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In Australia, An Ebay Sale is a Sale
syousef writes "An eBay sale is a sale says an Australian New South Wales State Judge in a case where a man tried to reneg on the Ebay sale of a 1946 World War II Wirraway aircraft. The seller tried to weasel out of the deal because he'd received a separate offer $100,000 greater than the Ebay sale price. The buyer who had bid the reserve price of $150,000 at the last minute took him to court. 'It follows that, in my view, a binding contract was formed between the plaintiff and the defendant and that it should be specifically enforced,' Justice Rein said in his decision." I haven't found anything like this in previous discussions; have there been similar decisions like this handed down in the US, Canada, or Europe?
I'm not sure if there really needs to be a case for it. Ebay makes no qualms about bidders and sellers entering a contract, and contract law is pretty well defined as it is.
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Since preciously few business transactions are conducted within the person of citizens of Australia, I'd say this matter is one of only fairly esoteric academic interest.
May the Maths Be with you!
.. is that it means there is no out for buyers to change their mind either :)
Good news for sellers....
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I haven't actually heard of anything like this going to court here in the U.S.A.
eBay constantly warns users that bids are legally binding contracts and so forth. But when it comes to a seller deciding not to sell an item, I think MOST shunned buyers would just be a little disappointed and get on with their lives. When you know you've bid really low for an item, and it looks like you're going to win it anyway - you KNOW the seller wasn't planning on giving it away so inexpensively. You consider it a "steal of a deal" if it really goes through, and if not - you know it seemed "too good to be true" anyway.
I have yet to bid on an eBay auction where I got a deal SO good, it was worth going to court over it to make sure the seller really sold it to me afterwards!
It has already happend a few times here in Poland that people were obligated by court to sell the auctioned stuff (cars) for the bid amount, that was usually waaay lower then market prices (2 or 3 times lower).
On the other hand - whenever there is a super low bid (lets say sum equal to a few dollars) because somebody forgets to set a minimum price, the court usually decides that the auction is a salesman's mistake and voids it.
A car dealer made a promotion with a starting price of 1. The car sold at an unreasonably low price and the dealer tried to negate the sale. The court decided that there was a binding contract and the bidder got the car for the low ebay price.
Judge rules that written agreement to sell constitutes contract, but on the internet.
News for nerds indeed.
The legal status of auctions considerably pre-dates electricity, much less the web. I have a feeling that if you tried to argue that there was some difference between a web auction and a traditional auction in a US court, you'd get pretty much the same result this guy did.
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How about that, the word for 'sale' is the same in English and Australian!
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Once the auction is complete, it's a sale. Sales are sales, and cannot be reversed after the fact without willingness of both parties, or extenuating circumstances such as a faulty product.
What you're talking about (e.g. "No, you can't have another beer") would actually be the pre-sale negotiations. After the money has been handed over in a store and accepted, the sale has been started. So the bartender had better either give you your beer, or have a good reason under contract law for not doing so. (e.g. If a contract is impossible to fulfill, it can often be reversed. For example: If I sold you a beer, but another employee just drew the last pint for another customer, I would return you your money as it's now impossible for me to give you the beer you ordered.)
The big difference between a bar and eBay is that the contract is agreed to by both parties as soon as the auction ends. Thus the money doesn't have to change hands before the contract goes into effect. This is similar to a sit-down restaurant where you order and consume your food prior to paying. As soon as you order and your order is accepted, the contract is in effect. You imply that you agree to pay for your meal when you order.
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The title says 'In Australian an eBay sale is a Sale', one of many delightful typos we can expect from our 'editors'. He is pointing out this typo in a subtle, yet humorous manner, apparently too subtle for you.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
Go bid on something at an auction house, and then say 'eh, I dont want it anymore.' See what happens.
Ah, legalese often confuses non-lawyers, and for good reason...its highly technical and specific.
An auction is a *type* of sale. The auction itself is merely a method of attaining a price. The contract of sale is created on the falling of the auctioneer's hammer, or similar event. If a reserve price is not reached, the goods may be sold to the highest bidder, or withdrawn. Whether or not an online 'auction' falls under the common law definition of an auction is highly dependent upon each country's law...and in this case, I believe the judge says that it does, which might be a departure from existing Australian Common Law.
The interesting thing about this case is that the Judge gave the winner the airplane. Usually, if you win a court case like this, you only get money damages unless the goods are unique or very rare. A World War II Wirraway plane, 1 of 5 left in the world, certainly qualifies for the legal remedy of "specific performance".
