As you say there are basically two ways of dealing with non payers.

1. A UPI (Unpaid Item) Case

2. Transaction Cancellation

1. UPI

This is our preferred model as the seller retains control. We will defualt to this process unless there has been some satisfactory explanatory message from the buyer.

On day#3 we send out a gentle reminder message.

If they do not respond or pay then on day #4 we open the case.

If there is still no payment or communication then on Day #8 we close the case.

We have never had a buyer pay then leave us retaliatory NEG FB.

If they do leave NEG FB after you open a UPI case then ebay are very likely to remove it on request.

Sometimes they do pay, in which case we mail out as usual and move on.

Also using this method the buyer is awarded a non-payment strike on their account when the case closes with no payment.

We also have our auto blocks in place to block buyers from buying/bidding if they have accrued two or more strikes in the past 12-months. This is the most stringent possible setting and will stop the serial non-payers.

2. Cancellation

This model is less preferred by us because you pass control to the buyer.

Also keep in mind that unless there has been some communication from the buyer you may get a defect for using this process.

ie you really need to have a request message to cancel from the buyer.

You also need to choose the reason that "there is a problem with the address or the buyer asked to cancel".

If the buyer accepts the cancellation request then your FVF's are refunded and the transaction is cancelled.

If the buyer rejects the cancellation request then you will lose your FVF and you would have to call ebay to sort it out.

If the buyer does nothing at all then it takes 10-days for the cancellation request to time out at which point you will be credited your FVF back. A bit like acceptance really but 10-days later.

They can still leave NEG FB during this process too. But I would suspect it might be more difficult to get it removed than via the UPI case.

Keep in mind too that once you initiate one or the other of these two process you cannot stop it or change to the other type of case. You only get one shot.

Some others may come in with some extra info on this that I have overlooked.