Suspension of bidding

Question

I have been told there were two sales I failed to pay for. I religiously pay for everything I buy and pay quickly. The assistant cannot help. What do I do? I want to clear my name.

woodland_gnome · Answer

Apparently you backslid on your religion. Look in My eBay: Purchase History: Returns and Cancellations to find orders that were cancelled for non-payment to find the "unpaid cancellation records" that are counted towards the block you are running into.

Whether you can buy an item depends on the seller you are trying to buy from. Some don't enable that Buyer Requirement (block) at all. Some enable it but at more lenient parameters than the strictest level of blocking anyone with 2 in the past 12 months (some leave it at the defaults which are the lowest number for each parameter--2 strikes in the past 1 month--some long-time sellers haven't updated it from the old maximum timeframe of 6 months, and some for whatever reason choose to give more than second chances--the choices go up to 100 strikes in the lookback period).

So for the strictest level you will no longer be blocked by any seller (for that reason anyway) 12 months (and 1 day) after your second to last strike was issued (I know eBay no longer uses that term but it's a lot easier to type and comprehend than what the PR types decided eBay would call it). For those who don't have it set you can buy right now (assuming no other issues, such as running into your buying limits or another Buyer Requirement by that seller). For any other combination of x strikes in y months they will not apply to you when your xth to last strike is older than y months.

gator08041971 · Answer

@chrisanell

Well that depends on how long its been since that occurred. However if the transactions you failed to pay for are already canceled or closed, then those will stay on your account for a year following their arrival.

For example, if you bid on and won something March 1st, and never paid, it will take till after March 1st next year before that transgression falls off.

But there is some good news.

Not all sellers use the same restrictions. Some have stricter settings and some have lesser or no restrictions. But with the amount of buyers that do abuse the system it does affect whom you can bid on. Mine is set to prevent buyers that have 2 or more payment strikes within a year. (the strongest level) But it could be set to 5 or more, and for only 3 months if wanted to for example.

The other good news, you can still use Buy it Now options. So you are not completely limited. But there is no way to "remove" them after they have been applied.