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eBay - uPay
British pensioner, 72, who cancelled sale of vintage tape recorder on eBay after noticing it was damaged is ordered to pay would-be buyer £11,600 as German court rules bid is binding under EU law.
A German court has ordered a British pensioner, who cancelled the sale of vintage tape recorder on eBay after noticing it was damaged, to pay £11,600 to the winning bidder.
Mike Godden, 72, put an advertisement up for the 1970s recorder on the auction site, allowing bids starting from 99p.
The Studer A80 tape recorder is the same make as the one used by Pink Floyd for their iconic 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon.
The device proved to be very popular among bidders and offers rose to £1,380.
But Mr Godden, a retired music studio manager, cancelled the auction after noticing the recorder was damaged - eight days before the end of the sale.
The winning bidder, a man from Germany, insisted however that the device was rightfully his and sent messages demanding to be sent the parcel.
Initially Mr Godden ignored the man, but the bidder took the case to court in Germany.
Although the seller had followed eBay's rules correctly, which states a sale can be cancelled up to 12 hours before closing, the court ruled that EU law overrode the site's procedures, and sent him a bill of £11,600.
Mr Godden joined online to be present at the hearing taking place at a regional court in Frankfurt.
The court ruled that the eBay bid was binding under the Rome I Regulation, a contract law operating in the EU and retained by the UK after Brexit, adding :'Both parties had made binding declarations of intention at the time the auction was aborted.'
He was ordered to pay £7,551 to cover the cost of an equivalent tape recorder and a further £4,049 for the buyer's legal fees and bailiff costs.
He said that bailiffs even paid him and his wife a visit at their home in Southampton, adding: 'It's just crazy. This should have never gone to court,' he said according to The Mirror.
Mr Godden, who has paid the would-be buyer, is now calling for eBay to reimburse him and said that he 'had not done anything wrong'.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11903667/Pensioner-cancelled-sale-tape-recorder-eBay-ordered-pay-buyer-11-600.html
A German court has ordered a British pensioner, who cancelled the sale of vintage tape recorder on eBay after noticing it was damaged, to pay £11,600 to the winning bidder.
Mike Godden, 72, put an advertisement up for the 1970s recorder on the auction site, allowing bids starting from 99p.
The Studer A80 tape recorder is the same make as the one used by Pink Floyd for their iconic 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon.
The device proved to be very popular among bidders and offers rose to £1,380.
But Mr Godden, a retired music studio manager, cancelled the auction after noticing the recorder was damaged - eight days before the end of the sale.
The winning bidder, a man from Germany, insisted however that the device was rightfully his and sent messages demanding to be sent the parcel.
Initially Mr Godden ignored the man, but the bidder took the case to court in Germany.
Although the seller had followed eBay's rules correctly, which states a sale can be cancelled up to 12 hours before closing, the court ruled that EU law overrode the site's procedures, and sent him a bill of £11,600.
Mr Godden joined online to be present at the hearing taking place at a regional court in Frankfurt.
The court ruled that the eBay bid was binding under the Rome I Regulation, a contract law operating in the EU and retained by the UK after Brexit, adding :'Both parties had made binding declarations of intention at the time the auction was aborted.'
He was ordered to pay £7,551 to cover the cost of an equivalent tape recorder and a further £4,049 for the buyer's legal fees and bailiff costs.
He said that bailiffs even paid him and his wife a visit at their home in Southampton, adding: 'It's just crazy. This should have never gone to court,' he said according to The Mirror.
Mr Godden, who has paid the would-be buyer, is now calling for eBay to reimburse him and said that he 'had not done anything wrong'.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11903667/Pensioner-cancelled-sale-tape-recorder-eBay-ordered-pay-buyer-11-600.html
Comments
@HAYSIE believing an anti-EU story from the Fail.
I don't know all the ins and outs of this case. Neither do the Mail. But I would make the following points:-
1. Article 1 of the Rome Convention is an important device for determining what law should apply in cross border contracts. It is actually based rather more on English contract principles than EU ones
2. The key provisions are that the parties are free to choose which law applies, and various presumptions where the contract is silent, including presumptions that the law of the country of the Seller and/or the auction house shall take precedence
3. In contract law generally, if a Seller is in breach of a contract (for example an item is not of satisfactory quality or is not as described), the person with the options of how to approach that breach is the Buyer, not the Seller
4. We only have the loser's account of all this. On his facts, he should clearly have won. Which rather suggests that the Court did not agree with his version of events
Realising he could get a lot more than the auction value at the time he stopped the auction to prevent him having to sell it at a reduced price. This is common practice on Ebay.
Naughty naughty.
Yes, that makes sense, as the Court evidently ruled it was actually worth £7,500.
1. The Court ruled in favour of the Claimant because the Defendant never bothered to enter a Defence
2. It was a really, really strange decision
3. The ebay Rules were different to the normal ones
4. The Seller/Buyer did something to cause the normal Rules not to apply. For example, a private written agreement for the sale to take place outside of ebay to save on commission etc
I'm going for number 4...
Key sentence in that article is
'Both parties had made binding declarations of intention at the time the auction was aborted.'
</b
Simply not true
Thought you had started the thread. You didn't.
In sayin that, I've never sold anythin for £7,000.
who could I have sued? I wanted that swearing Minion!!!!!!