To ask eBay buyer to cover fees?

[Butttons]

I sold an item on ebay this week, one bidder, sold at listing price. Buyer told me after the auction ended that they bid on it as a duplicate and don't need it.

Ebay are charging me sales fees for the item now. I mentioned to the buyer that if they'd told me it was a mistake before the auction ended I could have cancelled the bid and have politely asked if they'd cover the ebay fees and they are refusing. AIBU in asking this? Total sale price is less than £30 so fees are not exactly extortionate but I dont see why I should pay for their mistake.

Report as non paying bidder you will get fees back. Annoying but you won't be out of pocket.

You can mutually cancel the sale, but they have to agree. Much easier to report as non paying bidder, then if they make a habit of it, eBay throw them off.

I think some people just don't realise how an auction works...

Trouble is, if you NPB them, they may pay to avoid a strike, and then request to return, leaving you out of pocket on both sets of postage fees.

In this case, as they've at least told you, I would ask them to request to cancel the transaction via eBay, then process this - that way, you'll automatically get your fees back, have no worry about them paying and you needing to deal with it, and then you can relist safely at once. Once you've added them to your blocked bidders list, of course!

Check out the community boards on eBay too- great for advice in this kind of situation.

Thanks - it was collection only so no danger of being stung for postage charges.

Think I'm going to have to go the NPB route unfortunately which makes me feel a bit bad but they're being really shitty about me asking them to pay the fees, which makes me feel less bad. Especially if what I'm asking is not unreasonable

I would ask them first to agree to cancellation. Then if they don't NPD then block.

Not reasonable of you though to expect them to pay the fees unnecessarily when cancelling has the same effect

I think if you ask to cancel a sale that you can't follow that up with a NPB claim. Glad to be corrected.