do you have to have the item you are selling?I just order some light fixtures on an auction that said "3 available", but they emailed me that the manufacturer has them backordered 4 weeks.....wtf.

 

In a perfect world yes, but a lot of eBay sellers are basically drop ship resellers. They list items that they getfrom someone who dropships and when they sell the item they give your address to said drop shipper. They do not know what is in stock and not in stock and your situation unfortunately is a byproduct of these types of sellers.

 

tell them you want a refund. If they cannot deliver the item within the period stated in the auction, you can do a paypal chargeback. They might make you wait 30 days though. But at this point I would email the seller and tell him you intend to do that and see what they say. Basically, if after 30 days passes and they can't show paypal a tracking number saying the box was delivered to your address, they charge it back 100%. He's gonna be cutting it really close with the backorder and may just cut his losses now. If both you and him agree to do a mutual withdrawal, he can still get the final value fee refunded by ebay too. Gonna depend if he is smart enough to see it this way.

 

If there is nothing in the auction that states item might not be instock at time of purchase then report his ass to ebay . They will take care of you

 

The seller will not want to cancel a sale becuase he didn't have the item becuase he will still have to pay the fee.
The one negative rating I have was becuase a d1ckhead canceled a sale claiming it was at my request.
I gave him a negative and he was all pissy about it.
So I turned him in to ebay.

 

The guy offered to refund asap.....and did.

 

beans, but that does nothing for your time and aggravation I would leave a neutral feedback in this situation. Dont worry sellers can only leave a positive so you will not a get a neg out of warning other buyers that the seller sometimes does not fufill his auctions in a timely manner. As an ebay buyer I do search thru feedback histories for hints like this pertaining to sellers. Problem is most people are afraid to leave the neutral and honestly explain their experience.

 

If both the seller and buyer agree, the sale is canceled and the fee is not charged. I have done it before.

 

I've not done much ebay purchasing but I have canceled a sale, (by mutual agreement) when it turned out the item was not quite as advertised. A memory card for my older camera that was a newer style card which would not work with the camera.

I also had a sale canceled when an item was not available.

 

key point was I didn't agree, I wanted my damn part.
I suspect it didn't sell high enough to cover his cost so he canceled.
so screw him, if you don't put a reserve on it, be prepared to belly up to the bar and pay your fee.