Lots of non paying buyers lately, cant give bad feedback

[phantomchris1984]

I came back to ebay about late august this year to start selling again to clear out my room of the piles of games, movies i never play or watch often. I have sold on ebay before and it has been fine with no troubles.

Now that im back selling again I have noticed some people bidding and winning and then simply not paying. since august i have had 6 non payments, possibly 7, waiting to see if the buyer responds yet or had possibly died of a heart attack at their computer screen, unclear yet.

What is going on. In all my many years of selling i have only had about one non payment. Now im back selling and i have seven in about four months.

These people not paying just simply dont respond, checking their feedback other sellers leave feedback saying they have no payment or response either.

What makes it difficult is that i cant give bad feedback like i could before. All these non payers have all this positive feedback with comments saying they have not payed.

I feel like this is some sort of scam.

Did ebay do this to not scare away customer by having bad feedback. whats the deal. Does ebay ever get rid of these ebayers that occasionally buy but mostly dont pay to get more positive feedback. I doubt ebay would get rid of customer even if they do not pay some times, they want the fees.

I have opened unpaid cases for all these items, wasting my time because the buyers have nothing to fear anymore because there is no bad feedback anymore.

Anyone else notice an increase of non payments recently?.

[digital*ghost]

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@thecatspjs wrote:

Its helped me. Off the top of my head...

I have a very, very, very long bbl. 

I have cancelled bids on auctions and blocked buyers.

I have blocked buyers from buying more than one item.

I have relisted items before the end of a dispute, where the buyer appears to have never ever paid for a single purchase.

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Fair enough - actions taken after due diligence and knowing that first impressions don't always tell the whole story, and that member with 2000 FB and 100% may be just that, or that record is disguising something else. A masquerade, if you will.

Out of curiosity, do you leave a comment for NPBs if they have their FB set to private?

[thecatspjs]

Never struck the type of buyer who cannot be named by me  with feedback set to private yet. 

My bet is those that have a habit on a regular basis, don't care, or don't know about private feedback?

I leave feedback for all buyers that IMO is within the policy rules, so I would do the same for someone with private feedback.

[springyzone]

You're right, the number of feedback a buyer has may not mean much to a seller because half the time, you wouldn't be there when a person is bidding anyway.

Really, all that is meaningful to a seller is if the buyer pays promptly and isn't some sort of psycho, to put it bluntly (eg the person someone here was telling us about, who bought a dress and complained they expected the coathanger it was on)

You could be right in that serial non-payers don't usually branch into buying, but for the rest of us, feedback counts because we might be sellers as well and feedback gives that first impression to a buyer of what they are dealing with. It might be a false impression, I know that. But it counts.

Why else do some sellers here seem to want to retain their status as top sellers?

They're just my own thoughts, but other buyers might be different of course.

And yes, I was talking about first impressions.

Another thing I do do, (if you're interested in buyer behaviour) is if I get to the stage of looking at feedback with a seller, I click on the negatives and neutrals, well before anything else. Just out of interest. Half the time the neutrals aren't deserved, they should be positives.

Then if they are big sellers, selling the same items over and over, I try to find feedback for the particular item I am looking at-which I must say can be hard to do.

[digital*ghost]

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@thecatspjs wrote:

Never struck the type of buyer who cannot be named by me  with feedback set to private yet. 

My bet is those that have a habit on a regular basis, don't care, or don't know about private feedback?

I leave feedback for all buyers that IMO is within the policy rules, so I would do the same for someone with private feedback.

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See, I find that quite telling - not that you leave FB for all transactions, but that the repeat offenders simply don't seem to care that they have tons of comments about non-payment, certainly not enough to hide it or explore ways to do so. Even with numerous comments, it doesn't hinder their actions enough or cause them much - if any - concern at all. And I say telling due to the lack of action taken by both the members and eBay (who, IMO, primarily make decisions that benefit them, which would suggest no negs for buyers, and / or no action against the not so great ones, benefits them more than the alternatives).

I realise you have stated on numerous occasions that you don't believe a simple return of negs for buyers to be the answer and I believe your actions to be intended to aid sellers wherever possible rather than 'punishing' (for lack of a better word) buyers, so I'm commenting in general rather than directly responding to your posts and practices.

[viewmont1071]

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@digital*ghost wrote:

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@thecatspjs wrote:

Never struck the type of buyer who cannot be named by me  with feedback set to private yet. 

My bet is those that have a habit on a regular basis, don't care, or don't know about private feedback?

I leave feedback for all buyers that IMO is within the policy rules, so I would do the same for someone with private feedback.

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See, I find that quite telling - not that you leave FB for all transactions, but that the repeat offenders simply don't seem to care that they have tons of comments about non-payment, certainly not enough to hide it or explore ways to do so.

Even with numerous comments, it doesn't hinder their actions enough or cause them much - if any - concern at all.

