Do site preferences ( blocking npb ) actually work?

[popculturetragic]

As i wait for yet another non paying bidder case to close *sigh*, i have looked through their feedback and noted at least 5 negs in positive feedback in the last few months saying ' never paid' or simular. I have a block in my site preferences that blocks buyers if they have had 2 NPB strikes in the last 12 months. I'd be really surprised if they didnt fall under this category, so i question how they were able to bid in the first place? Anyone else find the site prefrences dodgy?
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My karma ran over my dogma.

[digital*ghost]

I find I have around 6-10 blocked buyers due to strikes whenever I look at the buyer requirements log, so I suspect the issue is two-fold. One, that not all sellers will open / close UPI cases, and two is how easily they can be appealed and overturned if they have been issued. 

Occasionally, when creating new listings, I've also noticed the default buyer requirements I set up have inexplicably been removed and I have to manually re-set them. 

[bigbrickshop]

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@digital*ghost wrote:

I find I have around 6-10 blocked buyers due to strikes whenever I look at the buyer requirements log, so I suspect the issue is two-fold. One, that not all sellers will open / close UPI cases, and two is how easily they can be appealed and overturned if they have been issued.

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And three, habitual non-payers open new accounts to get around seller blocks.

[popculturetragic]

Thanks digital ghost...there isnt really a great solution to NPB for sellers.6 years ago i was lucky to get one or two a year. Now its one or two a month. Still plug a long with cases and the blocked bidder list and yes, site preferences sometimes do 'reset' . * double sigh *
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My karma ran over my dogma.

[popculturetragic]

I did not know that NPB strikes can be overturned. Now that IS dodgy.

[digital*ghost]

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@popculturetragic wrote:
I did not know that NPB strikes can be overturned. Now that IS dodgy.

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In my opinion, it's one of the biggest failings of the system - and one that is entirely in eBay's hands. >_< 

As sportandplay pointed out, members also create new accounts to circumvent blocks (on more than one occasion, I have had newly registered buyers purchase an item, and sure enough half an hour earlier someone had attempted to purchase the same item but was blocked due to strikes).

eBay could help fix this particular problem themselves - I don't think it would be that hard to make it so that if a member registers a new ID with the same details (name, address etc), the same blocks are automatically applied to that account, including a member-ID specific block, not just strikes. This clean slate thing just because you've got more than one email address, or simply decide you'd rather not have a strike after all, is not good enough. 

[amber-eyed-girl]

That's interesting, as when I enquired about secondary IDs, eBay customer support told me that all one needed was a different email address, but all IDs one person had needed to be "in good standing" for buying and selling, just a couple of weeks ago.

Because extra email addresses are just a couple of clicks away, this made sense to me. Now I see that's not strictly true it's disappointing, as a buyer I want good sellers not to be p**s*d and leave eBay, and as a potential seller, I don't want to deal with nightmare buyers myself.

[*crikey*mate*]

just a thought, no idea how it will flesh out, but....

do you think that the NPB's we experience on eBay could be compared to those who put lay buys on items in B&M stores and never collect them? A lot of the big chain stores have no deposit or low deposit lay buys, especially in their Christmas sales etc. I know that they have an entire department that deals with uncollected lay buys, so there must be quite a few.

Now I'm thinking, could a fee be added to a buyers eBay account for unpaid items (just as there is often a lay buy fee) make it an automatic deduction.

Make it so that every member has to link up a credit/debit card for automatic payments (like the seller's fees) and if the details aren't up to date etc, restrictions apply.

I can see loopholes and areas for abuse in forwarding that fee onto the seller, (shill bidding cases) but if eBay kept the money, say a $5 fee for each UID, might it make more sellers open to initiating a case knowing that their antagonist is going to get "punished" and it might make a few NPB's think twice before going on a spree.

Wouldn't that kind of system make the buyer accountable for their actions?

Maybe even have it set so that if there is an unpaid fee (the monthly automatic payment hasn't happened yet) the buyer can't bid on anything else, forcing them to make a manual payment.

Make it so that the automatic UID process is an opt out function for all sellers (or maybe even make it compulsory as part of site rules and T&C) thus limiting the window for unpaid buying sprees to 8 days. (remember a seller can manually close the case at any time they like (up to about 30? days) so those who are happy to wait for longer than the 8 days (say other auctions finishing etc, or just not in a hurry for payment) can if they want to.

Perhaps even allow for the cases to be opened in 1 day (why are buyers given 4 days to pay anyway?)

or even block an account at all from purchasing when there is a case opened but unresolved.

[bigbrickshop]

Once the shopping cart is fully functional on AU it will remove the NPB problem for BIN items as items are not 'sold' until paid for. And for auction items I imagine it won't be too long before they change the number of days to open an Unpaid Dispute to 2 like on the US site.

[ydgonline06]

I was sent a message to say I had had a `soft block` on my account because I had accessed my ebay store from numerous computers.This was apparently for my protection! I had a nightmare weekend trying to relist, eventually paying a computer person $495.00 to fix the problem (even though I had spoken to an ebay employee who walked me through how to get rid of cookies in Firefox, who didn`t tell me about this `soft block`). After 7 days eBay sent the notice about the block...saying that they had tried to phone me...they hadn`t!   WOW  But buyers can open second ID`s and not get blocked. Amazing.