francophile 

Short story long: eBay. Despite 4 bidders, maybe one was you, I won at steal of a price, like $50 + shipping (so ... like around ~$125-$140 total) .

Seller was ignoring my request for total. Then came back 2 days later claiming "listing error" and "talked to eBay, they said we can handle two ways, either you meet my demand or we can't make the sale". Same seller has at least one negative feedback older than 12 months for auctions closing too low and ditching the buyer.

Seller, in Arlington Massachusetts, is trying to get me to cough up $100 more, then pay fully for shipping on top of it so I'm out around $225 total if all goes well.. It's not like this isn't necessarily worth it (it's my size, builder with significant history). I suppose there's a wild-ass-chance-in-hell we have a BF'er here who could facilitate (if we do, please PM me!!).

So I guess what I'm asking is: What would you do in this case, knowing eBay won't step in if the seller defrauds you, and you'll be stuck on the phone with PayPal for hours to get a refund on both transactions if it's poorly packed and gets damaged en route, probably because it was sent by an already disappointed seller?

- Would you contact eBay and make them aware of what the seller is trying to do?
- Would you just walk away and leave negative feedback, carry on with life?
- Would you try to work out paying the difference ($90) then paying the seller to pack and ship (probably another $50-75)?
- Would you ask the seller to allow a friend to local-pickup (BF facilitator) and pay the difference, then work with BF facilitator?
- Would you maybe do something else?

Pics of the frame in question. I'm not sure if there was any Galmozzi involvement with this frame, but there's definitely history with the two. And yes, I find the sellers bizarre photo angles and up-close shots a bit strange. But it's all I got to go on.

francophile 

PS - The quality of the decals seems unusual to me. And the B reminded me of one I'd seen in a Billato thread in the past, if not multiple. Like: https://www.bikeforums.net/19425946-post8.html

Which actually pointed to this bike: https://www.steel-vintage.com/blog/2...movelato-1983/

juvela

-----

minor note regarding the marque -

sounds like u r familiar with this

there was a shop near me which was a stockist for this badge from the mid-seventies through the early eighties

they had a customer who was related to the producers so this person put the two together

always offered in very small numbers, shop received two shipments per annum IIRC

never saw more than six at a time on hand

no mention of a Galmozzi connection was made, which of course means nothing

shop was called Witt's Cycles and was located in Hayward, California

as recalled, owners closed and retired somewhere around 1990 due to health issues

-----

verktyg 

For starters:

...contact eBay and make them aware of what the seller is trying to do - eBay frowns on that kind of activity. Bids are for auctions - you buys yer ticket and you takes yer chances!

... just walk away and leave negative feedback, carry on with life? - when all else fails that may be the easiest thing to do but I'd check out other option first.

... try to work out paying the difference ($90) then paying the seller to pack and ship (probably another $50-75)? - the seller has already shown their lack of ethics! Why thrust them further!

Contact eBay first. Sometimes the power of a message from them is all that's needed to get something done with a recalcitrant seller.

Expect the seller to do a poor job of packing and shipping. Figure that they are probably going to be passive aggressive over not getting the amount of money they wanted.

If you do go through with the modified sale, if the frame comes in damaged, you may do better getting eBay to step in. They pull the seller's funds instantly!

About 10 years back I was high bidder on a like new 1984 Gitane TdF. At the last second I was shill bid by $0.01 and lost. You could trace the bidders back then and it was clear that it was a shill bid.

I contacted the seller saying that if the deal fell through I'd be happy to do a second chance offer.

Two week later the bike was back on eBay for the original $300 starting bid. I contacted the buyer about the second chance offer with no response. I was the only bidder so I won the auction for $300 - $375 less money than the original auction. Karma!

