling for 15% off.

outletvaio15pc <--- Discount code.

Hope this helps.

 

Meh, it's just a laptop. You think you have problems, did you see the news from Norway over the weekend? Puts things in perspective.

 

Get over it, if that's the worst thing that happened during the weekend then you probably had a good weekend

Seems like the product is currently unavailable on ebay. Try waiting for a while until the Z2 is released, people might ditch their Z1 and jump ship to the Z2 when it's released.

 

wow you guys, let the man be. no need to tell him his weekend wasn't as bad as people in norway's. he just said it was a 'fitting end' to a crappy weekend. you don't even know what else happened to him. i understand his frustration.

but to answer the original post.. unfortunately, there is nothing you can really do. either a weird glitch or a bizarre seller.. either way, just keep trying. don't get yourself down like that.

 

lol I think "totally screwed" is a bit strong since you didn't lose anything but some time.

maybe "irritated by possible eBay glitch" would be a more fitting title.

 

This thread is jokes, I would never in my wildest dreams make a thread about how I didn't get an ebay auction in an internet forum.

 

Well, I have to say, I'm overwhelmed by the (non) compassion and (non) friendship offered by fellow members. To all of you (not all who posted here, just all who felt the need to make me feel worse about being stiffed on eBay and losing a gift for my sister)...back at ya. Hope things go badly for you - soon and often.

Turns out, the seller looked at the various bidders in the last minutes of his auction and chose a friend of a friend to get the item and disqualified me and another bidder, though he gladly accepted our bids as they helped pump up the price of his item. (And no, I am not selling a Z13 or any other item. If you read, I was looking to BUY this for my sister. If I had one to sell, it would have gone to her, duh!) He violated eBay's rules and will be reprimanded and, I believe, banned from selling for a month.

As it turns out, I let two alternate auctions go by, focusing on this, so wasted about 3 hours for nothing and can't send my sister the Z I promised to find her. Like being on the island in Norway? Give me a break! Has an NBR member's complaint ever equaled being shot by a mass murderer? Does that mean no one has ever been offered commiseration for getting screwed? Well, I know commiseration and compassion is readily offered to members, as i have often been the one to provide it.

Overall, I think everyone who posted an insulting response to me on this thread (and that's not all of you who posted here) really socks, and I hope the next time you encounter frustrating problems that you are likewise dismissed and insulted, just so you can see what it feels like. I had never encountered this on eBay (after 20 transactions) and wanted to know if it is common/legal for sellers to cut out bidders (with 100% positive records) so their "preferred" buyers get to win.

Let me turn your own advice on some of you: get yourselves your own lives, such that you won't feel a need to trash a member looking for advice and, yes, perhaps a bit of compassion. If you cannot do either, then perhaps you should remain silent. You are the ones who look like jerks for dumping on me.

Jeesh! Who burnt your toast?

 

And who appointed you to judge the merit of posts on NBR?

 

Thank you, truly. I posted hoping someone would educate me about how these things might happen and, honestly, perhaps receive a bit of compassion from fellow members, the sort of which I have gladly provided so many times in the past.

I am very grateful to you.

 

Thanks. do you happen to have a link? I couldn't find this.

 

Sounds like you two, and quite a few others, have been harboring resentment about me personally. I have never seen such vitriolic and entirely discompassionate comments about a person who had difficulties buying something they really wanted. Hell, there are threads with 100s of posts about shipment dates being postponed a week. What did I do to you guys that made you ready to pounce on me?

Hate to disappoint you, but my head is held high, the eBay seller is punished, and a really nice NBR-er PM'd me and is selling me their Z13 at a great price. Guess everyone didn't think I was an idiot who deserved to be shot on an island in Norway.

 

So I guess your issue is resolved then? No point replying to others telling how discompassionate they are

 

I don't have a link, but you use the code at checkout. It expires 7/31.

Hope it helps.

 

FYI, for anyone who didn't think my post about this was the stupidest thing since asking which side of the bread to put the butter on (and sadly, you would be in the minority)...

It turns out that eBay allows any seller to exclude any buyer from bidding on their item, and the seller does not have to have a valid reason, or any reason at all! Ebay penalized my seller only because he wrote nasty, taunting messages to me when I asked why he excluded me.

Perhaps I'm the only one who:

a) ever got excluded at the end of an eBay auction after bidding 3 times and having those bids accepted (had a history of 12 transactions, 100% positive and purchased 8 computers, 3 for more $ than the Z I was bidding on)

b) will think twice about bidding in any eBay auction again. I've done a ton of research since this happened to me and learned that buying in an auction (vs. Buy It Now) is not for novices, or even for people who don't have programs on their computers to time their bid to be .01 before the close of the auction. It's pretty much a rigged game if you don't have an automated bid program.

c) Thinks eBay really sucks for having this "policy." It's a throwback to the Internet of the 90s where anything goes and it's "caveat emptor" all the way. Kinda sad that eBay has found they make more money by allowing sellers and buyers both to "play dirty," IMO.

