In Australia, An Ebay Sale is a Sale 267
syousef writes "An eBay sale is a sale says an Australian New South Wales State Judge in a case where a man tried to reneg on the Ebay sale of a 1946 World War II Wirraway aircraft. The seller tried to weasel out of the deal because he'd received a separate offer $100,000 greater than the Ebay sale price. The buyer who had bid the reserve price of $150,000 at the last minute took him to court. 'It follows that, in my view, a binding contract was formed between the plaintiff and the defendant and that it should be specifically enforced,' Justice Rein said in his decision." I haven't found anything like this in previous discussions; have there been similar decisions like this handed down in the US, Canada, or Europe?
Re:Sale.. (Score:5, Interesting)
What you're talking about (e.g. "No, you can't have another beer") would actually be the pre-sale negotiations. After the money has been handed over in a store and accepted, the sale has been started. So the bartender had better either give you your beer, or have a good reason under contract law for not doing so. (e.g. If a contract is impossible to fulfill, it can often be reversed. For example: If I sold you a beer, but another employee just drew the last pint for another customer, I would return you your money as it's now impossible for me to give you the beer you ordered.)
The big difference between a bar and eBay is that the contract is agreed to by both parties as soon as the auction ends. Thus the money doesn't have to change hands before the contract goes into effect. This is similar to a sit-down restaurant where you order and consume your food prior to paying. As soon as you order and your order is accepted, the contract is in effect. You imply that you agree to pay for your meal when you order.
The right way to do this (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not much of a fan of how things are done on eBay, but I do know there are proper ways for sellers to tailor eBay's system a bit more toward to what they want to do.
But there are right ways to use the buying process as well. If Mr. $250,000 was all that into buying the plane, why didn't he simply bid on the auction? He might have even beat the high bidder with a lower price.
Re:Binding contract (Score:5, Interesting)
That wouldn't be far wrong with a Wirraway. They were a locally built copy of the North American NA-16 Texan trainer, and were fitted with two Vickers machine guns more as an act of desperation than hope.
RAAF guys flying 8 of them took on more than 100 Japanese aircraft during a raid on Rabaul. The results were pretty much what you'd expect.
Early cancellation (Score:3, Interesting)
I watched the seller for awhile to see if he re-listed and tried to sell the same item, as I think he just didn't get the high bids he had hoped for, but after a while said to heck with it. What would the obligations of a seller be in this case?
Re:Binding contract (Score:2, Interesting)
In this case, the bidder met the reserve, so the seller has to sell it at that price. The Australian is merely following basic contract law, which is pretty much the same as here in the U.S.
Re:Makes some sense, but .... (Score:4, Interesting)
That's true for all the miscellany whatnot that changes hands on eBay. The article in question here is over 6 figures and for a vintage aircraft of which there are only 5 left in the world. Not a knicknack that dozens of sellers are peddling. This is hardly a whiny loser with a frivolous case.
"Sort-of" Selling Online - Guns and Other Stuff (Score:5, Interesting)
I find this interesting. If you advertise something for sale, shouldn't you have to sell it? Not everywhere, apparently.
Nearly all the firearms-specific versions of EBay, like gunbroker.com, are filled with offerings of used guns that basically say "Subject to prior sale. I'm putting up this web page but if someone comes in my shop and gives me money, you're out of luck. If I decide I don't like you, you're out of luck." This strikes me as quite unfair and unprofessional.
Even some professional-looking web sites that sell things don't really offer them for sale. If you go to Charles Double Reed looking for a new bassoon [charlesmusic.com] to purchase, you can't just put it in your shopping cart and send them money. Oh, no. The disclaimer ("Clicking the add to my cart button below does not guarantee that this instrument will be available to you.") makes it clear that they get to decide if you're the kind of person they want to do business with.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've seen those "No shoes, no shirt, no service" signs. I realize sellers have a right to decide who they want to do business with. But this whole business of offering things for sale and then jerking them back at the last second, seemingly at random, just strikes me as symbolic of a "I don't have to follow any nominal rules of social interaction; I make my own" mindset that seems more and more common these days.
