Buyer's cancelling auctioned items - Response from BoB management required urgently please

[Serthentia Sales 32]

Good Day.

I am being told by many buyers that BoB staff are telling them that they canc cancel their purchases after winning bids on auctioned items.I inform buyers in my terms that no cancelaltions are permitted after the auction closes, and again via email if they request cancellations for auctioned items. And then Bid or Buy comes and tells buyers that I will cancel their purchase on auctioned items if they send me an email asking for cancellation, which makes me look like a liar for stating that the winning bid is binding. Why are BoB staff blatantly disregarding regulation, and making a seller seem like a liar by telling buyer's incorrect information??? I want an urgent response and explanation from BoB management in this regard.

 

Copied below is directly from BoB's terms:

 

Cancelling Orders, Purchases or Transactions Posted by , Last modified by bidorbuy Marketing on 14 December 2017 09:00 AM

By using bidorbuy you have agreed to the Terms of Use of the site, so your winning bid or Buy Now order are considered legally binding. You do, however, have the right to cancel a Buy Now sale within 5 days of placing the order as per the Consumer Protection Act (CPA) or in accordance with the ECT Act. This does not apply to auctions.  You may request for your bid to be deleted by the seller (as per the CPA); you can do this by using the Q&A facility on the listing page on the auction you are bidding on. Be aware that there are consequences for not concluding order or purchases: the seller will file a SNC (Sale Not Complete) against you, and if you are found at fault as per our policies and Terms of Use, you may be issued with a non-fulfilment warning and further action can be taken on your account.  You may also receive a negative rating from the seller for not completing the order, in line with our rating policy. So please do exercise caution when bidding or buying and be responsible.  Sellers spend lots of time and money creating and promoting their listings and products and by not concluding the purchase not only causes an inconvenience to the seller in terms of cost and time and the loss of a sale, but also possible negative ratings against your account which may result in your ability to bid or buy on the site being removed permanently.

[admin 3]

Hi Serthentia Sales,

Are you certain, without any doubt, that the staff member did not tell the buyer to email the seller and ask for the sale to be cancelled and not that the seller will cancel the sale if emailed. Buyers are usually told to ask the seller to cancel sales as it is to be done by the seller and not bidorbuy.

Kind regards

Andries

[Serthentia Sales 32]

The below is what the buyer got in response from BoB:

 

Good day Janine 

Thank you for your email.

As per the system, it shows that you bidded on the auction the 5 January 2018 and won the auction. If you want to cancel the order you need to inform the seller, the seller contact details and email address is on the order on your bidorbuy account under your purchases. The seller will file an SNC (Sale Not Complete)  to cancel the order and to get back their success fees.

 

 

That is clearly telling the buyer that if she informs me, I WILL file an SNC and cancel the order.

Further, after receiving that from thye buyer, I went to the live chat help and the bob staff member (I cannot recall the name, as I selected to email the transcript to myself but did not receive it to my email) and was told by your staff member that they will continue to tell buyer's that they have the right to cancel purchases from auctions and that I have no right to tell buyers that they cannot cancel orders. I informed the staff member that only BUY NOW purchases have the right to cancellation within 5 days according to the CPA, and auctioned items are not covered by this right. The staff member told me that all purchases, whether auction or buy now, the buyer can cancel within 5 days and, in his/her words " I have no right to force a buyer to purchase something which they no longer want". The fact that they BID ON the item seems to be immaterial to the bob staff, and that basically means buyers can bid as much as they want and have no obligation to complete the purchase after winning.

This is not the first time buyers have informed me that BoB staff instruct them that they can cancel orders from auctioned items so long as they notify me. It happens regularly actually.

I am sure your servers store a record of all chats, so please find the chat session I had this morning and you will see the arrogance and lack of knowledge from your staff member.

Also, please contact my buyer for order 13576305 and inform her that she has been given the wrong information and cannot cancel auctioned items as she sees fit.

Also, I expect you to make sure all employees know that this is not acceptable to tell buyers that they can cancel orders from auctions. They must make it very clear that they can REQUEST cancellation from the seller, but the decision to cancel a sale lies with the seller ALONE and there is no right to cancellation and that if they bid on and win an auction, their purchase is binding.

Awaiting further response to this.

[Johan 7]

He Feni,

In my view, if any person wants to cancel any transaction on the site they need to get in touch with the person that they bought the item from as was indicated in the piece you have highlighted. The transaction is between yourself and the buyer and if you two agree to cancel then we will not override such a decision and I will not tell you or your buyer that both of you are not allowed to cancel a transaction due to mutual consent. 

If you refuse to cancel the order then it is between yourself and your customer. If the buyer does not pay for an order you have the right to file an SNC and to rate the user accordingly. Should you feel that the buyer is in breach of contract with you then you can take the matter further with the customer directly.

We will ensure that if buyers contact us and they want to cancel a transaction that we advise them to get in touch with the seller in order to do so. Once they have done that, you can engage with your customer on the subject and come to some arrangement. 

 

[Johan 7]

10 hours ago, Serthentia Sales said:

The below is what the buyer got in response from BoB:

 

Good day Janine 

Thank you for your email.

As per the system, it shows that you bidded on the auction the 5 January 2018 and won the auction. If you want to cancel the order you need to inform the seller, the seller contact details and email address is on the order on your bidorbuy account under your purchases. The seller will file an SNC (Sale Not Complete)  to cancel the order and to get back their success fees.

 

 

That is clearly telling the buyer that if she informs me, I WILL file an SNC and cancel the order.

Further, after receiving that from thye buyer, I went to the live chat help and the bob staff member (I cannot recall the name, as I selected to email the transcript to myself but did not receive it to my email) and was told by your staff member that they will continue to tell buyer's that they have the right to cancel purchases from auctions and that I have no right to tell buyers that they cannot cancel orders. I informed the staff member that only BUY NOW purchases have the right to cancellation within 5 days according to the CPA, and auctioned items are not covered by this right. The staff member told me that all purchases, whether auction or buy now, the buyer can cancel within 5 days and, in his/her words " I have no right to force a buyer to purchase something which they no longer want". The fact that they BID ON the item seems to be immaterial to the bob staff, and that basically means buyers can bid as much as they want and have no obligation to complete the purchase after winning.

This is not the first time buyers have informed me that BoB staff instruct them that they can cancel orders from auctioned items so long as they notify me. It happens regularly actually.

I am sure your servers store a record of all chats, so please find the chat session I had this morning and you will see the arrogance and lack of knowledge from your staff member.

Also, please contact my buyer for order 13576305 and inform her that she has been given the wrong information and cannot cancel auctioned items as she sees fit.

Also, I expect you to make sure all employees know that this is not acceptable to tell buyers that they can cancel orders from auctions. They must make it very clear that they can REQUEST cancellation from the seller, but the decision to cancel a sale lies with the seller ALONE and there is no right to cancellation and that if they bid on and win an auction, their purchase is binding.

Awaiting further response to this.

 

Further looking at order 13576305

I am of the view that the buyer is in the right to cancel should they wish to for the reason that you have altered the terms of sale from the description to the communication after the order was placed. 

In your description you claim that orders will be delivered in 25 to 35 business days and on the communication to the customer after the auction was won you indicated that deliver would be 35 to 60 days for delivery. This is a material difference to the original terms of sale and this is also not in line with our listing policy. 

I think it would disingenuous of you to expect bidorbuy to force users to conclude transaction and tell them that they cannot cancel when the seller changes the terms of sale and also acts outside of the bidorbuy listing policy.