How can Ebay better deal with illegitimate non-paying buyers?
Ebay's policy to deal with buyers who don't pay seems reasonable for legitimate buyers. However, I was recently the victim of a non-paying buyer for an expensive item (phone) where the buyer created the account a week before I listed the item and then bid the item up to an unusually high price to win the bid. When I didn't receive payment or any response to my invoice or Ebay's reminders to the buyer, I searched on the buyers address and found it was currently listed on Zillow in NYC as a Coop for sale. It appears the buyer likely had no intention of paying and just enjoys the game being played. Since this behavior directly impacts Ebay's ability to grow their seller base, possibly Ebay could have their developers work on improving/automating the account creation verification process or other methods of dealing with this type of scam. Another suggestion is to consider requiring a security deposit for new buyer accounts.
simba6
·3 years agoYou can list as fixed price / buy it now set to require payment right away. With that, no sale is made until the buyer pays. In many cases buyer prefer is as they don't want to wait for auctions to end.
bonjourami
·3 years ago"behavior directly impacts Ebay's ability to grow their seller base, possibly Ebay could have their developers work on improving/automating the account creation verification process or other methods of dealing with this type of scam. Another suggestion is to consider requiring a security deposit for new buyer accounts. "
Ebay would never even consider that.