altis2005,
The buyer's excuse does not really make sense. There are so many warnings popping up for buyers to confirm that they want to place a bid, and warning that if the buyer wins the item, it is a binding agreement...
You have a choice. If you cancel the sale, the buyer gets away without a slap on the wrist. You will need to choose the right reason such as "Buyer requested cancellation" or "Problem with buyer's address" to avoid incurring a penalty.
Alternatively, send the buyer a message along these lines:
❝Thank you for your communication concerning your purchase of [item], item number xxxx.
If you prefer not to finalise your purchase, you can simply ignore the automatically generated payment requests. The transaction does have to go through a non-payment process in order for us to recover the fees that we are automatically charged upon the time of purchase, but you don't need to do anything. The payment reminders will time out after a few days so that you won't need to proceed any further.
Yours sincerely,
[seller]❞
Make sure that you initiate the Report an Unpaid Item process. After four days from the sale (and not a second sooner), you will be able to open a case. THEN... the buyer has four days in which to pay. As your buyer has indicated that they don't intend to pay, you will want to just let that second lot of four days go by without any further action on the part of the buyer. You do not want to get into a discussion with the buyer.
Once the four days are up (and again, the next step won't be possible even one second before the four days are up), you MUST close the case in this way:
❝After opening a case, the buyer has 4 days to respond or pay for the item. On the fifth day, you can close the case by going to the Resolution Centre and selecting Receive fee credit, then Close case on the following page. Under Have you received payment from the buyer?, select No. The unpaid item is then recorded on the buyer's account, the final value fee will be credited back to you, and you can relist the item.
It's important to close out any unpaid item cases. If you don't close an unpaid item case within 36 days, we'll close it for you, but you won't be eligible for a final value fee credit. Also, if we close a case, the unpaid item won't be recorded on the buyer's account.❞
To summarise:
- 4 days from sale - buyer doesn't buy - you open up an Unpaid Item Case.
- minimum 4 days from opening Unpaid Item Case (and absolutely NO LATER than 36 days from opening the case) - buyer still hasn't paid - you must select "Receive fee credit" and then you can close the case, making sure that you also select "NO" for the question "Have you received payment from the Buyer?"
- You might have to pay the item fees, depending upon when the sale occurred in your billing cycle, but you will receive a fee credit for that amount in the invoice following.
- The buyer will receive an invisible non-payment strike. This will not affect them unless they have at least two non-payment strikes with the last 12 months. (Sellers can choose to block all buyers who have two item strikes over that period, by setting up their blocked bidders list. The strikes fall off after 12 months, so it's not as though the buyers are permanently affected.)
My reply in another thread, dealing with risk mitigation of non-paying bidders
