BAD EBAY SELLER ALERT - "wratz"

[The Great Zo]

Here's the story on this Emmy award-winning jackhole:

Ebay user "wratz" listed a Weekes card I needed up for sale on ebay, with an opening bid of $9.99. As it was an important card, I decided to drop wratz a message and ask about ending the auction early. Wratz responded asking $25 for the card. Since I was confident the auction would slip under the radar and sell for cheaper, I kindly refused the offer and said I'd let the auction go.

Skip ahead to today, and I'm sitting here with a bid lined up, prepared to manually snipe the card and add it to my collection. The card still had no bids. With ten seconds to go, I pulled the trigger.......

..... and received a message from ebay stating that the seller had blocked me from bidding on the item.

The auction ended seconds later, with no bids and no winner. I was steaming mad.

Trying to stay calm, I sent wratz the following message:

Sir, I had attempted to bid on the [Weekes] auction, but apparently I was blocked from bidding. The auction ended with no bids. I would very much like to buy the card at the price of the auction, and tried to bid when the auction was active. Please let me know why I was blocked from bidding. Thank you for your time
Andy Hatzos

I received the following response:

I don't know why your bid wasn't taken. I haven't touched my block bidder list in months...

I fired back with this:

Ebay specifically told me when I tried to bid that I was on the blocked bidders list. Please let me know if the card is still available at the price of the auction. Thank you.
--Andy Hatzos

And wratz responded with:

Sorry someone else offered me an amount I couldn't refuse. Thanks





Sounds to me like sour grapes - upset that I didn't take his offer for the card, he/she blocked me from bidding, and when the auction ended with no other attempted bidders at all (as I had expected)... he/she makes up a lie about selling the card to someone else. Why would someone make them an offer they couldn't refuse and NOT hit the auction at $9.99? Thin, thin story. Shame on you!

Wratz is a powerseller with a fairly high feedback rating, but we all know that doesn't tell the whole story. You can draw your own conclusions from here, but thanks for reading and letting me rant a bit.

 

[hockeytown]

well if this joker was gonna pull this scam atleast he was not so stupid as to let you bid and take your money...the whole thing sounds wrong to me...he/she obv. does not want to sell that card. just wondering what is book value on the card? If it pops up on ebay again get one of your buddies to bid it this time around...send me his ebay name i will send him a email offering 20.00 for the card and see if he bites at that...jason

 

[BravesFan4Life]

yep guy sounds like a regular PITA and POS...if there was some infraction i would say report to ebay but their wasnt :/...maybe make a fake account and buy a bunch of crap and leave him negs?(ok maybe im too vindictive) but there are people willing to do that lol

 

[suitman19]

Never had problems with him in the past.
If the card goes up again Andy - email me and I will win it for you.

bruce

 

[penguinsrock93]

It sounds more of a problem that the seller had with you offering to buy the card on the side and then he got mad that you didn't want it. I guess I can see why he's mad and it's his auction and he proved his point by not selling you the card. Looks like $10 was not worth as much to him as getting you mad. I don't see anything wrong technically with what he did but be thankful he only blocked you and did not run away with your money. Another one will pop up in the future!

 

[The Great Zo]

It sounds more of a problem that the seller had with you offering to buy the card on the side and then he got mad that you didn't want it. I guess I can see why he's mad and it's his auction and he proved his point by not selling you the card. Looks like $10 was not worth as much to him as getting you mad. I don't see anything wrong technically with what he did but be thankful he only blocked you and did not run away with your money. Another one will pop up in the future!

You don't think telling me lies twice about it was doing anything wrong? He's mad because he was wrong on the card's price potential, but that doesn't make it right for him to lie about blocking me from bidding.

It's not that I didn't want the card when I offered to buy it. It's simply that I knew risking letting the auction ride out was by far the better financial option for me.

Others: Thanks for the posts. If I need a hand I'll let you know. I do have a little help lined up first off, but if that doesn't work I may turn back here for some more.

 

[penguinsrock93]

You don't think telling me lies twice about it was doing anything wrong? He's mad because he was wrong on the card's price potential, but that doesn't make it right for him to lie about blocking me from bidding.

I wasn't against you on this but your not completely innocent either. He could easily report you for trying to purchase the card on the side which is an E-bay no-no. Maybe that's why he blocked you? He has the right to do so and whether or not he did it in spite doesn't really make a difference. I don't see why he's a bad seller because of this. He blocked you, he didn't rip you off or steal your money.

 

[The Great Zo]

I wasn't against you on this but your not completely innocent either. He could easily report you for trying to purchase the card on the side which is an E-bay no-no. Maybe that's why he blocked you? He has the right to do so and whether or not he did it in spite doesn't really make a difference. I don't see why he's a bad seller because of this. He blocked you, he didn't rip you off or steal your money.

On his "about me" page, he's got a statement welcoming off-auction offers, so reporting me for that would be massively hypocritical and possibly self-defeating as I could just as easily fire back for the same.

To me, a dishonest seller is a bad seller, which is why I'm reporting about him here.

 

[penguinsrock93]

On his "about me" page, he's got a statement welcoming off-auction offers

Well here's your chance to nail him! Send the link to his About Me page to Ebay and show that he is promoting this practice. They might give him a warning, cancel his auctions, suspend him...at the very least they do nothing about it but at least you'll feel better

 

[The Great Zo]

HAHA I like that thinking, and though I'm gonna hold off on the frontier justice for at least a couple of days, that's definitely goin' in my arsenal

And I understand your opposing viewpoint on some of those items too, just wanted to explain myself where I left some plot holes too.