It took a month for the seller to ship the bike. The seller ignored my messages until I threatened to go to eBay. A month later with all kinds of lame excuses he finally shipped the bike. It was wrapped in single layer bubble wrap, the rear wheel was loose and scratched the rear stays plus he threw a bucket full of Styrofoam peanuts into the box that did nothing.



verktyg

CV-6 

How bad do you want it? My own feeling is walk away. I would not trust this guy to ship even when he is paid.

thinktubes 

Leave negative feedback and walk away.

Basically, Ebay has no way to "enforce" the price. Seller can claim lost or damaged and weasal out of the deal.

If you escalate this to a dispute, you may lose the ability to give feedback.

Drillium Dude 

1. Contact Ebay. Find out if he's fulla **** or has a leg to stand on. I don't believe he does. "Listing error" my posterior.
2. Walk away if Ebay confirms his actions are legit. Unscrupulous sellers don't get my money!

Good luck.

DD

Cyclist753

Interesting frame of ~58cm c-c(?). I'd walk away.

Miele Man

I'd contact Ebay about this. I'd leave negative feedback with the seller. I'd walk away. I really son't think it's worth the risk of being ripped off in some manner or receiving damaged goods from an unscrupulous seller.

Cheers.

OTS 

I'd walk away but that's just me.
Lots of potential for grief and aggravation, who needs it?

xiaoman1 

I think that you should contact E-bay first "BUT" if you decide to leave negative feedback, I believe you must do it "BEFORE" you file a claim...it is my understanding that once a claim is filed no feedback can be left...could be wrong but would check first.
IMHO, I would leave the - feedback and move on, I will bet that you will still have problems with this seller after the sale.
Best, Ben

PilotFishBob 

rccardr 

I would not run away. You participated in an auction and won. Since that's the way eBay works, everything is on your side: price, shipping, protections, etc.

Suggest you firmly inform the seller that he has been paid the auction price plus shipping & that you fully expect him to ship in a timely manner, period. Too bad he didn't get as much as he expected...such is eBay.

He, of course, has the option of claiming that the item is damaged and no longer for sale, thus ending the contract and refunding your payment.

If the item shows up damaged, go back to eBay and demand satisfaction, which would likely be a full refund including return shipping once the item has arrived back at the seller.

repechage

Seller is creating quite a mess.
The "I've talked to ebay" thing... sure, of course he did, one rarely gets a live employee on ebay- I doubt there is a message string.
Interesting frame. Chances of this ending well without trauma and or drama, low.
Take the @rccardr approach if you are up to it, or unwind the deal, get your $ back if out, and get some deserved bad feedback in there somehow.
A straight factual account would be chilling enough.

the Japanese have a saying about this "bachi" what goes around, comes around, bad karma will get him in the end. Bachi ga ataru yo! is the full saying essentially karma is going to bite back.

Spaghetti Legs 

If I read correctly, you haven’t paid yet, waiting for a shipping total? Did you get a message from the seller before you paid? Usually the shipping is calculated and you can pay right away when the auction is over. If already paid, I would hold sellers feet to the fire, expecting some headaches along the way. If no money is exchanged yet I would likely walk away as that would be a day or two of headache instead of the month or so of headache if you try to press on.

Ebay really just isn’t any fun any more. True good deals are extremely rare and almost everyone’s trying to walk the ethical line on squeezing extra money out of it. You heard my story of the seller sending me the invoice with a jacked up shipping price before I had a chance to pay at the advertised shipping price in the auction.

thinktubes 

I'll stick my neck out and say the chances of the OP getting the frame for the auction price = zero.

Drillium Dude 

This - and unfortunately, I mean everything in this post

Something nobody's brought up yet: do you want to spend the holidays with friends and family with this eating at the back of your mind? Probably best to end it now and ease your mind - the holidays are hectic even in the best of times with the best of moods

DD

francophile 

Sorry everyone, I appreciate all of your advice and feel pretty bad not replying sooner, especially on a post where I'm asking prompt advice. I read all your advice last night, then approached the seller.