Many sellers of high-value items on eBay throw in a line like "the seller reserves the right to cancel this auction for any reason," which I imagine would leave the seller the option to go with some sort of last-minute offer like the one in this case. However, said high offer would be outside eBay, and therefore not subject to any of the protections against fraud or simply chinging one's mind in the eBay system.
I'm not much of a fan of how things are done on eBay, but I do know there are proper ways for sellers to tailor eBay's system a bit more toward to what they want to do.
But there are right ways to use the buying process as well. If Mr. $250,000 was all that into buying the plane, why didn't he simply bid on the auction? He might have even beat the high bidder with a lower price.
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I haven't read EBay's policies lately, but I think I recall that they say that auctions for cars are NOT binding contracts... I would probably expect the same to apply to airplanes, if that is still the case. Too busy to look it up now, maybe I will later or a friendly karma whore will reply :)
What I wonder about is when a bidder cancels the auction just before close. In one case, I had a really good price on an item, and just before ending the seller closed the auction with the reason "item was found to be lost/broken"
I watched the seller for awhile to see if he re-listed and tried to sell the same item, as I think he just didn't get the high bids he had hoped for, but after a while said to heck with it. What would the obligations of a seller be in this case?
A few minutes spent with Google search reveals that sale negitiations are not binding UNTIL the seller accepts an offer from a potential byer. Then it becomes a contract to sell. Makes no difference if the negotiation is face to face or over the internet.
At least, that's the opinion of US and UK law.
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As soon as you receive what you ordered in a restaurant, and consumed.. then you have accepted. This is the reason why it is perfectly legal to refuse to pay for some meals after eating them (in the UK). The nature of food dictates that you often don't realise that it is not what you expected until after the fact. You are not expected to pay for the restaurants incompetence/mistake.
"I am not bound to please thee with my answers" [William Shakespeare]
You obviously don't understand what an auction is. Once the winning bid is made it's a verbal contract for sale. The seller can't back out at the last minute in a traditional auction once the winning bid is in, so why should they be able to back out in an Internet auction?
Just kidding. Another stupid typo that a spellcheck would have fixed if the editors could be bothered.
I find this interesting. If you advertise something for sale, shouldn't you have to sell it? Not everywhere, apparently.
Nearly all the firearms-specific versions of EBay, like gunbroker.com, are filled with offerings of used guns that basically say "Subject to prior sale. I'm putting up this web page but if someone comes in my shop and gives me money, you're out of luck. If I decide I don't like you, you're out of luck." This strikes me as quite unfair and unprofessional.
Even some professional-looking web sites that sell things don't really offer them for sale. If you go to Charles Double Reed looking for a new bassoon to purchase, you can't just put it in your shopping cart and send them money. Oh, no. The disclaimer ("Clicking the add to my cart button below does not guarantee that this instrument will be available to you.") makes it clear that they get to decide if you're the kind of person they want to do business with.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've seen those "No shoes, no shirt, no service" signs. I realize sellers have a right to decide who they want to do business with. But this whole business of offering things for sale and then jerking them back at the last second, seemingly at random, just strikes me as symbolic of a "I don't have to follow any nominal rules of social interaction; I make my own" mindset that seems more and more common these days.
Are people just getting ruder, stupider, and prouder of it?
There are many clauses in both a sale and an auction which allows both parties to legally back out of an agreement. Your example doesn't really apply. If money changed hands at a bar, legally, the bar is required to return money; however, the bar always has the right to refuse service.
In this case, the seller changed his mind because he got a better offer. There may not be a clause in eBay's agreements with the seller that allows him to do so without the buyer's consent. In many sales, usually the buyer agrees a refund of his money to cancel the sale. However, since this was a rare item, the buyer wanted the item.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I had a similar situation occur (on a much smaller scale) while in high school. Isn't this pretty well established law? Once you agree sell something you can't back out because you get a higher offer.
Always be polite.
No, the contract is formed prior to the consumption. The terms of the contract, however, are not completed until the food have been received. (From what I understand, consumption is more or less irrelevant from a legal standpoint. What if you took your food to go?)
