Non-payment issue

[khani808]

Hi everyone,

I sold an item that the buyer was meant to pick up. The first time she was meant to pick up, she didn't show up, and messaged the next day to say there had been an emergency. Fine, that's perfectly understandable. However, there were several more no-shows, where she cancelled just before she was meant to pick up the item, or just never showed up, or didn't get in touch to reschedule.This continued for 4 weeks, and unfortunately, it was day 33 when I tried to leave a non-payment dispute to get my fees back. The ebay cutoff is 32 days, so bummer. I have instead opted to cancel the transaction, which the buyer needs to approve, but she has not approved it, and I don't think she intends to.

She has been calling me from a private number, so I have no way of contacting her apart from ebay.

Any ideas? It's not a big ticket item, but it is annoying to pay a final fee and insertion fee for an item that didn't actually sell.

Cheers!

[ms_aussie]

Hi There,

Sorry but there is nothing I can add to solve your immediate issue but I can tell you that ebay have developed a new tool, called Unpaid Item Assistant, to help us round up non-payers. I have accepted eBay's Unpaid Item Assistant that automatically kicks in when my buyers have not paid. You can nominate the period of time, sarting at 4days, that you prepared to wait for payment. It's great because eBay sends the disput notice in their name not in mine. It helps me stay in good with the buyers and so far I have been able to collect two out of two before the strike eBay warns them about actually happens. Let's face it we need all the help we can get from eBay.

Cheers 🙂

[i-love-my-sheep]

Was it the French Doors? If so, she is bidding on a LOT of items at the moment, so this might be something she does when she realises she has overspent. Ignore it and it will go away kind of thing.

I hope someone corrects me if I'm wrong, but I think if she doesn't accept or decline the cancellation in 7 days, eBay closes it and you get your fees back. If she declines it, I think you lose your fees.

Just hope she doesn't neg you for your efforts because your poor old feedback and DSR's have taken quite a battering by the looks of it. Another one could see you lose your selling privileges. (not having a go at you, was just an observation, they were clearly a difficult buyer)

Good luck, I hope it all works out for you.

[i-love-my-sheep]

---

@ms_aussie wrote:

Hi There,

Sorry but there is nothing I can add to solve your immediate issue but I can tell you that ebay have developed a new tool, called Unpaid Item Assistant, to help us round up non-payers. I have accepted eBay's Unpaid Item Assistant that automatically kicks in when my buyers have not paid. You can nominate the period of time, sarting at 4days, that you prepared to wait for payment. It's great because eBay sends the disput notice in their name not in mine. It helps me stay in good with the buyers and so far I have been able to collect two out of two before the strike eBay warns them about actually happens. Let's face it we need all the help we can get from eBay.

Cheers 🙂

---

It's not a new tool, it's been around for quite awhile. It does have its drawbacks because if someone is bidding on a lot of auctions, it can open and close before they've finished buying and they lose the items they have already won, not to mention getting a strike because they wanted nothing more than to combine shipping. I think it could be useful for large volume sellers, but not for us small fry and not for those of us who run auctions.

[2011.narelle]

Hey she-chook,how are you seeing bidding activity? Is buying/bidding history thingy working again,?some new trick?Do you have special powers? i miss that checking on bid thingy.

[i-love-my-sheep]

No, unfortunately, that feature still isn't working. I just went to the OP's sold listings and clicked the one that was pick up from about 5 weeks ago. I clicked on the bidding history for that item to reveal the anonymous name of the bidder with 25 feedback. Clicked on that and it showed how many items they are bidding on and how many bids they have placed. Sadly, you can't see exactly what they're bidding on.

I miss that feature too. I tried it on quite a few of the overseas sites thinking it may have just been eBay AU that was broken, but it didn't work on any of them.

[horizon1907]

There's always an Excuse. 😞 You can understand 1 or 2 but then it gets to the BS stage. I would be sending messages through ebay. Give her an ultimatum !!! That way ebay have a record of what has been sent .

She sounds like a Pest. Put her on your "special list" 

[2011.narelle]

Aww i was all cited then thinking it was back  At least If "You Are The One" is still on right now as my consolation prize.

[phorum_junkie*]

The unpaid item assistant is only available if Paypal is the only payment methid offered. I used it for a time but found I had some buyers emailing asking for bank deposit or they wanted to bid on other items (but hadn't bothered to tell me) so scrapped it. I did however leave the note on some of listings that says: "If not paying  within 4 days by Paypal please let me know so I can exclude you from the automatic unpaid item process"

For pick up items I always give a cut off date for pick up in the listing, I will extend that on request but after one missed appointment without them calling and rearranging I would open an unpaid item dispute, immediately after a second no show.

[khani808]

Yes, it was the doors. Initially, she said there was an emergency, then she was sick (and rescheduled 4 days in a row), then said she would contact me 'shortly' a couple of times, and now nothing for about 2 weeks despite a number of messages saying I would relist the doors.

Unfortunately, I've had some poor feedback due to circumstances beyond my control and/or very particular customers who wanted me to refund them but refused to send the product back! Also one customer who claimed I took 10 days to post an item- I think she got confused as I updated its status 10 days after the auction ended in response to ebay prompts. Plus the typical 'no feedback when a sale goes well' 😞 Only about 1/4 of my sales result in feedback. My DSR is still classed as 'standard' fortunately!