topic Re: Unpaying bidders in Selling

Unpaying bidders

1artychic — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 07:42:37 GMT

can ebay stop a member from continually buying but not paying

Re: Unpaying bidders

this-way-up — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 07:48:53 GMT

Add them to your Bloked Buyer List...

You will find it in the site map at the bottom of every page 🙂

Re: Unpaying bidders

justajunk — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 08:06:55 GMT

Theoretically, yes.

The default setting, when you list an item, is to exclude all bidders who have "2 unpaid item strike(s) within 1 month(s)". This should mean that once the non-paying bidder has bought twice, and not paid, and has receiced 2 unpaid item strikes, they will be prevented from bidding on any default-setting listings until the one month period has elapsed.

Of course, that doesn't stop such a bidder from doing the same thing next month, so I personally have my setting to exclude those with "2 unpaid item strike(s) within 12 month(s)". You can adjust this when making your listings.

Re: Unpaying bidders

phorum_junkie* — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 08:29:00 GMT

You can stop them by putting in place your buyer blocks, you can also add them individually to your BBL.

Re: Unpaying bidders

1artychic — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 18:55:53 GMT

She has done this to many people but they cant leave negative feedback. They all used the positive feedback but stated that she doesnt pay.

She bought 3 items from me, didnt pay, then bought another item before I started the case.

Ive banned her from buying anything else from me. But she has 100% feedback score, no strikes and she'll keep doing it to other people.

She obviously isnt well. Needs help.

Re: Unpaying bidders

1artychic — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 18:56:48 GMT

Thankyou all for the advice.

Re: Unpaying bidders

springyzone — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 23:21:26 GMT

Just reading all the advice here is okay, but it is obvious ebay doesn't do anything and what i would like to know is-why not?

If someone cops 2 unpaid item disputes in a month, to different sellers, that should be enough to suspend their account-even for a month. If the dispute is found in the seller's favour, that is.

Ebay could easily do it, it would be a computerised program,so why doesn't it do it?

Someone who can go on, month after month, bidding and not paying, or withdrawing bids is nothing but a pain in the neck for both sellers and other buyers.

Re: Unpaying bidders

annies_fancy_dress — Sat, 05 Oct 2013 00:25:07 GMT

Problem is, it's easy to open a new hotmail account then register a new Ebay account and they keep on doing it.

Re: Unpaying bidders

extra-keen — Sat, 05 Oct 2013 03:23:24 GMT

It is a long time since sellers were allowed to leave negative feedback for buyers.

It is very important that you don't leave positive feedback with a negative comment for buyers who don't pay.

It is important to make sure you have buyer blocks in place as stated in the advice given - Also make sure you put this buyer on your blocked buyer/bidder list.

So if sellers have these blocks in place buyers like this can't pester them. When you initiate an unpaid item dispute and then close it again without receiving payment you are refunded your fees from ebay, they then get the non paying buyer strike which will block them from buying from any seller who has their blocks set up correctly.

It is against ebay policy for a buyer to use a different ID to make a purchase from a seller who has them on their blocked buyer list.

Re: Unpaying bidders

digital*ghost — Sat, 05 Oct 2013 03:36:51 GMT

@springyzone wrote:
Just reading all the advice here is okay, but it is obvious ebay doesn't do anything and what i would like to know is-why not?

My guess is that it costs eBay less to let it go, as it were, than to take an active role in buyer management, and by that I mean everything from site reputation to using resources to deal with restricted members, plus it doesn't really cost them anything if a buyer purchases something and doesn't pay - if a buyer does it frequently but still pays for a percentage of purchases, then they add value to eBay; if they pay for none, in the grand scheme of things they don't take away any value from eBay.

I think they come at it from the perspective that no matter how annoying it is, or how much it costs sellers, the sellers will generally stay on and even if they don't, there's plenty of others for a buyer to spend their money with (i.e. keep as many buyers here as possible), and to them a non-sale (and no FVF) is a non sale whether a member has clicked 'Buy' or not.

In other words, eBay doesn't really look after individual businesses, they look after theirs.

