Buyer With Reputation of Never Paying Bids and Wins Multiple Auctions at last Minute.
Here is a fun one. Just finished a series of auctions for some vintage transformers. Auctions performed really well and they all went for the high end of what I expected. Fantastic. When I went to send invoices I saw that most of the items were purchased by one person. Great, makes it much easier. I click on their profile and see all positive review (forgetting there isn't anything else). Then I look at the reviews. 99% of them are from sellers with some variation of "THIS IS NOT A POSITIVE REVIEW, THIS PERSON BIDS UP ITEMS AND THEN NEVER PAYS!!" Just...Awesome. Apparently this guy bids on transformer auction at the last minute and never pays.
I have of course had people not pay for auctions, but never this many at one time. While I would normally wait until the couple days passes before I can terminate for non payment, I really don't want to tie these items up for long (I have travel plans that will restrict me from starting the auctions again for a while if I wait for the whole period). What are the consequences for me if I just cancel the sales? I've never done that before in 20 years so I have no frame of reference. I looked at this person's profile and they have never left feedback on another account. Is there another solution here.
Also, as a side question. Any ideas why someone would do this?
toomuchstuffagain35
·3 years agoEven though it's not technically the "right way" to do it. In this case I'd restart the auction.
In the unlikely event this buyer does pay you can always cancel the other auction.
If they don't then you just cancel for unpaid and they get the strike. I'd also block this buyer right now so they can't bid on the newly listed auction.
a_c_green
·3 years agoYou don't need to send an invoice unless you're putting together a combined shipping charge, as eBay sends plenty of notifications to the winner that it's time to pay. Sending an invoice will lock in the Shipping charge to the buyer's eBay address (i.e. not any other address to which he might want to ship at a higher cost), and reset the 96-hour payment deadline before you can cancel with the reason of Buyer Did Not Pay.
It's four days, not a couple of days, before you can terminate for non-payment, counting from either the end of the latest auction or the time you sent the latest invoice, whichever came later. Also keep in mind that even if you jumped the gun, cancelled early and took the hit for that, your next go-around might end in another slow-pay anyway. Don't schedule your listings to conflict with your real-world schedule.
In a collectibles field, it may be someone who's bidding on multiple examples of some item, planning to pay for whichever one he wins for the lowest price, and abandoning all the others. For example, the winner of your latest sale ("Transformers Crosshairs w/ Pinpointer 1987 Vintage G1 Targetmaster") in just the past 30 days has sprayed 141 bids across 135 auctions, plus 2 bid retractions. (To see this statistic, log out of your selling account, click on the number of bids in the listing to bring up the Bid History page, and then click on the disguised ID of that bidder. This will bring up the 30-day summary of his bidding activity.)
You will help both yourself and others by waiting the full 96 hours before cancelling, so that the Buyer Did Not Pay reason will appear in the list of choices for cancelling (you will not see that reason if cancelling before the buyer's payment window has properly expired), and then the deadbeat will get an Unpaid slap on his record. Two of those and he will find himself getting restricted from future auctions by sellers who have the most restrictive filter set up (here) to block deadbeats.
immortalfigures
OP3 years agoThank you everyone for your advice. I guess it's best practices to wait those 4 days like normal and cancel for lack of payment.
brightlightbookseller
·3 years ago@immortalfiguresto answer your second question since the first has been answered repeatedly: you'll receive a strike if you cancel for being Out Of Stock, and any other reason you can choose before the 4 days is up opens you to a report from the buyer and earning a defect anyways. If it was just one order, it might be well worth it, but that many at once could result in your selling privileges being restricted, which obviously would be a significant issue. I wouldn't recommend canceling before the 4 days is up, even though that will keep you from relisting them as an auction right away due to your plans. Sorry for the bad news!
sextons-sweet-deals
·3 years agoI would like to see that stat of the number of non-payments by a buyer on their feedback board after sellers have to wait 4 days before they cancel due to non-payment. That is four days the seller is missing out on from real buyers.
I know it is a game but would like to see scammers or price pushers be identified. I also understand that they will probably just a fresh account.
For the O.P. Create an invoice and send it to the buyer. If they do pay, I would also entertain taking photos of packing process (just for a record) and shipping with signature required at delivery.
You can also restructure your listings. Have an auction with a buy now price or maybe just a fixed buy now price with immediate payment. Many variations to consider.
Good luck
sextons-sweet-deals
·3 years agocorrection
I also understand that they will probably just open a new fresh account.
caldreamer
·3 years agoIf you cancel the sale...customer could leave you negative feedback (and because they purchased multiple items that feedback could tank your store). Personally, I would just wait the 4 days and then cancel (it is possible customer may pay for some or all the items...I would not rush to judgment).
luxgoods
·3 years agoImmediate payment for all ebay tranactions. Problem solved
soh.maryl
·3 years agoAs an experienced eBay seller, you do know that that FB was against eBay rules, correct?
And that the buyer could have reported it so that eBay could remove it. The seller would have then received a defect.
If just TWO of those sellers would have handled this correctly and cancelled, using "did not pay" as the reason, and if you have your buyer requirements set so that a buyer with two unpaid strikes in a year cannot buy from you, you would not have had to deal with that buyer. Make sense?
ed8108
·3 years agoThis is certainly curious
1. Why doesn't this person have two or more item strikes for non payment ?
2. Why does ebay allow this person to continue their practice of " never pay"
slippinjimmy
·3 years ago@immortalfigures
Proper Procedures
1 - Send the invoice IF you are discounting the shipping
2 - Wait 4 days for Payment
3 - If not paid withing 96 hours of sending the Invoice cancel the sales with the reason Buyer Did Not Pay
Next step, if you don't already, in your Buyer Requirements, block buyer with 2 or more non-payment strikes in the past 12 months.
If you cancel the sale now your only choices are "out of stock" (very bad for you) or "buyer requested" (not truthful).
ed8108
·3 years agoEbay may not know the specific reason why the transaction was not paid, but would certainly be aware that this buyer has repeadly made purchases , followed by a failure to complete the transaction
femmefan1946
·3 years ago@ed8108 Unless the seller specifically cancels the sale, eBay doesn't see anything.
And the seller pays FVF so really why should eBay care?
As far as they can see, the seller accepted the situation and paid his fees. It could have been a cash for pickup sale at the time of purchase without the usual paperwork.
ed8108
·3 years agoEbay would appear to have some very generous sellers when it comes to
NPD's by paying FVF on non payments, not caring that the NPD receives their earned non payment strike, but thoughtfully leaving the NPD a false positive in feedback, violating ebay policy.
Very Confusing
pjcdn2005
·3 years agosoh.maryl
·3 years agoThe reason that this person doesn't have two or more strikes for nonpayment is because those sellers didn't cancel, citing "buyer did not pay" as the reason. Just leaving negative FB (written as positive) for a buyer doesn't notify eBay that he did not pay, and also doesn't stop him from making further purchases.
nobody*s_perfect
·3 years agoWe don't know whether those sellers canceled the transactions based on 'Buyer didn't pay." In the past, both buyer and seller were blocked from leaving feedback when a buyer got a nonpayment strike, but currently sellers are able to leave feedback for nonpaying buyers.
So perhaps the sellers DID follow the system, but the OP hasn't set up his preferences to block bidders with two strikes in the past year.
A distant third possibility is that the OP does have his preferences set up, but those comments about nonpayment are over a year old.
soh.maryl
·3 years agoThank you for your clarification. Guess I hadn't given a thought to those aspects of the situation.