To be clear and answer some of the questions above, I've paid, and I'm out just under $70 so far. Of course, all that's tied to this transaction, so my money is safe.

If this person were local to me, I'd be 100% willing to cough up the extra $80ish if they would allow a local pickup. The frameset and misc parts is totally worth it. However, another $80ish + sight unseen sale and crappy pics + unknown shipping costs + holiday shipping risks?

Not so much, at least not for me. Although if the seller will do local pickup, I see value in any BF'er that's local who wanted this at $150 a shot at it, understanding the risk involved.

I told the seller last night I'm going to reach out to eBay to see what they recommend from the buyer's perspective. Will be doing that tomorrow around lunchtime, with intent to wrap up a decision on this by EOD tomorrow. To DD's point, this already left a sour taste in my mouth, and I don't want it looming overhead during the holidays.

FWIW, the seller has less than 140 feedback so not really "seasoned" in my book. They have a believable (albeit somewhat lame) excuse on how this happened: They created this using the new auction-with-best-offer format eBay started this past year or two. The seller set a rejection price on the buy-it-now portion to $150 and claims they thought this would force the auction reserve to be $150 and were "shocked/pissed when it closed below the threshold set"

I did a full search on the seller's closed sales. This one is the only one that shows up, so I guess it's been at least 6 months since they last sold anything.

jdawginsc 

They will drag it out and irritate you even more than now. Get the refund and look at the frames being sold on ebay Italy! They have some great stuff!

Hudson308 

You've already confirmed through past feedback that he's done this before. I would ask for a refund, then echo the previous negative feedback. Reference the previous event in your feedback, so he can't plead ignorance in his response. Maybe he'll stop doing this when enough people complain about it.

tricky 

Any update? I am hoping this works out well for you! I suppose an additional option would be to pay the additional via goods and services in Paypal and then you can request refund on that transaction and the original ebay transaction if it all doesn't work out.

francophile 

I probably should've updated on this thread.

Sat on the phone w/eBay support for half an hour on Monday. They basically said the same about his history, they notice "at least" one case where he did this in the past. eBay CSR couldn't confirm/deny whether the seller actually called them to get those resolution suggestions he shared with me, but "It would be highly unusual for an eBay representative would encourage a seller to ask the buyer to conduct additional transactions outside of the eBay service". Furthermore, "if you were to take up the seller's suggestion to pay outside of the service, you're nullifying eBay's ability to support you on any resolution beyond the amount I've already paid".

Then they suggested I follow a specific process: Contact the seller and remind them everyone has to accept the terms of the seller's agreement when completing a listing. If no response, leave a temporary negative feedback on the seller as added motivation for them to think about what they've done, then if nothing changes by 10th day after sale, file a 'item not received' and I'd receive a full refund while simultaneously solidifying my negative feedback. CSR mentioned "item not received" is one of the worst dings a seller can get and eBay takes measures to make it harder for sellers who receive that flag to sell in the future.

I reached out to the seller and said basically as much, but added a final though of "I don't know what you signed up for when submitting your auction item, but this is definitely not what I signed up for when I bid on your item..."

And, no response yet, as expected. I'm just chalking it up to an opportunity lost.

Hudson308 

Yeah, that's the likely outcome. "Minimum Bid Price" is not a complicated concept for a seller to comprehend.

francophile 

I spent the first 10 years of my professional life working in a technology field where I had to be customer-facing with non-technical people whose jobs relied on using technology. Then I spent the next 5 years after that managing people who worked in the same capacity, with the last 5 or so years in more of a corpsec/governance/devsecops capacity.

I would say based on the breadth of the last 20 years in technology, if you haven't been in a similar field, you'd be flabbergasted at how intimidated some people get with technology, and how easy it is for someone to make a mistake like that. For that reason, I was probably a lot more lenient and understanding with the buyer than most. But yeah, I also think they're a "fair weather" seller as indicated on their bad feedback.