Non-Paying Bidder Deletes Account, Creates New Account, Bids Again

[fastgraph]

Hello,

Recently I have been dealing with a non-paying bidder. He placed bids, then cancelled his account, so eBay retracted his bids. Fair enough, that makes sense.

But then he created a new but very similar username, won 7 items at auction over two weeks. Never paid, no communication at all, so I cancelled his order per eBay policy, and then relisted the items. Earlier today I received an eBay notification that he cancelled his account, and that eBay had cancelled his order (strange, since I had successfully cancelled the order two days ago). I had also blocked that user after I cancelled the order.

Now he's doing the same thing again. Today he created another similarly-named account and is once again bidding on my items. He is competing with another good customer, and he either wins the items and doesn't pay, or is the underbidder and causes the good customer to pay more. Of course I like more bidding, but not under these circumstances.

Does anybody have any suggestions on how to deal with this? If I block the new username, will it cancel his bogus bids?

Thank you for any help you can offer!

[disneyshopper]

To contact Ebay Customer Service, use this link and click on "have us call you":

https://www.ebay.com/help/contact_us?id=4002&st=10

Customer Service is open 5:00am to 9:30pm Pacific time.

It takes time to process a request to cancel an account. I suspect ebay is removing that buyer.  Let Customer Service know of all the past user IDs and what happens when you go to block each one.

[woodland_gnome]

S/he did not cancel his/her own account.  eBay won't let a user close an account if there are open bids, pending payments, pending returns, payment disputes, or outstanding payouts to be processed to your bank account, or a pending status; and once you "close" it it remains open (with you not being able to make new obligations) for up to 60 days if you've had any transactions, payments, claims or disputes in the previous 30 days (14 days if not).   The account was closed (and eBay "Administratively Cancelled" his/her pending bids, which doesn't always happen) due to policy violations (like what s/he was doing to you).

Cancel the bids as they come up and you recognize the fingerprints of the miscreant, and add each new ID to your Blocked Bidder/Buyer List, and cancel for non-payment after 4 full calendar days for any that get through and win, and make sure your Buyer Requirements are set to block anyone with 2 unpaid item cancellations in the past 12 months,

OR give up on auctions and Best Offer and list fixed price Buy It Now with Immediate Payment Required only.  Miscreants can make new IDs with disposable email addresses quicker than eBay can identify them.

[fastgraph]

Thank you for the help, it is appreciated.

S/he did not cancel his/her own account.

That makes sense.

Cancel the bids as they come up and you recognize the fingerprints of the miscreant, and add each new ID to your Blocked Bidder/Buyer List

The old username was already in my blocked list, just added the new one, but had to also cancel all of their existing bids.

make sure your Buyer Requirements are set to block anyone with 2 unpaid item cancellations in the past 12 months

I have that setting enabled, but it appears mine was the first sale cancellation. The other sellers who experienced a similar problem with the bidder's previous username left "positive" feedback indicating a non-paying bidder. I suspect the positive feedback prevented them from cancelling a sale, or at least having it not count against sale cancellations.

OR give up on auctions and Best Offer and list fixed price Buy It Now with Immediate Payment Required only.

That thought had crossed my mind, but for specific types of material I sell, auctions are the better medium. Besides, requiring immediate payment prevents buyers from adding items to their cart and paying in one transaction to take advantage of combined shipping, does it not? Perhaps more importantly, I think immediate payment isn't exactly buyer-friendly, and I don't want one rotten apple to ruin the experience for all my other customers.

Thanks again for the suggestions. Hopefully the above will mitigate the problem.