Epidemic of new account, zero feedback “winners” who never pay or respond to messages

[theclemsonkidcards]

eBay, you have GOT to do something about this. It’s becoming an epidemic on my auctions, and on my friends eBay stores as well. 

We have an auction for a mid to high level sports card (in the $150-$1,000 range). In the last few minutes, an account that was created the same day the auction ends, with zero feedback, wins the auction. The person never pays, never responds to messages; and the auction has to go to a “second chance offer”, or a new listing. 

I don’t know why this keeps happening. Obviously there’s some kind of scam or something going on, I just don’t know what it is. This has happened to me personally at least a dozen times in the last six months. And just today I was chatting with a friend who said it’s happened to him for the third time this month alone. 

1. I don’t want the answer to be “do a fixed price where they have to buy it now”. The point of being on an auction site is to sell the card ON AN AUCTION.  If I want to sell it straight up, at a lower price, I’ll do it somewhere else where I’m not paying a 13.5% premium. 

2. Why is there not a setting to either A) block buyers with zero feedback, or at worst B) block buyers who create an account ten minutes before the auction ends. You can’t tell me that the number of legitimate buyers who create an account ten minutes before an auction ends is greater than the people pulling scams. 

I’m so sick of dealing with deadbeats and scam artists. There has GOT to be a better way eBay. I can’t for the life of me understand why you can’t force people to have a credit card on file that’s charged at auctions end. That solves all the problems, but you refuse to do it. 

Why?!?

[theclemsonkidcards]

And for anyone saying “who cares just relist it”… you don’t understand sports cards. A lot of cards value are dependent on timing. If someone is the Super Bowl MVP that card will sell for the most the day of or after the game. Likewise if a new set comes out and you’re the first person to list a card, you’ll always get highest price. If you have to relist it a week later, it can drop as much as 50%. So timing is 100% a factor in maximum value. 

[kensgiftshop]

What would be better, list as a fixed price with immediate payment required and get paid or keep doing auctions and take a chance of not getting paid.?

Myself, I'd rather get paid, even if I didn't get the most for an item.

[reallynicestamps]

an epidemic on my auctions,

Don't use Auctions.

One of the reasons they make up less than 15% of transactions, is that buyers want Immediate Gratification and waiting seven days to learn you were outbid in the last 10 seconds is a turnoff.

The result is that more auctions go unpaid than Fixed Price listings.

Also, since this is more of a sealed bid than an outcry auction, the bidder may have forgotten they bid by the time the auction ends days after they bid.

The point of being on an auction site is to sell the card ON AN AUCTION.

EBay has not been an auction site since around 2008, maybe earlier when Stores became visible in Search.

You could do a reverse auction, setting up a Fixed Price listing, then enabling Best Offer with Acceptable/Not Acceptable enabled.

EG- You want $50 for your card.

You do a Fixed Price for  $60, set up Acceptable for an immediate sale at $50.

Then setup Not Acceptable for $45.

If the listing lingers too long, any BO between $45 and $50 can be considered and accepted or declined.

Any BO below $45 will be politely and automatically declined by eBay. You only see those declined offers if the bidder hits the magic $45.

Set those numbers anywhere you like.

The buyer gets the thrill of bidding.

You get the money on purchase because the buyer is right there when they win.

The problem with forcing the buyer to leave a credit card is that many people are loathe to have their financials spread all over the internet and will just shop elsewhere.

We see that on the Buyer Forum.

[mr_lincoln]

Hi @theclemsonkidcards 

While eBay has taken steps to cut down on Unpaid items on Auctions they recently stopped letting Sellers require a payment method before Bidders bid.  That setting was on this page near the bottom, now they only let the Offers flow be controlled as I described.  Buyer Management | eBay

When they first rolled those settings out they were called "Auto-pay".

I sell a lot auction style but not in your categories so I respect you knowing that area.  I actually like the idea of not allowing new accounts to BID on Auctions for a period of time and to be honest, I think 7 days might be better than same or 1 day.  However, like most scammers, they will simply create a bunch of new accounts and use them a week or more later.

Is it possible those Bidders are competitors with a similar card and they create accounts just to take your items off the market for a week or so?  Nothing is off the table for these people is my view.

[*trekkie]

This has happened to me a few times in the past with Hello Kitty items. My thought is that it is a competitor who wants our item out of the way for their own auctions. For reasons unknown, it just stopped. Could be because I switched to Immediate Payment when I edit or list new items. I I haven't had any items listed for auction in a long time, just BIN with a set price. I am slowly phasing out Best Offer as well.  Wish I could help you more, but just wanted to let you know that it happened to me too. 

[luckythewinner]

I can’t for the life of me understand why you can’t force people to have a credit card on file that’s charged at auctions end.

eBay has been pilot-testing a system for quite a while that requires buyers to give a payment source when making offers, but they show no signs of making it universal.

eBay has access to a wealth of information about buyer behavior, and I doubt they will implement such a system unless they see that it clearly benefits eBay to do so.

[chapeau-noir]

IMHO, it's market dependent. When I was selling Dr Dre Beats I had all kinds of trouble and just listed then fixed price.  Same with other 'hot' electronics (and this was a while ago - it hasn't changed).

I suspect sports cards have a similar problem because again they can be a hot item.

Most of the time I doubt seriously that it's a competitor - there are virtually no repercussions that I can see for sport bidding and being a deadbeat, so people will just keep doing it.

ETA: No answers for you that you will like, I'm sorry. I understand the frustration.

[vintagecraze50]

They need to do the same thing with the auctions as they do with the best offers. YOU BID you better buy.

[theclemsonkidcards]

I understand why people think it’s a competitor. But I went back and looked, and almost all of the cards I’ve had this happen to were both expensive and rare. Like, one was a 1/1, and the others were 10 copies or less. So the chances of someone having the same card are extremely low. 

it just drives me nuts that I can’t figure out what the scam is. Obviously they’re doing it this way for a reason. But I can’t honestly figure out what it is. If I was selling a card that 30 other people were selling? Ok, that would make sense.  Just trying to drive comps up so theirs would sell for more. But all of mine have been low print runs, and my friend Dan who just had it happen today it was a 1/1 card that no one else could even own. It’s literally the only one that exists. 

I know I shouldn’t let it bother me this much, but not figuring out the scam is driving me up a wall. 

[vintagecraze50]

The auction format for these types of items especially should be controlled by adding the new feature of put you CC info into the system and if you plan on bidding you better be prepared to pay your bid price. Totally frustruating for these folks on here selling these sports card I imagine and ebay also loosing quicker access to final value fees and these people are bloating the price of these auctions. 

[vintagecraze50]

Oh come on with the people are afraid to put their CC info in. People do that all over the web including Amazon. Ebay would cut back on their failed auctions if they did the CC on file.

[vintagecraze50]

Well, maybe so. Either way if it is a highly collectible auction the buyer would be grateful to get it buy it now rather than play around with these looser bidders.

[vintagecraze50]

As long as the money keeps rolling in as they plan they make give a hoot about these auctions. In other words if the seller finally gets a buyer who will pay. But the seller is still going to go through this frustration.

[vintagecraze50]

Good point about the time limited issues with these and another reason to put auto pay with credit card as the way to do it.