Correct. This is a failure by the restaurant to carry through on its responsibilities under the contract. If the restaurant either states or implies a certain level of quality or service, you have every right to expect that level of quality or service. Of course, a restaurant may disagree with you, in which case it would take a judge to decide if the restaurant really did carry out it responsibilities under the contract, or if you were making unreasonable demands upon the restaurant that are not part of the implied contract.
Disclaimer: IANAL, but who the hell really is around here? We have so few lawyers, it's shocking.
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There's five things that make a contract:
Whether this occurs at an online auction, a B&M auction, or at a department store doesn't really matter. What matters is those five points.
At a B&M sales, judges have decided that the offer is when the consumer takes the merchandise to the counter, and the acceptance is when the cashier rings it in. The consideration is the goods that you brought, and your intention to contract is clear when you bring that merchandise. As long as your not an invalid capacity is there.
In an auction is clearly obvious. You offer $100,000 for a plane. The auctioneer stated that the highest winning bid will be accepted. They do this at the time they set up the auction (they COULD have set a reserve - a reserve would state that they will consider lower prices but are not bound contractually). I agree with the judge in this case - tough shit for the guy trying to weasel out of his contract - he should have looked into the value of his plane more before auctioning it on ebay.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
"Thus the money doesn't have to change hands before the contract goes into effect."
This is probably a mistake in the long run, because now we'll start fiddling around with when a contract is in effect. For example, if an auction can only be paid for via PayPal, and the person bids, wins, and then doesn't pay for a few days, is there a sale or not?
If you leave it at "once money changes hands, it's a contract", then it's simple to remember and enforce. It's better for everyone, because it encourages the buyer to get the money to the seller as quickly as possible. And the buyer knows as soon as he pays for it, it's his, even if not in his possession.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
The "deal is a deal" approach seems only fair to me. But apparently reneging is fair practice. It was quite common in the UK, maybe 25 years ago when there was a seller's market, for people buying houses to find their agreed upon price suddenly outbid. There was even a special word invented for the phenomenon: gazumping.
Personally I don't see why anyone should get away with reneging on an auction sale. If you put an item up for auction "just to test the water" you should get what's coming to you. If you weren't prepared to sell at the reserve price then you shouldn't have put it up for auction in the first place.
No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
Well, I know that Australia are ahead of us because of the time difference, but this is ridiculous!
Jolyon
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The perhaps most famous case was in Gemany, were some car dealer aucioned off a new a car, but it got a pretty low price, about 25% of its worth. The seller tried to renege on the contract, but a court decided that a binding offer had been made and the car had to be sold to the highest bidder at the auction end-price. As far as I remeber no appeal was allowed because the case was obvious. So in Germany an eBay auction offer is a legally binding offer and if the highest bid is low, you have to sell for that price nonetheless.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Specifically do this at a farm auction. They are less forgiving than southbees (sp?).
-nB
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Here let me fix that for you...
The big difference between a bar and eBay is that the contract is agreed to by both parties as soon as the auction begins.
Your post is a bit confusing so you may already agree with me. But, at stake is whether or not an auction is binding even though money has not changed hands. If I bid on an item at eBay, am I entitled to the item even though the potential seller no longer wants to sell it?
It would take a moron to read eBay's seller agreement as otherwise. If you list an item on eBay, you'd better be ready to sell it under the terms of the agreement.
Hooray for Australia to uphold centuries-old contract law!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Models of vehicles that were build during the war years (because they were for the war) are still referred to as being a war model even if they were still in production a year later just due to association. The planes in question were apparently made from 1939 - 1946, which is definitely a war model: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAC_Wirraway
Wait a minute...Wasn't the war over in 1945? Why is there a 1946 WWII airplane, or am I missing something?
What the seller could have done is offered the original buyer a portion of the difference between the original price and the higher price. That is, the original price was 150K and the new price was 250K, so offer the original buyer 10K. The seller makes $90K more than he had before, and the seller is compensated for the loss of the purchase. Heck, even if the buyer got $50K, the the seller would still have netted $50K more than with the original sale.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
In case that was actually a question: it's spelled Sotheby's.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
It would take a moron to read eBay's seller agreement as otherwise. If you list an item on eBay, you'd better be ready to sell it under the terms of the agreement.
True. But the question is, what is the remedy? That's an agreement between you and eBay, presubambly, not you and the bidders. I'm not a lawyer, but this decision seems a bit muddled.