Are people just getting ruder, stupider, and prouder of it?
Common Sense? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Auto sales too? (Score:3, Interesting)
I imagine that eBay decided it was better to offer VIN lookup services rather than deal with the hassle of bids that don't go through.
Re:Early cancellation (Score:5, Interesting)
and as a bidder you are at the whims of the seller until the closing price and bid has been accepted then it's a legal and binding contract.
As a seller I can screw with you all I want cancel and relist auctions every time I see you as winning bidder. I have to pay for every relisting though, so it's not free.
Only the idiots that do not know how to use ebay do that crap. But then I also feel that only the dummies that do not know what an auction is use the stupid "reserve" system. I will not bid on any item that has a reserve, if you dont have the balls to put an item out for the price you want for it then dont list it.
Ultimately, this will be a mistake (Score:3, Interesting)
This is probably a mistake in the long run, because now we'll start fiddling around with when a contract is in effect. For example, if an auction can only be paid for via PayPal, and the person bids, wins, and then doesn't pay for a few days, is there a sale or not?
If you leave it at "once money changes hands, it's a contract", then it's simple to remember and enforce. It's better for everyone, because it encourages the buyer to get the money to the seller as quickly as possible. And the buyer knows as soon as he pays for it, it's his, even if not in his possession.
Re:Early cancellation (Score:5, Interesting)
It's perfectly legal to do that, as the "sale" hasn't officially happened yet. It's a bit tricky with auctions, since the official sale happens when the auction ends, while in regular retail sales, it happens when money is exchanged. Perhaps the closest analogy happens for say, e-commerce. You buy an item, but the seller decides he doesn't want to sell it to you and cancels your order - it's still legal, as the sale hasn't happened yet. He may even have taken your money, but if said product hasn't left his door, he's under no obligation to complete the sale (of course, he will have to give you a refund or it becomes fraud).
Like the recent Dell case - Dell didn't ship anyone their goods, so they had the power to cancel all their orders (the case was about what remedies could be had in the case - forced arbitration). The older Amazon case, where officially Amazon undercharged people and shipped them product, is something where the consumer's in the right, since the sale has occurred, and a seller has no recourse to recoup the losses from consumers who actually received the inadvertently discounted product.
So your eBay seller decided the auction wasn't going to end the way he wanted, and removed the product from sale before the sale was compelte. In the case of the article, though, the seller didn't cancel the auction, and thus the sale was made.
It's also like that state department trying to get rid of surplus, and putting stuff on eBay to sell. It didn't sell well, but they never cancelled their auction, leading them to have to sell the equipment at cut-rate prices (or face legal ramifications).
Confused on the Timeline (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:"Sort-of" Selling Online - Guns and Other Stuff (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, yes, but I wouldn't worry too much about it in this context. I'm not a big fan of the notion that free markets can solve all kinds of problems, but one problem they can definitely solve is shitty service. Vendors who annoy their customers have a tendency to go out of business and be replaced by vendors who don't.
That said, if I guy came into my store and wanted to buy a gun and a bassoon, I'd be wary of him, too.
Where is the fraud alert.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Just what were the terms of the offer outside the auction channel?
The court decision may have saved the seller a bundle of money.
In Canada... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Early cancellation (Score:4, Interesting)
and as a bidder you are at the whims of the seller until the closing price and bid has been accepted then it's a legal and binding contract.
As a seller I can screw with you all I want cancel and relist auctions every time I see you as winning bidder. I have to pay for every relisting though, so it's not free.
True, but buyers can retract bids; unethical ones can create a second account and put in an absurdly high bid then simply never pay to cancel out their bid.
