Seller hiked up the postage - am I stuck?

[webwrx]

Had a snipe last night to bid on something that would be delivered electronically (i.e. no physical postage required). After setting up the snipe, and about 3 hours before end of auction, the seller edited the listing and added an exorbitant international postage charge. I think this was a very nasty trick.

Legally - I my guess is that I allowed Gixen to entered into a contract on my behalf to buy the item with the postage prices stated at the time the snipe bid was put in, right? Which therefore includes a modified postage cost.

I think Gixen needs to include an option to opt out of auctions that have been modified since the snipe was set up. Wondering if anyone else has had this issue, and what the outcome was? Do I have any recourse with the seller or eBay?

Cheers.

[mario]

I have seen a question like this posted before in the forum. My answer at the time, and I still feel that way, was that you should have a right to refuse payment and ask seller to re-list.

Even if you didn't use a sniping service, it's very possible that you would not see a change in the shipping price that late in the game.

You can contact ebay customer support and see what they say. Ultimately they should be the ones to define and enforce rules on this.

[Amazed]

This issue concerned me also, but if my memory is correct, a seller cannot change the shipping cost if there is a bid in place.
Effectively, the seller would argue that nobody was affected by his change, and since no bidders were affected, why create a new listing.

Of course that doesn't help those of us who depend on sniping.

The solution, is to place a minimum bid online to prevent changes to the listing
ie/ place a manual 99 cent bid to cement the listing, then place your normal bid on Gixen

[Gumby_kevbo]

This is a good tip. I'll be sure to use it if setting up a snipe on an item that currently has no pending bids.

[Gixen]