Nobody thought the offer was too good to be true? I think the court may have saved this guy from a fraudulent buyer. Who offers 100,000 over the sales price without being in the bidding? That alone is a red flag. How many times are sellers items up for bid send offers outside the auction channel offering more money but avoiding pay-pal and etc. Here is an extra $5,000 for the item. Please forward 2,000 to my shipping agent by Western Union and keep the extra 3,000 for yourself.
Just what were the terms of the offer outside the auction channel?
The court decision may have saved the seller a bundle of money.
The truth shall set you free!
Why didn't the person who wanted to pay so much more money for the plane enter the eBay auction with his high bid? Then he'd have won, and there wouldn't have been a problem!
So why try to sell it outside of eBay, when you have the eBay auction running? That's just asking for trouble...
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
Have you read the agreement yourself? Sounds like either you have not read the agreement, or.... (moron?) I'm hoping and praying, in the name of intellectual discussion, that it's the first. It's probably clear by the end of very first sentence, which reads: When a seller lists an item on eBay, and a buyer bids for and wins that item, the seller and buyer have entered into a contract.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Read the eBay TOS - a bid is considering a binding contract between you and the seller that you agree to pay that price for an item if your bid is the highest.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Unlike Ebay, where it seems most sellers sell online only, the situations you describe sound like sellers that sell both online and at a retail store. As such, it's much more difficult to control two possible avenues for sale of the same product, especially if they're not monitoring all their online sales in real-time. You can imagine how difficult this would be. Say someone walks into their store and wants to buy an item 30 minutes before the auction of the same item ends online. Do they a) sell the item to the customer who is in the store with cash in hand or b) tell the person with cash in hand that they can't sell the item that is right in front of them with a for sale sign, and then have to deal with a possible dead-beat on the online auction?
Ah, legalese often confuses non-lawyers, and for good reason...its highly technical and specific.
True. Unfortunately, technical language often confuses lawyers, and for the same reason. I think it's a good part of why the legal system deals so poorly with technical issues.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
See this is why you should never respond to emails asking you what the reserve price is as they are from snipers waiting to bid that exact amount in the last 10 seconds.
Once the auction ends, a binding sales agreement has ben formed, under contract law. Once bidding starts, the auction cannot be stopped and the item must be sold to the highest bidder, unless a reserve has been specified before the auction begins. Bids may be retracted before the sale is complete, but once the auctioneer announces that the item has been sold, the highest un-retracted bid is binding.
Sounds like a perfect small claims court case for receiving punitive damages from an idiot bartender. The bartender clearly breached the contract in that case, so he is liable for damages caused by the breach. Personally, I think the judge would slap rather hefty damages on the fellow just for being such an idiot.
Generally you're correct in that most people wouldn't take it to court, but it wasn't my example in the first place. I'm continuing a comparison that the top poster brought up.
There's a huge difference between criminal and civil law. When dealing with contracts, you are usually dealing with civil law. So it's quite right that no one should think it's criminal. However, they probably think it's *wrong*, and are perfectly within their rights to have a judge decide on whether the bar tender was actually wrong or not.
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At least do it right. The obligatory doesn't start with "while in Russian". The general form is "In Soviet Russia you ". Multiple exclamation marks are not necessary. Five exclamation marks is a sure sign of insanity.
In Soviet Russia, sale sells you!
An auction is considered a formal agreement, and therefor a contractual arrangement. At least in the US, but likely this is universal to any Common Law system.
:)
It is extremely difficult to back out of a sale in a live auction, it has always required the agreement of both parties. If one side refuses to honor the agreement to sell or to pay, then it can be settled in court. (which has plenty of precedent in the US). To save money, it's best not to get the lawyers involved because it's extremely clear cut.
eBay is not going to be treated any different than any other sort of auction. We've had auctions that were held by mail, by proxy and by phone since the 1800s. What is eBay is doing is not exactly revolutionary.
You probably don't hear about these cases happening in the US because it's not news. If you won't pay up, the seller can come after you. And if you won't sell the buyer can come after you. eBay could force you to agree to third party arbitration, but they do not appear to, so all bets are off.
IANAL - but I saw a chapter on contract law on the college tv channel
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
... a similar situation. It was a Kia SUV as far as I remember. After the end of the auction the seller told the highest bidder that he must be crazy if he thinks he will really sell the car for such sum (something like 1000USD or something, 10x less than its worth). The buyer got pissed off and took him to court. He won. I don't know where the case is at the moment, whether the buyer got the car or something else. All I know, that the amount of people looking for such "bargains" (some of them are created by accident - pressed ENTER too quickly, or the seller sucks at computer skills) increased. If such a seeker finds such a bargain he threatens him to take the case to court. On the other hand, the amount of cheaters, like the seller in the story, decreased.