There is the second chance offer - something I refuse to accept on principal. I've gotten one immediately after an auction closed because the buyer backed out; but the bidding was in numerous $5 increments by the same unknown bidder until my high bid was beaten. The seller then offered a me a second chance buy immediately after the auction closed. That smelled too much like shill bidding (although I can't prove it)to find my final price and try to sell it at that price; another had a "second item" that they would sell for my high bid.
My rule is I'll only consider ones where the buyer offers it at my highest price before the first non-wining bidder bid; not my final highest bid. Sure I was willing to buy it at that price but do not feel any obligation to help a (possibly) unethical seller get a higher price than then they would from a legitimate auction.
I've only had a couple of those type experiences on eBay; otherwise I've been quite happy as a buyer and seller.
Re:"Sort-of" Selling Online - Guns and Other Stuff (Score:2, Interesting)
Normally if we put it up for auction on eBay it will sell for far less than if we were to sell it to someone in the store (or even on our own website) so it does not make good business sense for us to take it off the sales floor or down from the website until it's sold. The salesmen in the store don't have access to our eBay system and not all of them can access the website back end. If they sell the item, they notify the web people who take it down, but that process may take a few hours (or days, on the weekend). This can also happen with commodity items also, if someone comes in and buys the last box of reeds. We're working on a solution that will integrate our in-store sales with the website database but that still won't cover eBay auctions. I won't even get into the issues of synchronizing the database with real life - we take inventory on a regular basis and always have to adjust something in the computer.
The disclaimer about "may be sold in the store" also encourages people to come into the store. More traffic in the store means more money coming in, whether they buy that specific item or something else. When we list auctions like that we get many phone calls asking what the in-store price is, and some of those end up in sales. eBay's "but it now" feature disappears when the first bid is made, so the "may be sold in store" feature acts as another backup "buy it now." That also saves on eBay fees (which can be ridiculous) if we can get more than one sale out of one auction or sell the item in the store (if we cancel the auction, eBay doesn't charge a final value fee). We are VERY careful to make sure the auctions are canceled before they end if we sell the item elsewhere.
There's nothing random about it. I'll sell a saxophone to anyone with the money to pay for it, whether it's online or in the store. We've told a few people not to come back because they have a history of being poor customers (bounced checks, rude to salespeople, break things then return them) but that happens rarely and only after a long history of the same garbage. We don't arbitrarily decide that this guy looks black/white/jewish/muslim/shifty-eyed/scuzzy so we won't sell to him. I see nothing un-fair about it either - you have just as much opportunity as the next guy to come in the store if you're local or order over the phone if you're not.
Rude, stupid? Not really. I think it would be more rude to let you bid on the auction or buy online without letting you know that the item might have already sold. It comes down to having multiple simultaneous sales channels (which is just good business) for the same item without a centralized database. If you REALLY want the item, buy it now or risk losing it. That's life.
Re:Early cancellation (Score:4, Interesting)
report the auction to ebay, it get's pulled and they have to pay the listing price. Ebay does not allow shipping padding as it's ebay fees circumvention. I report listings selling stuff for $0.99 with insane shipping all the time, they usually get taken down in 4-6 hours.
Ebay users are the only defense at these guys making up the difference in shipping.
Re:Early cancellation (Score:4, Interesting)
A day or so later, I got a second-chance auction, to buy it for the $3500, which was my "last bid". I wrote to the seller, explained to him that between my $3200 and $3500 bid, the only bids were from someone who apparently was only trying to ruin the auction, and thus I felt that my $3200 bid is what he should sell it to me for.
He agreed, which surprised me. I thought for sure he would decline, and if he had, I would have reported him and his "buddy" to ebay, using the email I received as some form of evidence, even if not absolute. I picked up the bike that weekend, and I noticed that the seller had given the bidder negative feedback, and the bidder had given negative feedback to the seller. I thought that showed everything was legit -- they wouldn't have dinged each other if they were working w/ each other to try to extract more money.