I'm asking here b/c the ebay comms seem to be a little dead.
First week of april I bid on and won a size 12 men's tennis shoe. Paid 2 days later (a thursday). The next week I hadn't heard anything about shipping so I e-mailed the seller on monday. (normally I'm more laid back but my mother was pushing me because she was on a time crunch). I never did hear back from that e-mail but I did get a tracking number either that same day or the next. The shoes eventually came on a friday. They were for my brother. Turns out he's not allowed to have them so we offered them to my brother-in-law, who also wears a 12 and as soon as he slipped them on he realized that they were the wrong size, an 11. At this point it's been 2-3 weeks since the auction date. I had not yet left feedback, so I log onto ebay to see what the auction described it as, and to get contact info from the seller and notice that the auction has been cancelled. I open e-bay communication on May 2nd, leave the whole story there and ask for a full refund. The next day I receive an e-mail from ebay telling me the auction was cancelled and that I was no longer obligated to pay or continue through with the transaction (even though by this time it was long ago completed). By May 5th, no reply from the seller.
So here's where I stood. Since the auction was canceled, it was removed from the MyEbay page, and basically doesn't exist according to ebay. All that remains as proof that i was involved is my own e-mails and paypal transactions. Luckily the size of the shoe is in the title of the auction, so there is no question about that. It was obvious to me that this was the seller's attempt to defraud me/ebay by canceling afterwards, before he got feedback so that other's wouldn't catch on. I escalated it to a paypal claim and am currently waiting to hear back from that.
So has anybody had an experience like that? I'm not new to ebay, but i'm always careful about buyers. I check feedback and look for warning signs. I just hate getting cheated! Any advice?
oh and the bad service is: Ebay canceling an auction that has been closed, and allowing it to completely disappear into thin air without BOTH sides agreeing it was resolved with no losses (i.e. the seller saying no item was shipped, and the buyer saying no money was paid). I think they should at least make the info available (for maybe up to 30 days) until that has happened. Where would I be if I hadn't saved my e-mails?