I think that in general, such precedence is a good thing. Just to give a lesson that you can get punished for cheating on the Internet.
Generally speaking though, you should cease consuming the meal when you become aware that it's unsuitable. If you clean your plate it's generally considered that the meal was acceptible.
I don't read AC A human right
If it is in flying shape its an excellent price on a Harvard/Texan.
I don't think I've ever heard a bar utter those words before!!
What kind of scary ass bars do you go to?????
Then again, I live in New Orleans, where you can order a drink to go...when you ask for a 'to go cup' they know you are talking about a plastic cup to take your drink with you. Aaah....civilization they way it should be.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Have you read the agreement yourself? Sounds like either you have not read the agreement, or.... (moron?) I'm hoping and praying, in the name of intellectual discussion, that it's the first. It's probably clear by the end of very first sentence, which reads:
Simply because they say it does not make it legally binding. Also, as I said, that contract is between you and Ebay, not you and the buyer.
Sounds like you've never been exposed to basic contract law or common sense, or.... (moron?)
Australians know that World War 2:
a. STARTED on 3 September 1939 with the declaration by Britain, Australia and New Zealand of war on Germany following the latter's refusal to cease hostilities on and withdraw from Poland which had been invaded on 1 September;
b. STARTED on mainland Australia on 19 February 1942 with the bombing of Darwin, the first and the largest airborne attack by Japan against the mainland Australia.
c. ENDED in Europe on 8 May 1945;
d. ENDED in the Pacific Ocean when the Japanese surrendered on 15 August 1945, or V-J day, although it was on 2 September they signed the Japanese Instrument of Surrender which was counter-signed for Australia by General Sir Thomas Blamey (later Field Marshall).
The CA16 Wirraway was manufactured in Australia by the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation following the pattern of the North American Aviation, Inc. (that was a manufacturer's name) NA-16 trainer aircraft, using locally manufactured versions of the Pratt & Whitney R-1340 engine. First flight was on 27 March 1939, and its later incarnation as the CA16 brought total production to just over 750 aircraft. While it was normally used as a trainer, various armed versions were used in air-to-air fighter combat, generally against slow and lightly defended bombers and patrol aircraft. The Wirraway became the pattern for the heavier CAC Boomerang fighter for which design was started on 21 December 1941 using the Pratt & Whitney R-1830 Twin Wasp engine; the prototype flew on 29 May 1942.
Looking at space, radio, science and computing from a 'down-under' amateur enthusiast perspective.
I don't really understand how eBay can claim that auctions are legally binding before money has changed hands. Surely that's the point at which the contract becomes binding?
If I set up a website and put a button on it saying "Click here to own my TV" that wouldn't make it a contract.
This incident is interesting on many levels - could the seller refuse to sell the plane altogether? Surely since no money has (presumably) yet changed hands then the title of the plane is still with the seller, and the judge cannot surely force it to be sold to another party? Could the seller just do what a lot of people tend to do on eBay when they don't want to set a reserve price (as it increases the listing fee) but are unhappy with the winning bid: cancel the auction at the last minute with "item no longer available for sale" and relist it again a few days later ("had a change of plans", etc)..?
I had no idea how to spell it. I will forget again shortly :-)
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Obviously, I'll start with two caveats: 1. contract law is pretty much dependent on the jurisdiction (state) in which residing. 2. eBay is a not a party to the auction or sale. As such, the terms of the contract/auction are dependent upon those contained in listing, seller's SOP, and generally recognized industry customs among others. Therefore, if the listing states very conspicuously that the listing is subject to anything (e.g. availability, reasonable shipping costs, etc), then most courts would honor that restriction. Obviously, the danger occurs when the listing is silent, hence the copious amounts of fine print.
Yes
He who said 1,000,000 monkeys on 1,000,000 typewriters would eventually type the great novel, never saw an AOL chat room
The same is true for most employment contracts (and here I'm speaking of US law), they can't force you to remain an employee, just as you can't force them to pay your salary after you've been terminated. Is the difference here due to my misunderstanding of the law, a difference in Australia, or, as someone else posted, due to the good being a rare object?
