Non-Paying Bidders /Buyers are getting out of control

[tsmtmiller]

It is at the point now where close to 50% of people making purchases are not paying. More needs to be done to STOP this insanity. Every time I get a sale, its a game of will they pay or not. What is eBay doing to protect sellers from this abuse? Ebay cannot continue to allow buyers to do this.   

[slippinjimmy]

Get rid of Best Offer on your Fixed Price listings and add Immediate Payment Required.

I see you have just 2 Auction listings, are those (auctions) the source of your non-payments?

Personally I only use Fixed price, no offers and no auctions,  I don't even use Immediate Payment Required and have has ONE non-payment sale in the past 10 years.

[ebooksdiva]

Are you canceling the transactions after 96 hours to give those non payers unpaid items strikes? That is the only way eBay will do something about non payers.

When non paying buyer get 2 unpaid item strikes within 12 months, they are blocked from bidding and buying from hundreds of  sellers.

If sellers don’t do their due diligence in canceling for non payment they are part of the problem.  

Unpaid Item Policy 

Blocking buyers  

[reallynicestamps]

We can add Immediate Payment Required on Fixed Price listings.

If we wait for 96 hours we can cancel the transaction as Unpaid and thedeadbeat gets a Strike.

We can set our Buyer Requirements/Seller Preferences to automatically Block buyers with Strikes.

Most UIDs come from auctions. Most of the remainder come from FP /BO where IPR is not in play, since the buyer may not be around when the BO is accepted.

Best Offer is a sort of backwards auction.

[dbfolks166mt]

     The have a couple of tools that you can use. The first is to adjust your preferences to block potential buyers that have more than 2 non-payment strikes. The following will walk you through that process. 

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/listings/creating-managing-listings/setting-buyer-requirements?id=... 

Secondly you can add the non-paying bidders to your BBL. 

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/resolving-buyer-issues/blocking-buyer-ebay?id=4082 

Make sure that after 4 days if the buyer has not paid that you cancel the transaction for non-payment. Most of your listings are BIN make sure you have immediate payment required turned on for those listings. 

https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/listings/creating-managing-listings/immediate-payment-works?id=415... 

For the auction type formats there is little you can do unless you have a BIN price, which must be 30% higher than the opening bid price, set along with the opening bid price. This option goes away as soon as an opening bid is placed. 

[tsmtmiller]

Hello, I had someone from nigeria ruin one of the auctions with the buy now. I relisted the item losing all the bids. Auctions do tend to get people into a bid war which is why I like to use them when I can. For fixed priced items, I have things I just dont always know the values to which is why I allow offers. When I see the Payment Required option I always check it. Really its on ebay to enforce the rules.    

[slippinjimmy]

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@tsmtmiller wrote:

Hello, I had someone from nigeria ruin one of the auctions with the buy now. I relisted the item losing all the bids. Auctions do tend to get people into a bid war which is why I like to use them when I can. For fixed priced items, I have things I just dont always know the values to which is why I allow offers. When I see the Payment Required option I always check it. Really its on ebay to enforce the rules.    

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eBay is going by the rules! If you want to ensure payment on every sale you need to follow the "rules" (no offers, no auctions and IPR on everything)

If you still want to use offers then make sure you use the available blocks on buyers with 2 or more non-payments in the past 12 months.

[tsmtmiller]

Oh yes, I do go through the process. I wait a couple days often relisting the item because I know they aren't going to pay. Ebay needs to start charging fees for non-payment. But they don't want to chase buyers away I guess but how does that work when they aren't buying and I am listing more items elsewhere? I never heard of a company that allows people to buy things then just walk away without paying because they changed their mind or cant pay. 

[tsmtmiller]

I already do everything that ebay offers to reduce bad buyers. My BBL is already getting pretty long. I wait 4 days or more, and I do have 2 non-payment strikes set, although I think this should be ONE not two. 

[chapeau-noir · Accepted solution]

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@tsmtmiller wrote:

Hello, I had someone from nigeria ruin one of the auctions with the buy now. I relisted the item losing all the bids. Auctions do tend to get people into a bid war which is why I like to use them when I can. For fixed priced items, I have things I just dont always know the values to which is why I allow offers. When I see the Payment Required option I always check it. Really its on ebay to enforce the rules.    

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Best offer needs to simply have either the item paid for when the offer is accepted, or the item remain available to the public until payment is made. This business of stringing along the seller over an offer is ridiculous - I sell on two other sites and when an offer is accepted, it's paid for, period.  A bundling option is available for combined shipping. eBay has been discussing implementing ways to try to stem this with a couple of tests of buyers having to have payment method on file, but I'm not sure where this has gone.  It's creating problems with one of eBay's basic offerings. Sorry I'm no help at this, but I understand.

Also, electronics is kind of a tough market for payments - I'm FP/IPR on everything but have more cancellations in this market than anything else I sell - I don't mind cancelling on request but it's something that I do note.

[sailinship]

I am sorry, but I don't believe you have 50% non payment. That's just not possible. Anyway, the answer was given to you of how to solve that problem.

[tsmtmiller]

I've had 4 sales and 3 cancels with non-payments in the past 30 days. 

[joliztoyco]

Isn't one of the main RULES of Ebay is, if you win an auction, you're responsible for paying for it?
Did this somehow become optional? 
Every time I list an auction, Ebay "suggests"  I allow offers to "increase sales".
Every time I list an auction, Ebay "suggests" I have a better chance of selling using Buy-It -Now.
I'm not quite sure what "rules" you're referring to.

[slippinjimmy]

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@joliztoyco wrote:

Isn't one of the main RULES of Ebay is, if you win an auction, you're responsible for paying for it?
Did this somehow become optional? 

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In theory a buyer is responsible, in reality they can simply not pay. That is how it has been on eBay since 1995.

[reallynicestamps]

EBay's suggestions are always good for eBay.

Like defaulting new and returning sellers into Auctions, which make up less than 15% of transactions, to support eBay's "brand" as an online auction house.

EBay is not your friend. EBay is your landlord.