Re: Unpaying bidders

phorum_junkie* — Sat, 05 Oct 2013 08:53:23 GMT

Believe it or not there were just as many complaints on the boards about non payers back in the days when sellers could leave negs, I have not actually had any rise in the percentage of non payers over the last decade in fact percentage wise it is probably less since we had the ability to block repeat offenders.

I only have to look at my log to see how many people have been prevented from bidding on my items to see how effective the strike and block system is and it would be even more effective if all sellers used it instead of wasting time giving byers extra pos feedback that most sellers are never going to see.

Re: Unpaying bidders

*crikey*mate* — Sat, 05 Oct 2013 09:05:30 GMT

i found that the other day - I'd only had 2.

I've had a fair few really slow payers and also some who payed once I opened up a dispute, but I think I've only had 2 who never paid me.

FTR, one of those people was a seller who posts on these boards! They also had things for sale at the same time as they purchased my item from me.

Re: Unpaying bidders

donnashuggy — Sat, 05 Oct 2013 09:11:31 GMT

These are my percentages for the last 3 months, they used to be around 1-2 %

7.4 % 4.9 % 6.7%

Re: Unpaying bidders

donnashuggy — Sat, 05 Oct 2013 09:15:09 GMT

Out of 119 Unpaid item reminders sent in August 76 received strikes and never paid.

I use the unpaid item assistant so it doesn't take me any time, it all happens automatically, it is only when I look at sales reports I notice it.

Re: Unpaying bidders

1artychic — Sat, 05 Oct 2013 16:47:45 GMT

thanks everyone. at least she wont get me again

Re: Unpaying bidders

springyzone — Sat, 05 Oct 2013 22:54:16 GMT

Annie said

Problem is, it's easy to open a new hotmail account then register a new Ebay account and they keep on doing it.

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It's easy to open a webmail account for sure.

But I thought account holders also had to register for a paypal account, and to do that, you have to give over credit card details, or maybe bank account numbers?

And they can't be the same as some other user name?

I could be wrong, but I vaguely recall having trouble trying to start up a new ebay account years ago because of the credit card issue-it was already listed for another user.

Things may have changed since those days though, I have no idea what the regulations are now.

But I just thought if someone did get banned and tried to re-register under a new name, then a ban on that paypal account could make it harder for them.

I take ghost's point though-ebay is in business for themself, not anyone else.

They need to watch it though, there is a lot of competition out there these days, not all of it auctions, but a lot more buying & selling websites people can go to if they get too fed up.

Re: Unpaying bidders

tstore — Sun, 06 Oct 2013 01:14:09 GMT

eBay still makes money from non payers. As a store holder you do not get credited for insertion fees. Also many new sellers are not aware of the procedures and may never open an unpaid item dispute so they never get FVFs

Re: Unpaying bidders

digital*ghost — Sun, 06 Oct 2013 04:22:24 GMT

@springyzone wrote:
Annie said

Problem is, it's easy to open a new hotmail account then register a new Ebay account and they keep on doing it.
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It's easy to open a webmail account for sure.
But I thought account holders also had to register for a paypal account, and to do that, you have to give over credit card details, or maybe bank account numbers?
And they can't be the same as some other user name?

Each eBay account just requires a different email address, and there's no requirement to confirm or register anything else. (Linking a PayPal account or putting a credit card on file acts as a verification of identity, and will bypass the block on members who have not been phone verified).

If an eBay account is restricted, the restrictions are meant to apply across all accounts, so if a buyer has restrictions placed on them by eBay and they open a new account with the same name & address details, the same limitations will (or should) apply. If an account is deregistered, they should not be able to open a new account with the same details, or if they do, the system should soon pick up on it.

Strikes don't work the same way, unfortunately, and I think that they should. Any strikes earned with one account should automatically apply to all accounts in that name, I also think that if a seller adds an ID to a BBL, it should be a blanket block on all associated IDs. It's a breach of policy to use another ID to circumvent blocks, but not only do eBay not take any proactive steps to enforce that policy when they could, in the past members have been advised by eBay Live Help reps to actually open a new ID to purchase an item from a seller when they were blocked (manually) by that seller.

I agree that eBay should take into consideration one of the best ways to keep buyers here is to ensure the site is populated with good and happy sellers...but a lot of their changes aren't particularly conducive to that, though some of the newer policies seem to indicate it might be slowly dawning on them.