(If sellers want to protect themselves from a potentially fraudulent bidder, all they need to do is require a confirmed PayPay address, ship only inside the country and avail themselves of all the excellent eBay/PayPal seller protections.)

And yes, I got over my "bad weekend" (car rear-ended me on the way home from back surgery) and still agree, it was not as bad as getting shot by a madman on an island in Norway.

For the supportive posts, thank you.

 

^ Hats off to you for using Ebay's Auction system.
I find it very-deeply-frustratingly annoying which is why I filter my search results to items with BuyItNow option.

 

None of us meant any offence mate...

 

Hah, as a small time seller I greatly make use of the automated buyer filtering (for example, no bidders with feedback less than 1, no bidders with 2 neg feedback in the past x months, etc etc.). I also use the specific member blocking to block buyers who have scammed me in the past.

While it is annoying that your seller abused their right to block bidders (you did absolutely nothing wrong), as a seller I absolutely NEED this to prevent buyers from scamming me over and over again.

And you think there is excellent seller protection? Yeah right. A buyer just scammed me out of $140 and it took me 3 weeks to get my money back. The buyer started a case against me, and claimed I had offered to cancel but I never did. The cancel offer came from a different seller for a different product, but eBay's automated WE-WILL-SIDE-WITH-BUYERS-ALL-THE-TIME case resolution policy didn't help. I had to call ebay 5 times and two weeks later they finally reversed the decision... for the buyers mistake in remembering which seller sent what message.

Trust me, eBay doesn't even have a seller protection. Sellers can not even leave negative or even neutral feedback for buyers.

Also, you don't need a bidding program to win auctions. You can manually bid in the last 5 seconds with ease. Why do you even bid when there is more than 30 minutes left? You are just raising the price for everybody. Sniping tools are easy to use and cheap - I paid a flat $15 for mine.

 

Thanks so much for providing the seller's perspective; by far the most helpful response to my thread, and +1 for you. I can understand the value of the the buyer exclusion option, what still bothers me is that there are no standards for using it. As I had 11 transactions, 100% positive and, if the seller bothered looking, the majority of my purchases were computers purchased for $400-$1,600. There is a similar privilege in brick and mortar commerce; the lovely sign in dive bars: "we reserve the right to reserve service to anyone" turns out to be legal in most states. Still, when applied to me it was just sleazy and, ironically, got the seller a lower price.

As to bidding before the end, I had put a maximum bid price in and it only added my bid when someone exceeded my initial (low) bid. I thought (erroneously from what you say) that the only way to have a crack at winning would be to have a maximum price I was willing to pay so that if the next to last bid was lower, it would default to mine at $10.01 more.

Finally, can you explain what a "sniping tool" is for? Are they all the same and one should just google it and buy the cheapest one?

Oh, and, one more "finally:" I can see how it's no piece of cake to utilize your buyer protections, but I'm glad you did ultimately prevail. I'm also amazed you got to speak to a live person; I was unsuccessful doing to in my numerous attempts.

Thanks again for the education.

 

I'm not too sure what you mean by the bidding styles, but generally if you bid at the very end, other buyers aren't pressured into raising their max bid price.

Say for example, your max bid was $100, so you do that and there is a few hours left. Another buyer comes in, and says, my max bid is $80, lets try that. Oh, this guy automatically beat me. Maybe I should raise my max bid from 80 to 120...

and so forth. If you bid your max price in the last few seconds it doesn't give other buyers the chance to reconsider their max bid and beat you.

The sniping tool just automatically bids in the last few seconds so you don't have to be sitting at your computer, timing your bid. Personally I use Auction Defender and it has always worked, but it requires your computer to be running the program. I know there are some online-services that can bid even if your computer is off, but I haven't tried those yet.

 

Thanks. This was my first, and probably last experience with an auction. Seems the eBay auction system is quite complex and one should read all of the information on the site and perhaps from other sources to avoid being "eaten alive."

Thanks. You were right to put things in perspective, vis-a-vis the tragedy in Norway. It just came amidst a number of comments which suggested my complaint had no merit at all and that I was just, essentially, a whiner. Still, I appreciate your qualification here. I had one person PM me and we worked it out too, and ended the last post with "Friends!"

I have been a very active NBR member for a year an a half and never have had such an onslaught of flamers, and it made me feel like burying my head in the [cyber] sand and never posting again, or perhaps changing my NBR screen ID. (One observation: the Sony threads are by far the toughest I've encountered; if they don't like what you say or how you say it, several of the "regulars" tend to flame you.)

Thanks to all how took away the negative feelings.