I'm not so sure about that. I thought the sales contract was in effect when the item shipped or when money was recieved. To use your example, you could walk out before the meal arrived and you aren't oblgated to pay- however once the meal arrives, you're on the hook for it. Likewise if you paid in advance- they owe you a meal.
From an American legal perspective, the the person presenting money to the seller is making an offer, subject to acceptance by the seller. Any advertisement would constitute an invitation to make an offer. Relating this to the case of an ebay auction, a bid might constitute an offer, subject to the seller's acceptance. It gets muddied when the auction ended and the bidder gets a "congratulations" from ebay stating he's the winner. That, in and of itself, might constitute an acceptance by the seller (via proxy).
_ Blanton_Fall2000.pdf is the case all the 1st year law students get to read here in the states.
I have not read any caselaw regarding auctions, online or otherwise. I expect the caselaw surrounding live auctions to be controlling though.
This rationale, while the norm in the United States, does not necessarily follow in other nations - there are clearly two perspective that have a certain amount of validity to them.
http://law.gmu.edu/academics/syllabus/Fall00/LRWA
I agree reserve sucks, but I do think their are plenty of other reasons for a reserve.
1) judge demand for a custom product, I may need $500 to build one, but I could mass produce at $200 each, if I get interest lower...
2) local sell, friend is willing to buy my car, set a reserve of $5000 sell it to him for the highest bid if the gain isn't enough to risk ebay fraud.
3) re-listing costs money, if I later decide I would part with it for $4500, but my highest bid was $2000, don't bother.
It does piss me off when they have a reserve set at a value over 95% of a "buy it now" price. That is clearly to judge demand at a lower price, but what a waste for the buyer.
Sellers: Set a public minimum price and make sure it is high enough that you will be ok selling for that price.
Buyers: Bid the maximum you would pay for an item.
Provided the site is one of the sane ones. i.e the winning bidder pays either the minimum price or the 2nd highest bid ( whichever is higher ) that should be all there is to it. No need to bid in the last minute ( because you DID put your maximum bid, right ? ) and no need to cancel the auction ( because you DID ask for enough money in your minimum price, right? ). If you think you are better of doing it some other way you're fooling yourself.
But then, but my understanding of this, any breach of the contract would be an issue between ebay and the buyer/sell, but not between the buyer/seller themselves until the point where the bid becomes a cash transaction?
That being said, ebay could sue or punish a non-paying buyer for breach of contract, or due the same to a sell that doesn't provide the actual item, but I'm not sure the seller could do so to the buyer or vise-versa until the cash transaction is finalized and/or the goods shipped. At any rate, you'd probably need more info from ebay or paypal to go after the seller/buyer regardless.
However, it appears that at least in Australia they've defined that the closing bid seems to mark the "ink on paper" of the contract implied by the ebay system.
I have read your post three times and I still don't quite understand what you're saying here.
You offer a 30-day try-before-you-buy, the customer can't get it running to his satisfaction in the first 30 days, and you don't allow him to return in under your 30-day policy?
I must be missing something here. What have I not understood?
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
In Australia, an eBay ____ is a ____!
Move Sig, for great justice.
It's a binding contract. Every time you bid you are told you are entering into a contract with the seller to purchase the item. This means that the seller is bound by contract to sell it to you.
This guy should have set his reserve higher; by not setting his reserve high enough he lost potential profits. I've done the same thing myself before, and knew that it would be unfair to not go through with the sale.
My sole black mark on my feedback record is from a woman who thought I was being rude when she wanted to get out of having to buy my item because she had bought it for less somewhere else. So she gave me negative feedback for not letting her back out of an "all sales final" (which was disclosed in the description) purchase.
Just buying something on teh intarweb doesn't make you automatically able to weasel out of a deal you don't like. People need to learn that the facelessness of the Net doesn't mean you can abuse whoever is on the other end.
i am a soviet space shuttle
If I were the seller I would've offered the (lower $ but winning buyer) a check for $10K and pocket the extra $90K after completion of higher 'transaction'. When I ordered some crap from china ($5) I noticed the shipping was $70! (and this was for item size of deck of cards and same weight!). What I did was send check to seller for amount of item and told them to "keep it and resell" a win-win on both sides...but boy were they PISSED!
