I just won an eBay auction! ...Now eBay won't let me finish the purchase because 'seller doesn't ship to your state.' What?!

[RH | 4,991]

Ok, has anyone seen this happen?  I In a random search I found an item that was mislabeled.  I put a minimum bid on it and, to my surprise, I won!  It's nothing special.  Last I checked, I think this item goes for around $30-50 and including estimated shipping by eBay, it costs me under $7.

So, as I said in the title, I ended up winning the auction and I had my "Pay Now" email appear in my inbox this morning.  I logged into eBay on my PC, went to pay and a red banner stops me saying "This Seller does not ship to NC" and the only button option I had was to "Request an Invoice".

I did go through that process but, seriously, how can this happen?  eBay knows where I live.  I've used them for years.  They neither filtered out the item from my view, nor did they warn me when I bid that the seller didn't ship to my region.  The reason why this agitates me the most is the seller has 0 feedback.  I'm not going to give them money outside of eBay (assuming this was the intent of the seller and it was a scam), so I'm not worrying about the deal going bad.  Ebay does a good job of protecting buyers.  But what does bother me is that I had no clue this would happen and if the seller is legit and has to cancel the auction because I can't pay, I'd hate to get negative feedback for it.

Has anyone seen or experienced this?  I went back to the original auction and there was no warning that I couldn't complete this transaction?  How can I prevent this in the future, other than messaging every auction seller and asking "Hey, do you sell to NC?"  Oh, and this seller is in the continental US.  It's not like I'm buying outside the US.  This is an internal thing.

Edited June 14, 2023 by RH

[Link | 2,755]

Nope, never seen that that I can recsll. Seems like something is wrong with the seller's settings. Newbie probably didn't do something right and requesting the invoice will let them attend to the transaction. Good luck with it and congratulations on getting a good deal, if you get it 

[Tabonga | 2,358]

I suspect the seller was not happy with the auction results and is using that as a lame excuse to get out of it.  You could call their bluff and ask them what states they do ship to since you have relatives all over the place (doesn't matter if it is true or not).

Their selling career is looking to be stellar with a negative one rating though.  

Unfortunately ebay will do absolutely nothing to make them hold up their end of the "contract" (which is how ebay has described a completed sale).

Edited June 14, 2023 by Tabonga

[RH | 4,991]

@Tabonga I actually did ask where he sells.  I didn't tell him I had family or anything, but I would consider having it shipped to someone on here and paying them to ship it to me a second time (with a small tip since it's a small item.)

I'll see what he says.  I would be surprised if he could change his shipping settings after a bid has been placed.  It's been my experience that once you create an auction and someone bids on it, all you can do is cancel the item OR add a note at the bottom.  I've never tried to update shipping, but I do feel that eBay is aware that sellers could use an old "switcheroo" at the end and charge more for shipping, padding their profits.  That'd be a big no-no, and I doubt they allow that.

[Tabonga | 2,358]

I think the sellers can make up any lame excuse to not complete a sale - ebay just passes it on.  My favorite was the woman who dropped something I won in the bathtub.  WTF!   I offered to buy it  anyway since I just wanted some parts from it that water wouldn't have hurt.  No go.

[RH | 4,991]

Well, I'm not so quick to blame the seller.  The main thing is, eBay was behaving this way.  I did not get an email from the seller saying "Oops, I'm sorry.  I don't ship to North Carolina."  Instead, eBay gave me no options and just told me I couldn't complete the sale. I  hadn't even entered my shipping address because you can drop-ship elsewhere.

If I had to venture a guess, and it might have been a seller mistake, he excluded NC (and possibly a few other states) due to sales tax laws.  Regardless, if I couldn't complete a sale because I live in a particular state, eBay, in my opinion, shouldn't have even let me bid on the item if they were just going to turn around and halt the sale.

[Tabonga | 2,358]

Ebay  automatically collects the state  and local taxes so the seller doesn't have to deal with those at all.

In the few occasions where a seller wouldn't sell they never contacted me directly (unless I questioned them) and they happily relied on ebay to pass on the info.  I have also had sellers who wouldn't ship and never offered an explanation.

[a3quit4s | 4,129]

I’ve been buying on eBay since 2003 and have never seen this before. I’ve been selling since 2009ish and I didn’t even know it was an option to exclude states besides like Hawaii and Alaska 

[DarkTone | 988]

I got outbid on an item. 12 hours later the seller contacted me asking if I wanted to flat out buy it for the price I bid. Turns out the guy who won lived in Italy, and the description said that it only shipped to the same country as his. 

[RH | 4,991]

Well, the plot thickens and I'm just going to assume this was a hiccup within eBay.  I got another canned email from eBay (not an the invoice I'd requested the day before) and it was the same type of "You've Won! Let's Pay" type of thing.  This time, I tried to go through the payment process on my phone, which directed me to the eBay app.  Yesterday, I was using my PC and the browser.  Today it was through the app and I had no problems completing the transaction.

So either their website is busted, there was just some hitch/glitch yesterday or, I guess, the seller fixed a setting with his account and didn't bother to message me.  Who knows?