And I say telling due to the lack of action taken by both the members and eBay (who, IMO, primarily make decisions that benefit them, which would suggest no negs for buyers, and / or no action against the not so great ones, benefits them more than the alternatives).

I realise you have stated on numerous occasions that you don't believe a simple return of negs for buyers to be the answer and I believe your actions to be intended to aid sellers wherever possible rather than 'punishing' (for lack of a better word) buyers, so I'm commenting in general rather than directly responding to your posts and practices.

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agreed...and.. the faux supply of "free listings"  has more to do with ebay's alleged profit from  non payers and the faint possibility

of legal action for non performance/due diligence is foremost in their mind  rather than the business costs to sellers

ie previous to the  "free" 'listings and for listings that still cost  seller's a fee to list  especially in the vehicles section ebay profit

regardless whether the buyer completes the transaction or not....@ $8 minimum a pop plus $15 if you want to whack a reserve

on it.....  nearly every auction style listing in the vehicles has some type of rant re non payers or names and shames the last few

that the seller had encountered

... selling the more desirable cars,bikes and other vehicles brings the tyre kickers,loonies and dreamers out faster than a full

moon in June at Stonehenge

[viewmont1071]

Even with numerous comments, it doesn't hinder their actions enough or cause them much - if any - concern at all.

I would disagree with this bit though  if NPB comments were snactioned and left by ebay

........ but at present false positives make them stick out presale for those that look at feedback when running auctions,  manually

accepting offers..... and even those sellers who "look' after a BIN promise is made by a buyer but not fulfilled ..and if the seller see

lots of negative positives then most  open  immediately, close ASAP. Some I am sure become a little more frustrated with the

system and a little more likely to leave negative positves

$$$ and NON PAYING BIDDER added to their feedback along side a count so that sellers did not need to do some

sleuthing would make those buyers stand out like the dog's proverbials and give the small amount of sellers who do not open NPB

disputes  to reclaim the FV fees but leave negative positives a good visual prompt and therefore another reason to do so

[springyzone]

When there is a non payer dispute put in against a buyer and ebay finds in favour of the seller, then I can't see why the buyer doesn't automatically  have one point deducted from their total 'score'.

Even without written  feedback, that would mean that serial non payers would end up with very low scores, maybe even negative scores.

That would make it a lot easier for sellers to block those sorts of bidders.

[gec2002]

I think Feedback is well past its use by date.  Some time back when eBay first decided that sellers could only leave positive FB shortly after introducing it they did one of their "have you stopped beating your wife surveys"  which of coarse indicated that the change had zero impact on sellers.  Now its been long enough to see the real impact, and many buyers now regard payment as a optional extra. 

The impact of non payers is often played down by some of the regulars here as just a small problem, a slight inconvenience, relist and move on.  Ebay in the US estimated that 2.6 percent of fixed-price listings are never paid for in 2012  representing nearly US$468M worth of merchandise in the USA alone.  Just about everystore online you pay straight away for fixed price items why not eBay.  In eBay USA you can now open an unpaid item case after two days (although buyer still has 4 days to pay), that needs to be introduced ASAP into Australia.  Ebay is also looking at Best Offers remaining available until the item is actually paid for, rather than ending the listing after accepting the offer.

[bettyboopsadaisy]

Sorry if I am repeating the thoughts of any other responders to this issue but it now seems to me (since sellers can no longer leave neutral or neg feedback for buyers) that a Buyers 100% FB score is pretty meaningless  since nothing they do can affect their score.

Of course, they could be one of those 'rare birds' that always behave responsibly as a buyer and then they deserve their perfect score.

If that is the case then it is pretty unfair to them that other less responsible buyers are getting the same FB score as them !!

As a seller almost exclusively, I, like others, take a great interest in false positives received by bidders on and buyers of my items.

Ebay needs to be much more transparent in their approach to this !!

[zyonite]

How would you like it if Ebay brands you a label of being a 'terrible seller' in buyer's place? It'd cause you to leave because your reputation is ruined by Ebay itself and there's nothing you can do about it, correct?

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@viewmont1071 wrote:

Some I am sure become a little more frustrated with the system and a little more likely to leave negative positves

$$$ and NON PAYING BIDDER added to their feedback along side a count so that sellers did not need to do some

sleuthing would make those buyers stand out like the dog's proverbials and give the small amount of sellers who do not open NPB

disputes  to reclaim the FV fees but leave negative positives a good visual prompt and therefore another reason to do so

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Do not ever leave false positives, that violates feedback policy and once reported, they are removed by Ebay and you get slapped, if you seriously want to help your fellow sellers, file UPI cases.

One of the reason that 'no negative for buyer' policy stayed is probably because sellers can't show a little control and keep things to themselves, or that Ebay just don't bother with another major revision to feedback policy.

http://www.kibble.net/blog/index.php/2011/05/27/why-cant-ebay-sellers-leave-negative-feedback-for-bu...