Cancelling a Transaction purchased by accident

[ausbargainbasement]

Hi,

wondering what other sellers do in the case where usually a first time Ebay user accidently selects BIN, my usual cource of action is to contact the buyer ask them if they actually wanted to purchase the item, wait till they say they did it by accident, (believe me get a lot of that with first time buyers) so send them a cancel transaction notice, tell them it was sent and as the buyer they need to agree to it and all is good no harm done. Now in some cases they still do not go back and agree to the notice, so after a set number of days i can do it myself no dramas, well that was before the defect carp was implemented, so my question is if i cancel the transaction myself after the elapsed period, is that now considered a defect.

Thanks in Advance

[ausbargainbasement]

OK no replies was hoping some of you Gurus would throw some light on this subject, but apperently not

[i-love-my-sheep]

I think in 99% of cases, if you select buyer changed mind you don't get a defect. There have been some reports of sellers getting defected for that. I think in that case, it would be worth the long, hard fight with eBay to get the defect removed, especially if the buyer has sent a message via eBay messaging asking for the cancellation.

[digital*ghost]

A cancel transaction request shouldn't result in a defect if you select the reason as "buyer changed mind or there is a problem with the address", but it's not 100% guaranteed as some sellers have reported still receiving a defect in those cases. (It may - or may not - sometimes have something to do with there being no communication from the buyer, I seem to remember someone mentioning that if there hasn't been any communication recorded from the buyer, eBay have a tendency to assume they didn't want the purchase cancelled, but that was a while ago).

Personally, I send one enquiry to the buyer, regardless of their feedback score, asking them how they want to proceed with the transaction. If no response, I open an unpaid item case. IMHO, while eBay can be a bit buyer-unfriendly at times, especially to newbies, most people know what the words "buy it now" mean, as well as the ones on the next screen that say "pay now...", and if they know how to set up an eBay account, which requires the input of information, including a pre-existing email account, I also presume they will be able to figure out how to find and reply to a received message. 

If they reply and ask to cancel, I'm generally happy to do so, but I won't take any chances on an unresponsive member.

[clarry100]

We do exactly the same DG. No response then it's a UID.
We had a recent one who won 2 auctions and immediately after they had both ended sent a message simply said I no longer want these and won't be paying. No further questions. Onwards to a case. Case closed never heard any more.

[peterstevensmotorcycles]

Ebay has told us that you CAN cancel a transaction with "buyer changed mind or purchased by accident" 

BUT you MUST have an ebay-message from the buyer BEFORE you do that, or you'll get a defect.

Also we've tested it and seen it.

So if a customer emails or phones you and says "can I please cancel" just say

"certainly can you please first send me a message through ebay-messages confirming that, and then I'll do it straight away, otherwise ebay will punish us for cancelling".

When you get that ebay message, you can cancel for that reason (ebay will check to see if the buyer has messaged to you and decide on defect or no-defect at that time).

After you do ask ebay to cancel, then you have to keep an eye on the resolution centre to claim back your fees within a certain (narrow) time window.

Also be careful when going through the claim-back process, as the selections default to you NOT getting your money back; you'll have to select the correct option to get your fees back.

If the customer doesn't send a message through ebay-messages, don't cancel it, because you'll get a 'defect'.

You'll have to wait until the item is unpaid long enough that you can claim back the fees through unpaid item process,

which gives the buyer an 'UnPaid Item' mark on their account.

I hope this helps.

[ausbargainbasement]

Great points here,  yes that makes sense out of a no sence system LOL, the other cases where this also happens is where a buyer purchases a item but may click it twice, in those cases i dont open a unpaid item dispute against them if they forget to close the cancel transaction notice after all they are still a paying customer and possibly a returning customer, but yes have noticed in the cases where you close it with out communication from the buyer (to get your selling fees refunded) you get a defect as shows as you did not want to sell the item or had no stock, so will be a lot more careful from now on, used to treat first time buyers like Learner drivers, after all not every one is a seasoned Ebay user, and even us seasoned sellers are struggling to understand all the new policiys, and obvioisly Ebay know that the sytem sucks, otherwise they would not have implemented the Seller protection system, otherwise they would have hardly any sellers by now. Thats what i love about our website, buyer purchases we send the product, you dont here from them unless there is a problem, no fear of Negs or Abusive messages, but sadly Ebay is where the traffic is at.

Cheers