Anyone sued anyone on ebay?

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weringo said:
If the seller agreed to a price that was less than the market price and then backed out, the buyer has suffered a loss equal to the difference between the market price and the agreed price. Its the same point
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You are thinking it in the wrong point in time. The court isn't putting the parties to what would have happened if the contract completed. The court puts the party back to if the contract NEVER happened.
 
but the contract did happen - auction site, private parties, not businesses, there was a contract to buy it for a price. Which is why the OP can take it to court, if he really feels necessary. Everything else everyone has said is, what I imagine, the court will take into consideration in what to decide to do. I don't think it will ultimately yield any benefit to the OP, and his losses by his own admission are peanuts. It's all therefore a pointless waste of everyone's time and effort. Why? Just to score petty points out of spite. Tragic really.
 
ik9000 said:
but the contract did happen - auction site, private parties, not businesses, there was a contract to buy it for a price. Which is why the OP can take it to court, if he really feels necessary. Everything else everyone has said is, what I imagine, the court will take into consideration in what to decide to do. I don't think it will ultimately yield any benefit to the OP, and his losses by his own admission are peanuts. It's all therefore a pointless waste of everyone's time and effort. Why? Just to score petty points out of spite. Tragic really.
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And the court, or the process, is to put the claimant back to Square 1 to a point in time when he suffered no loss, when the world was all calm and well. As he is the seller, Square 1 for him is the mere possession of the item. Which he still has (or had). Square 1 for him isn't possession of the item and then a free £100.
 
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Raymond Lin said:
You are thinking it in the wrong point in time. The court isn't putting the parties to what would have happened if the contract completed. The court puts the party back to if the contract NEVER happened.
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If the courts took that approach that would make a complete nonsense of contracts as either party could walk away after having formed a contract if an event occurred before performance of the contract which caused a change in the value of the goods/service being provided.

Thompson Reuters Law The aim of damages is to put him in the position he would have been had the contract been properly performed.

You seem to be referring to reliance loss which is used where loss of expectation is difficult to prove. That doesn't seem to be the case here as OP can point to the £100 less he made from the subsequent sale.

Reliance vs expectation loss Although Expectation loss is the normal measure for assessing damages for breach of contract a claimant may claim reliance loss where it is not possible to calculate what his profits would have been if the contract had been performed
 
weringo said:
If the courts took that approach that would make a complete nonsense of contracts as either party could walk away after having formed a contract if an event occurred before performance of the contract which caused a change in the value of the goods/service being provided.

Thompson Reuters Law The aim of damages is to put him in the position he would have been had the contract been properly performed.

You seem to be referring to reliance loss which is used where loss of expectation is difficult to prove. That doesn't seem to be the case here as OP can point to the £100 less he made from the subsequent sale.

Reliance vs expectation loss Although Expectation loss is the normal measure for assessing damages for breach of contract a claimant may claim reliance loss where it is not possible to calculate what his profits would have been if the contract had been performed
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I bow to your knowledge and let you take the case on for him :)

p.s. the subsequent sale - it's his own fault entirely on how much he sell it for. Why didn't he set a reserve? Why didn't he use another avenue of sale to minimise fees? Do you think he would have given the 1st buyer the difference had he sold it for more?!

I don't think so.

He has done nothing to mitigate his loss, something of which he agreed he should have done. Basing your loss on an event taking place that the 1st buy has no control over is absurd. I would love to hear that argument in court. What if instead he sold it for less, he just accidentally smashed it to pieces by dropping it? Do you think he could sue the buyer for the entire amount because his own fault for breaking it and it is now worthless?

It is his own fault not to sell it for the amount he wanted. No one else's.


pps

What if the buyer decides to go through with it, but the OP broke it before shipping, so he had to refund the money. The buyer then went and bought it elsewhere but cost him £100 more....he now sues OP for the £100 because OP didn't fulfill the original contract.

Is THAT right?

How could the OP be responsible to another person's action after the fact in a separate transaction? What has one got to do with the other?
 
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I'm just glad I've given up buying and selling on Ebay (been on there since 2001)

Far too much hassle if you wanna remain sane in these crazy times we're living in.
 
Way back earlier you said he made a derisory offer? Did he make the offer on the original listing or the relisted item?

So he either made an offer, you rejected, he won the auction then refused to pay
or
He won the original auction, didn't pay, you relisted the item then he tried to buy it again?
 
To be honest i feel the OP hasn't given enough detail here.

Was the item listed as an auction ? buy it now ? or Offers ?