It most certainly is not. You're saying that the contract is complete when the order is placed. Bullshit. I'm not paying for any fuck-ups the restaurant makes, and I defy them (and you) to try to force the issue. What are they going to do? Hold me captive? Pull my wallet out of my pants? Good luck with that, and good luck finding a judge that would side with it.
This reminds me of a time I went to IHOP. I ordered a T-bone steak (medium rare) and eggs over-easy with hash browns. The steak was charred on the edges and raw (I don't mean a little under-cooked, I mean raw, not cooked at all) in the middle. The eggs weren't cooked. The hash browns were frozen in the middle. The waitress actually claimed that there was nothing wrong with my order and that this was the way it should be.
Do you think I paid for that swill? Do you think I was under any obligation to what-so-ever?
Regarding Ebay and this particular instance, screw the final bidder. How many times has the high-bidder reneged on the terms? I've never done that shill-bidding crap myself, but I've repeatedly had fuck-tards use a Buy It Now option, ending my entry early and then have them not follow through (many times when there are similar high-priced items on the market at the same time). And you know what? Ebay doesn't re-list the item and still bills you for the "sale."
So fuck'em.
If no money changes hands, it's not a deal. And even if it is, the seller, especially of a very expensive item like this, ALWAYS has the option of changing their mind. It's that simple.
I'm wondering if there's a corollary in real estate law. Even when the offers are made and accepted, what actually happens at the signing doesn't always follow. The buyer can walk away (and usually forfeits the earnest money). I assume the seller can do the same, but don't know.
Anyway, Ebay sucks.
Did you read a single thing I wrote?
:-/
The contract is entered into when you place the order. The contract is technically completed when payment is made and the food is delivered. However, if the restaurant failed to live up to their responsibilities under the contract (e.g. delivered food that was not up to the implicit or implied standards), then they are in breach. It is then required that the restaurant make restitution.
But hey, don't let the fact that you ignored the post you're responding to get in the way of a perfectly good rant.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Oh come on, its the law of the land: Bust a deal, Face the wheel!
"Going..."
...
"Going..."
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"kthxbye!"
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
"Simply because they say it does not make it legally binding"
Sure it does. If both parties freely understand and represent that they are entering into a contract, that contract is legally binding. By the time you make a bid on Ebay, they've told you several times that you should consider that bid to be making a contract with the seller. Thus a reasonable person could be expected to understand they are entering into such a contract. Just because there is a third party broker involved as well doesn't mean you and the seller aren't making contract or that you can't sue one another for non-performance.
I'm not sure what you see as the difficulty here; it's, well, basic contract law and common sense.
You will be prosecuted (a fine and or jail) if this occurs and you are found out (yes, even at a private party), as you have a duty of care to the customer or friend.
Yeah, yeah, nanny state, get over it. Working as I do in a large inner Sydney teaching hospital right next door to a popular entertainment precinct, I am heartily sick of stitching up nutters who just can't control their drinking (or drug taking).
Ice, a whole 'nother story, although letting them bounce around our "safe" room for a while often helps if they have only had a little. Occasionally, we have been known to chase them around the park across the road from A&E. Often, as was the case yesterday, they are too wrapped up in getting their gear off to wave their genitalia or other bits at passers-by to notice that the police, security guards and A&E staff are sneaking up on them (yes, I know, they often freak even further when cornered).
"You've got a chart filling a whole wall with interlocking pathways
and reactions to shock and the researcher says "If I can just control
this one molecule/enzyme/compound I'll stop the whole negative
physiologic cascade of post haemorrhagic shock." Yeah, right."
I was trying to buy an out-of-print board game, and prices for the whole game were unreasonable. So I tried to buy two incomplete sets (one missing a few pieces, and one missing half), which should have been cheaper. I won the very incomplete one for almost nothing. The seller didn't ship it for a few weeks, and when I asked what was going on, she gave no reason and refunded my money. I complained to eBay, which did nothing, so I'm now stuck with an incomplete copy.
I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
How does any of those call for a reserve as versus a minimum starting bid?
Unless you're using the auction to perform a market study in disguise, I don't see how just making the minimum bid at your selling point is much different from having a hidden reserve. For example, the friend case would effectively be the starting bid.
I don't read AC A human right
I didn't realise that this was a new thing for Australia. The same rules apply here in New Zealand. This has to do with contract law (I studied this for a while).
