Blocked Potential Bidders

[i-love-my-sheep]

I have my settings set so that anyone with 2 or more strikes in the last 12 months can't bid. I copped an abusive email this morning from a buyer who had demanded I lift my blocks so he could bid and didn't like it when I politely said no, and gave my reasons why. Given that he's had 4 false postives from sellers saying he didn't pay in the last 6 months, plus he is currently bidding on 89 items, I felt he was a high risk. Called me every name under the sun and signed off with 'go F yourself'. I also checked my log files and it seems quite a few people have been trying to bid on items, but can't get past my blocks. What I'm wondering is, what happens when they try to bid? Do they get a message come up telling them they can't? I'd like to think they get some kind of 'you've been a bad buyer' warning appear, but really have no idea what they actually see. Does anyone know?

[clarry100]

I thought there was an option in there somewhere to also block any communication from blocked bidders/buyers.

Is this different between buyers who are on the general BBL Vs. those who are auto-blocked becasue of strikes?

[curraone]

Site Preferences > Buyer Requirements

Don't allow blocked buyers to contact me. (Buyer won't see the "Contact Seller" button on your Q&A page.) Note: Buyers can still contact you about existing transactions, unless you add them to your blocked list.

[clarry100]

Thanks Curraone...

I thought I had seen this somewhere. I just checked our settings and discovered we have the option selected. So must have found it in the past. LOL.

But...

We still sometimes get questions from buyers saying they cannot buy becasue they have too many strikes and requesting that we unblock them because they really, really want this item.

We have unblocked a couple of times but they have still not paid. So we won't do that any more.

Now what we offer them is that if you will pay by direct deposit once we see the payment we will mail out the item.

Only one time did a buyer take up that option and they paid that way and we sent out their item. So they must have wanted it badly enuff to pay.

So it seems the block communications does not work.

[chameleon54]

I just had a look at my blocked bidder list. There where several zero feedback buyers who had been registered for several years but had inactive accounts. What is that all about ?

[beautbots01]

I checked my Buyers Activity Log this morning and found one attempted purchase from a buyer with Too Many Unpaid Item Strikes. Amazingly a new id created at the same time attempted to purchase the same item four times!!!  They too were blocked as they had a low feedback and had not met  the  specified criteria (which could be phone verification).  So the new id is now on my BBL  

[bsal6160]

so chocks, why didnt you report those sellers for leaving FALSE POSITIVE feedback. So its OK for sellers to break the rules but not buyers, not that I am condoning buyers breaking the rules.

[*crikey*mate*]

---

@ilovemychooks wrote:

 It amazes me how people will bid on/buy something, then dispute postage costs. It's there in black and white what it costs, why do they then try to dispute it?

..............................................................

I did this a few weeks ago... TWICE

1) I was looking at an item. It was listed as $12 postage. Over the course of a week, I had cause to ask a few questions etc. Not once did the subject of postage come up.

I won the item

Within a few minutes, I went to pay and the seller had changed the postage to $22.50.

He didn't ask or tell me, other than change the price showing when I went to pay.

I asked him and he said - I just had a guess on postage - that's what it costs to send within this state, but interstate it costs more...

He had over 800 feedback as a seller.

..........................................

2) I wanted an item from the US - was listed under the GSP. I messaged the seller prior to bidding and asked if he would send via USPS and how much that would be. He said yep - no worries.

I bought the item, and the invoice reflected the GSP price. I asked and the seller could not work out how to opt out of the GSP...

..............................

I paid the asking price both times - but I understand why some people wouldn't.

[i-love-my-sheep]

I can understand a buyer getting upset if the invoiced postage is higher than the quoted postage and wouldn't blame them if they left a neg for the seller. When I first started selling I put a higher postage cost in that what I thought because at that stage I wasn't really sure how much it would cost. I had a message in my listings to wait for an invoice as the quoted postage cost will be too high. I'd bought from plenty of sellers who had underquoted on postage and didn't want the same to happen to me. If my potential buyer had said that what happened to you happened to him, then I probably would've considered letting him through the block, but he didn't. Plus he had other false positives from different sellers about non payment.

You can get around the GSP by requesting an invoice through the shopping cart on the US ebay. That is the only way they can send an invoice and adjust the postage. Those sellers don't have the send invoice option that we see on our sellers page. Of course the sellers aren't told that when they sign up for the GSP......why would they be told?!