Was the original buyer paying the market rate for said item ? or was £100 more ?
I can't remember but did he give a reason why he didn't wanna pay ?

Then 2nd buyer, did they pay less than the market rate for the item ?

If you really feel hard done by, don't send the item top the 2nd buyer. Tell em you broke it, relist it for the higher price you want, you might get a mark on your account but you'll have your £100 and the mark won't make any difference in the future cos your an amazing ebayer
 
If I received a LBA from you I would **** myself laughing and bin it.

To even think about court action over someone cancelling an eBay sale is quite pathetic. Everything which needs saying re your choice to choose to sell again etc has already been said.

Have a word with ones self.
 
Energize said:
Please. This is a contemptible individual who decided ex post facto to change their mind. This is not some poor person who has fallen on hardship who I would be fully sympathetic with, they decided on a whim to change their mind in their own words. They are basically everything wrong with he eBay platform distilled.
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Considering that eBay seems to force most auctions to accept returns thesedays would you rather he'd have just paid and then returned it ?
 
Does it not concern you that by ruining his credit rating that it could have a knock on effect for anyone that might rely on him such as his partner,kids or family members?
 
If the guy had put in £1,000,000 would you be claiming for that loss OP? All that was lost were the ebay fees and time relisting it. Though with being messed about and the technical hick up ebay should have waved the fees. You still had the item, and could leave the buyer negative feedback.
 
What I hate about eBay are the sellers who say if you have less than XX feedback do not bid or you will have your bid removed. Yet when you look through the bid history it is full of bids from people with less than XX feedback but they haven't been removed. The seller is happy for the bids to stay and bump up the price as long as they are not currently winning, which is wrong and goes against what they have stated in the auction. When I see this I will avoid the auction out of principle.
 
Energize said:
Tried to do that and would have accepted the hit, however there was a technical issue preventing that on ebay's side unfortunately.
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Hmm. That answer doesn't sit with me. Why not contact eBay, or make some effort to get that to work. Was it actually because you artificially pumped up the bids with a second account?
 
Raymond Lin said:
I bow to your knowledge and let you take the case on for him :)

p.s. the subsequent sale - it's his own fault entirely on how much he sell it for. Why didn't he set a reserve? Why didn't he use another avenue of sale to minimise fees? Do you think he would have given the 1st buyer the difference had he sold it for more?!

I don't think so.

He has done nothing to mitigate his loss, something of which he agreed he should have done. Basing your loss on an event taking place that the 1st buy has no control over is absurd. I would love to hear that argument in court. What if instead he sold it for less, he just accidentally smashed it to pieces by dropping it? Do you think he could sue the buyer for the entire amount because his own fault for breaking it and it is now worthless?

It is his own fault not to sell it for the amount he wanted. No one else's.


pps

What if the buyer decides to go through with it, but the OP broke it before shipping, so he had to refund the money. The buyer then went and bought it elsewhere but cost him £100 more....he now sues OP for the £100 because OP didn't fulfill the original contract.

Is THAT right?

How could the OP be responsible to another person's action after the fact in a separate transaction? What has one got to do with the other?
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Answering a few of these, but this is in NO way meant to be advice for the OP. Just general points on the law.

Technically, he did mitigate his loss by selling it on and getting as much as he could for it. Whether or not he mitigated it as much as he could have (by setting a reserve for instance) is more of a grey area and where some of the arguments would come into. What if it was an item that lost value as time went on, so the earlier you sell it, the more you'd get for it, so even without a reserve, selling it asap would get more than waiting with a reserve and potentially not selling it? Of course the opposite could be the case if the value would increase and so selling it asap is not mitigating loss properly.

To your PPS - yes, theoretically the buyer could, as he has suffered loss due to the seller's breach of the contract. This is the reason why almost all business contracts specifically exclude liability for indirect loss, to avoid being liable for secondary issues like this. To weringo's point, the aim of the law is to put the parties in the position if the contract had been properly performed (the point you stated regarding it never have happened is the case for Tort), so if a party has suffered loss due to the other party's failure to perform the contract, then they should be made whole. However, sometimes the loss suffered is pretty remote (hence when evaluating damages, rules of remoteness are taken into account too) so wouldn't be recoverable necessarily, and the contracts then specifically exclude liability to be on the safe side.

I can go into more detail, but enough of a primer on contract law as it is :) Suffice to say, it isn't as straightforward as the OP makes it out to be and there are a number of other factors to be taken into account as well. Overall, really not worth the headache given the amounts involved here.
 
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