Technically, this also means (in NZ at least) that a seller must sell you an item if you won the auction, and cannot pull out of the sale. This is hard to follow up however. One time I won a laptop for a rediculously cheap price, but the seller refused to complete the sale. One can complain to the trading site, but because they cannot give personal details out without a court order (and I didn't want to go through the hassle), there is not a whole lot that can be done.
A group of us were starving and ordered pizza. It was supposed to have cheese filled crust. When the pizza arrived, we dug in right after he left of course. The crust was quite large in diameter (1.25" or so?) and was totally hollow, with a very thin layer of cheese along the inside walls. We cried fraud and called them back, said we didn't get what we ordered. (in the commercials they show the crust being broken open and there's like a 1" bead of cheese inside the crust, and that's what we were expecting)
They said they'd redeliver, but they didn't say anything about the pizza they'd already delivered. So we waited. And waited. An hour later we said screw it, and ate the pizza.
Over an hour later (2.25 hrs total since first delivery) he arrived with the replacement pizza. (guessing redeliveries are bottom of their list to deliver?) He asked us where the old one was.
"duh? we ate it. we were starving over two hours ago."
He wasn't happy about it but I think it was "justifiable consumption".
OT, but the replacement pizza was identical to the first, with next to no cheese in the crust, but we were not in the mood to dispute it again and I doubt they would have made a third attempt to satisfy us. They have not received our business since then.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
An auction is like a sale in that the contract is completed when the bid is accepted. The only difference with an eBay auction is that there is a time limit for bids, instead of stopping when there are no bids left.
At an auction, there may be a provision in the rules for the auction that no bidder may withdraw his/her bid. This is a standard condition for auctions of land in Australia. If there is no such provision, a bidder may withdraw a bid in the same way that a purchaser at a sale can.
As for authority in other countries, I am not aware how many eBay sales are big enough to go to Court over. This one plainly was, and monetary compensation would not satisfy the purchaser, so the Judge ordered the seller to carry out his contract. For general merchandise, the Court awards damages only, but a Whirraway aircraft is not the kind of thing that one can pick up anywhere.
Doug (Australian lawyer.)
I was under the impression that Down Under slang for vomiting is also "make a sale". As in chunderin'.
"Apparatus dignosco occultus, satis non supernus."
> OT, but the replacement pizza was identical to the first,
.. !
> with next to no cheese in the crust, but we were not in the
> mood to dispute it again and I doubt they would have made a
> third attempt to satisfy us. They have not received our
> business since then.
Correction: the replacement pizza was identical to the first,
except for all the free saliva...seriously...I wouldn't
have the guts to send a pizza back like that
Posted by yintercept - "...science...[is] the study of the 'divine creation.' "
I can understand where you're coming from - as a teenager traveling with my family I've eaten a few meals that were overall unsatisfactory because they were edible, I was hungry and tired and they took too long(to the point that my parents were considering walking out) to deliver. At that point it was just fuel.
As for your pizza deal - when you rejected the first pizza you should of told the place what the problem was. It sounds like you got bit either with false expectations from the advertising sprucing things up too much or the joint was making them wrong. The place that I ate about half the meal because I was so hungry was a spaghetti dish, and they must of spent all the extra time boiling the pasta, as it was basically mush. The sauce was no good either. I explained this in depth to the manager. I got my meal for free.
I don't read AC A human right
We stick it up lawyers, but really it's the stupid people who try to pull fast tricks, despite the contract that are the problem, really. Would you pay this guy a thousand bucks for a 60 year old warbird? Let alone 150k or 250k! I wouldn't trust him with my garbage, simply because he tried to go outside the clearly explained eBay terms.
"I hope you like Guinness, Sir. I find it a refreshing substitute for, er... food." Col. Jack O'Neil, SG-1
There are some federal warranty laws and there is the UCC (adopted by all states but warranties can be expressly rejected by seller). But no lemon law on the fed level. YMMV depending on what state you are in...
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
oh we did tell them we were unhappy about the lack of cheese in the crust. They didn't specifically say the pizza we got was "defective", and so I got the impression that what we got was "normal" for them, although definitely not equalling their advertisements. Had we asked for a replacement again and GOT it, I doubt it would have been any different.
I'm sure there's a trick to geting the cheese to stay in that crust, and I can only assume they had not quite learned the trick yet.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
In this case it was considered that the item was so unique (1 of 5 in the world) that the only true compensation was the actual item - and yes, the government can (and does) sieze property!
In this case the damage in not having the item was higher than the usual resort of a financial penalty.