Ebay harassment?

That is from a seller. Here's the story.

A friend of mine, a co-worker, bid on an item and won. Now he does not have the money to pay for it. Yes he's should, yes he is obligated to pay for it and if he cannot he should at least tell the person but he won;t. He is shy type person with not much verbal abilities. He'a afraid to tell the person he can't pay for it. He is ignoring his emails and phone calls. yes he gave him his cell number. And the guy keeps calling. This auction ended over a month ago and the seller will not stop calling. He has left 8 voice messages and my friend is so scared he will not even listen to them. He deletes them. I told him he needs to at least tell the guy, "sorry but I cannot pay for it" or whatever. I understand how he feels although he does need to stand by what he did. He bid, won, and is obligated. However here is my thinking if I were the seller. If I was in the sellers shoes and saw that after over a month the buyer was not paying for what he/she won from me I won;t just relist the item give him a bad review and be done with it. You can't get blood out of a turnip. I would figure after almost 5 weeks I would count my losses on placing the ad and just relist it because it would sell. (it's a eVGA GTX 295). Price at winning bid $414.00.
Why is this guy so persistent after 5 weeks? Whay don't he just kinda get the idea that the buyer refuses to pay for it.
Yes I fully agree my friend is wrong and I told him so. I even said I would act as him on the phone but he won't let me do it so it's his.
What do you think is the mindset of this seller to be so persistent for so long?

 

To tell you the truth Id be pretty pissed and calling as well. Plus want to know why the heck you ain't picking up the phone calls? A person gives there number for the sell to call and yet the person bids and wins and now hides like a little kid? Just just piss me off. Alteast your friend could pick up the phone.. may be a little to late to give him the"I didnt have the money to bid" because after long time of waiting to sell the item you couldnt give this weeks ago? Id even be more mad and go after someone that bids and does not pay for it..400.00 is 400.00 not a 50 dollar or less thing.. which isn't much and can be called a lost cause.. but 400.00 Id want my money. If anything Id say something about my kid bought it without persmission. But I am sure your friend told them maybe a little info about themself. I remember a case of a kid buying a antique car of a sort and it was like 14G and seller ended up not making them pay for it.. And it made the news all over USA. Also just to add about it being harassment I really don't see how it is at this time.. Its been a month, your friend bought a high priced item on ebay gave the number or whatever to the owner selling it.. so thats given them the right to call you.. plus you bought and are suppose to pay for it once bidding is over. SO the owner is only considered as tring to get of the person that bought it. Plus the owner may not know that the buyer is being "imature" and dodging calls and voice mails.. could just think it was a scam or wondering what happen. Now if after few months go buy and constant calling and constant hate voicemails then that could be harassment.. But 8 calls in 5 weeks aint to bad for seller calling anybody that is buying.

 

And your friend could also lose his account on eBay and not be shopping there anymore.
Can just picture the feedback story this seller would give.
PayPal account could also be in jeopardy.

 

I’m gonna go against the grain here and say that yes this guy IS harassing him coming from someone who’s both bought and sold on ebay many times. Yes, there is no doubt that your friend was totally in the wrong (bidding is like signing a contract in a way and he shouldn’t have bid if he couldn’t afford it) but as long as the seller didn’t ship the item to your friend (which it didn’t sound like he did) then the seller isn’t really “out” anything except a few bucks listing fee and if the seller reported your friend to ebay they would either refund the listing fee or let the seller re-list for free (I know as it happened to me).

I can’t see any reason why the seller keeps calling your friend. It would be a lot less hassling to just report your friend to ebay, and re-list the item and I can’t imagine why the seller wouldn’t want to do this. As for paypal, the seller could *try* to put in a claim but as long as the item wasn’t shipped he has no claim. If your friend continues to receive calls from this guy, what I would do is.. change my phone number :-D no, no.. I would contact ebay myself, explain the situation and tell them the seller is harassing me. Of course your friend will get in trouble with ebay (and rightfully so) but there is simply no reason for the guy to keep contacting him IMO.

 

And I have to lean with dyamond on this. Yes, your friend did wrong and probably should be banned from Ebay. But a month of phone calls? To a stranger? Me, I'd be pissed if someone stiffed me like that but I know I'd give it up as a lost cause after 2, maybe 3, phone calls. It would be obvious at that point that the sale won't go through and further persistance borders and quickly crosses into harassment, with no possible good outcome.IMHO :wave:wave

 

Well I could be wrong here but isn't he under obligation to hold it until notified of payment or otherwise?
See if he sells it to someone else and your buddy has been on vacation only to come back and see it's sold, then starts in legal proceedings against the seller.
From the sellers pov.

I think the seller may be a little over the top but thats only opinion and to be honest, 8 messages in 1 month is less than I get from my power company wanting money.

Your friend needs to sort it out, he is at fault here and while the seller may be a little more persistant than most, he is probably confused, maybe he doesn't know what to do either, like I said, he may be scared to sell it to someone else from getting wrong from your friend FOR selling it to someone else.

It's easily fixed, phone the guy, you could phone him for your friend.

 

It's easily fixed, phone the guy, you could phone him for your friend

I'll second that and that would bring this to a conclusion.:wave

 

Most sellers on eBay says that payment MUST be made within 7 days of purchase.
After that, they can go to eBays Resolution Center for disputes.

 

Well, I talked to him about it this morning and I even agreed to pay for it and he could pay me back a little at a time from his paycheck if he wanted to. I did however, help hire the guy. I was on the interview panel. He's young and still learning to take care of his responsibilities. I don;t knnow if I'm doing the right thing or not. Only that I see him everyday wondering if his cell phone is going to ring again. No, I do NOT condone what he did but he needs to get his head back into his job.

 

Definitely a good thing you did there by helping him out and just remember hes a "shy" guy and needs to bust his ballz sometimes to get him to understand that you have to call in real life.. take a job/boss the same case. But gl with everything and hope for happy days ahead.:wave

 

Or the seller can take the Second Highest Bid. The friend should sort this out.

 

Honesty is always the best policy. Some people attribute that quote to Ben Franklin, who did use it to good effect; or to Mark Twain - but it's actually one of Shakespeare's. From a practical standpoint, it is true what Will Rogers said of honesty: "If you always tell the truth, you have nothing to remember."

The person in question should have been honest up front, and the issue would have been nipped in the bud. Sure, it would have made for an unpleasant phone conversation . . . but that would have been that, and much better then all this worry and fear over call after call.

I have had occasion to give an "Honesty is the best policy" speech to both my sons, as well as many adults I have had contact with. It usually starts much like what I have written above, and is taylored to the specific situation at hand, but the message is always the same. Truth is sometimes hard, but there is no substitute for it . . . and avoiding having to tell the truth is akin to telling a lie.