buyers that don't pay

[cool2collect]

These last 2 weeks have been particular bad for me with non paying buyers. I have sold nearly $600 worth of items in the last 2 weeks that the buyers have not paid for, nor are they even contactable. I know this happens to a lot of sellers from discussions I have had, and these customers really do cost us a lot of time and money, what with chasing after them, then going through the steps of cancelling a transaction, waiting for ebay to refund their % of the sale, and having to relist and sell the item all over again, all while missing out on the customers that were happy to bid when it was first listed, but then are no where to be seen when you finally get the item up again. I would like to see ebay adopt some policies that protect the seller for a change, instead of the buyers, who lets face it, are worthless to ebay without us sellers. There are other auction sites I use that make you deposit the money you are going to bid with beforehand, so all bids are binding because they are made with actual money, not the promise of it. This system seems to work well, people dont spend more than they have, and sellers dont spend half their time chasing after money they are owed.

Come on ebay, you can always improve the way things are done.....

[*sparklz* · Accepted solution]

Have you got the blocks in place to stop non payers with strikes from buying from you?

To put these blocks in place hover your mouse over account in your my eBay page and from the drop down click on Site Preferences then go down the list till you see Buyer requirements and to the right of that click on show then click on edit. From there you can put in place the blocks you want, to stop those you want to block from purchasing from you

Also if a buyer has not paid or made contact after winning within 4 days and you open the non payer dispute then send the next bidder a message asking if they are still interested if the current winner has not paid with in 4 and if they reply you can then send a 2nd chance offer once the dispute is closed.

If they know it might still be there then they might hold off looking for another till they know if they can get yours.

[phorum_junkie*]

Can't say I have much of a problem with non payers, rarely more than one on each id during each six month selling season, of course now I have said that I will get more lol.

I don't think they waste very much of my time either, it takes a couple of seconds to open a dispute, another couple to close it and then two more to re list. I have a direct link to my BBL in Selling Manager so adding them doesn't exactly use up much time either.

I even had one a couple of years ago that really worked to my advantage, auction item sold for opening bid, didn't pay, re listed and sold for a lot more than the first sale.

[elegant--u]

I agree with what you are saying, I have just sent 3 emails reminding people that there payments are now overdue, that is today I usually send 5 or more per week, and I might get 1 of them saying "Sorry" forgot all about it, the rest I have to go through the process of claiming my fees back etc. It just seems to be part of selling on ebay, they (ebay) have the monopoly and they know it,

After 8 years of trading on ebay, I now know I have to accept this is part of ebay online selling, and there will always be fee hikes less exposure, nasty buyers etc. In saying that, there are so many lovely people out there, and they out weigh the negative ones. 

Lets hope one day ebay will listen to the sellers

[haolove13]

To Phorum Junkie as you quote

Can't say I have much of a problem with non payers, rarely more than one on each id during each six month selling season, of course now I have said that I will get more lol.

I do not know about your other ID's but you do not have a problem with this id as you have not had any feedback on this id for three years.

The problem with non paying bidders has deteriorated significantly in the last six months and with the growing number of people asking about it  on the forums the problem is getting worse every day.

Instead of trying to support Ebay and Paypal why not improve Ebay by fighting for honesty and eliminating people who are restricting other peoples cashflows by delaying sales by about 15 days at a minimum.

If I list an item for seven days and take 8 days for the UI process then list it for another seven days I am restricted on cashflow for three weeks.

That is where my loss is.

And all because somebody is either too drunk to know . care or trying to restrict somebody's income .  or helping somebody sell the same item for an inflated figure.

It has gone beyond an accident occasionally and the credibility of Ebay is increasingly under pressure.

[phorum_junkie*]

Well of course I have not had any feedback on this id for 3 years because it has only been used as a posting id. I rather liked having 111 feedback so stopped using it for anything else. My main selling id has been in use for many, many years and the others for 5 and 2 years.

[chameleon54]

JUNKIE, Not sure what you sell, how often or what method, but there are major differences in non payment between BINs through large stores and casual auctions. My stores which are all BINs,  recieve around 1.5 - 2 % non payers, which is not too bad. My private selling account which  is all auctions would average 6-7% non payers. I sell a lot of classic car parts on this account and cringe every time I sell old Holden car parts, as these guys can regularly be total tools. ( could be 10 % non payers with these guys. )  When I sell the odd motor cycle or classic car I could get 30% - 40 % non payers. I think it depends a lot on what and how you sell, who your target market is etc. Ebay could help by putting an automatically generated Neg. feedback on buyers account for each non payment dispute resolved in sellers favour. This would "guilt trip" many buyers into being a bit more responsible. 

[michellebartley]

Yes but that said ebay is worthless without the buyers. If buyers continue to adopt that practice then I am sure they are given a warning from ebay and if their conduct continues their account can be closed for up to 12 months. So then they cannot buy anything for that period.

[davewil1964]

And you have evidence of this?

[peridot55555]

I don't know with a buyer I have now:

opened his account in Sep 2008, bought an item in Dec 2011 - evidently that passed muster, unless the seller put the feedback up before being paid.

Then this buyer bought another item in Feb 2012 which brought this feedback - "NEGATIVE. Made no contact after they won the item. NEGATIVE" (from seller ***tracey).

Now he has bought off me ysty, no contact as yet, I'm going him a fair chance & keeping the fingers crossed - wonder what are the odds?  His ID ends in ****lateon with a Y****** Qld addr (watch this get wiped out!!!).

I think that eBay has the wrong idea, they should name & shame continual abusers of the system.  Consider if U did not pay in an Auction Room, U would be banned entirely & it's always been that way, even before the registration system.