Non Paying Bidders

[sarahs_bits]

Oh my goodness, has anybody else noticed an increase in non paying bidders over the last month?  I've blocked all of these, but there seems to be a sharp incline.  It's such a waste of seller's time, I've given these buyers 3 chances to pay up, (generous I know)  and mostly I get no response so I block them, anyone else seeing an increase?

[phorum_junkie*]

Not selling at the moment but since the change in feedback rules and the ability to block members with more than one UPID in 12 months I have actually had a decrease in the percentage of non payers.

In numbers this now means about 2 per year but I now sell three or four times more than I did when I got one a year.

[dylan11235813]

I don't auction stuff regularly so I cant say that I have. I can imagine it would be quite frustrating though, get maybe a good price and then the wait for some idiot to pay which never happens....

As far as I'm concerned if someone doesn't pay for an auction style listing then they should be banned instantly from ebay and legal action taken by ebay on behalf of the seller (it is ebays fault for allowing the buyer to bid)

I'm planning on going in person to an auction and bidding on heaps of stuff and not paying for it, that surely will go down well. Out bidding everyone else is a must.

[phorum_junkie*]

No doubt you could sue the buyer for not going through with the purchase but you could only get back any unrecoverable loss which would be your listing fee, zero if you used a free listing and hardly worth the time and effort if you paid a listing fee.

It takes a few seconds to process an unpaid item dispute and then close it to get back your FVF so what is the big deal?

If you have your buyer blocks in place then those who make a habit of not paying will not bother you anyway.

If you are going to make a big deal out of non payers then ebay is not the place for you.

[tuffy42tuffy]

It's the time wasted in handling these cases which is the most frustrating aspect of non-paying buyers and yes,there does appear to have been an increase.

[the3coopers]

It's the time wasted in handling these cases which is the most frustrating aspect of non-paying buyers and yes,there does appear to have been an increase.

It takes about 10 seconds to deal with a non-payer. They are a fact of life - don't waste time with them, just lodge a dispute, close it 4 days later and issue a strike.

MOST IMPORTANTLY - go to My Ebay > Account (tab) > Site Preferences > Buyer Requirements and turn on all the block sin there. Make it block people with 2 or more Non Payment Strikes in the past 12 months. Also se the block for lack of phone verifcation.

If you set your Buyer Requirements blocks properly, you won't GET the non-payers in the first place.

[the3coopers]

Regarding a general increase - what you are probably finding is that you are getting the Non-Payers because more and more sellers are blocking them using Buyer Requirements. So, since they have nowhere else to "buy", they come to you.

[koalablue12]

OP - I took it from how you had worded your question that you are just blocking the NPB's as they arise ? You really do need to open a dispute, follow through as others here have said. Just blocking a NPB individually does nothing to stop them buying elsewhere on eBay. I think it is what has happenned to you, many sellers on eBay just get annoyed, and block and individual, if they followed the dispute thru, all sellers with blocks in place (including you) will be protected by these annoying individuals. Until this happens to a buyer (getting a strike) they will merrily go along and simply not pay here and there coz they have found a better deal. Newbie's don't do it on purpose I am sure, but a couple of strikes here and there would help them see that eBay is not a game.

[***super_nova***]

I just went to check my buyer requirement logs on my selling IDs, and OMG!!!!!!!!!!!  In the past few weeks I have a dozen bidders blocked for too many strikes on one and bit less on the other.

Guess, it is a good news, that shows it works.

[leader-of-the-band]

I have not had any increase because I also have my blocks in place AND they do work.