0 feedback non paying bidders how to end problem

[showmecurrency4u]

this has been discussed on this board before but there is only one way to solve the problem for people who do auctions. allow sellers to prohibit people from bidding who have feedback below a certain number.  i dont want a person say that everyone starts at 0 because i already know this.  they can do  buy it now with payment at that time and  within a short time would have enough feedback to buy from any  seller.  almost 100 percent  of the non buyers  have fake names and if a person googles the address it is the middle of a field  or a vacant lot . sometimes i think that some of the comments made against this idea are not real sellers on ebay.  also  why do people say to contact a customer service and the customer service  is not the real customer service maybe this needs to be changed.  why does ebay encourage returns and then dings sellers who accept returns.  maybe seller need to be able to block buyers who have excessive returns. 

[1tuna]

thats an odd comment to make about auctions

I like auctions a lot and always have

you can turn that comment around and say the same about you

how come you have over 5000 feedback but you have 15000 items you cant sell.

what if this time next year you have 20,000 items listed, does that make you a better seller or an accumulator

he who dies with the most unsold items will surely wish they ran some no reserve items to move some merchandise

keep on selling

@onefootflipper

PREVIEW

[paraquip]

To shed some light on the problem.....I can use my actual statistics.....the OP has some points and you can obviously see he is heated up about it.

Statistically from my ebay profile:

6% of all buyers use an alias

92% of all items that show delivered where the "low feedback" buyer open up a case are in high crime neighborhoods.

With regards to credit card chargbacks.

0 feedback buyers that have registered withing 6 months......comprise over 80% of the "charge not recognized" chargebacks......statistically over the last 90 days for me that has been 100%

Nearly 90% of my removed negative feedbacks come from buyers with less than 10 feedbacks and recently registered.

Nearly 100% of my non-paying bidders have less than 5 feedbacks.

There is some merit to the OP. 

Seller protection cases from ebay......statistically for me are 100% credit card fraud from within the bill to/ship to listed on the credit card.  It's flat out fraud.

I have posted this many times on the forum so possible solutions.

1. Sellers are all required to upload their photo id when selling....... buyer have no obligation to prove their identity...... so one possible solution is that the name on the used credit card must match the ship to address..... Alais' are a large issue here.

2. Sellers should be allowed to restrict shipping individually by zipcode.....with that 92% correlation mentioned above.....there are about 15 cites or so that make up the bulk of the crime...... so secret as to what those cities are........just turn on the nightly news.

3. Ebay allows way too many fraud buyers to operate after a seller protection case won by the seller.   More that 80% of proven fraud cases still have profiles open on ebay.

HK

[dbfolks166mt]

I find it more amazing that a seller with 51,000 feedback runs auctions at all. 

Given what the OP is selling I find nothing unusual about the auction format. Not all of those feedbacks are as a seller. 

[maxine*j]

I stopped using the auction format long ago, but I'm sure that non-paying bidders are a pain in the neck. 

However, you have been here for many years, you have sold 144K items, your feedback is exemplary -- so I guess I don't see how you can be too upset when the occasional sale goes south. 

Non-payment may be a drag, but INADs are worse.  And if you report the non-paying bidders they do get a ding by eBay and you, and other sellers, can set your preferences to block people with histories of bid retraction and non-payment.

Even if it were possible to block based on the feedback number, that would not, in my experience, make a difference;  I never found the feedback number predictive of problems with sales.

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[theteamsetguy]

Kimbvin-89,

Most people that bid the last second are not present at the time because most of them use an app that does it for them in advance.

There are several very popular apps available to allow bidders enter their bid and it will bid on their behalf at the time the bidder requests. 

[pburn]

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@soh.maryl wrote:

PS:  Before you mention that I have no FB as a seller, and therefore shouldn't be commenting, please keep in mind that I may have another ID with a significant record as a seller.  

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Any of us using a posting id or a buying id should use that statement as our signature line. 😁

[the_og_surplus]

Here is the simple way eBay could and should fix it- when you place a bid on an auction type format at the time you place the bid you choose what payment method you will use and the rest of the checkout settings.

The moment the auction ends if you win the checkout process happens automatically, your chosen payment method is billed.

If your payment method fails then all future activity on your account is frozen until you provide a method of payment that clears.

I bid on commercial auctions online like that all the time. You provide the card you want charged when you register, if your bid wins it’s charged right then and there.

This cuts out the problem multiple ways. It requires a good CC# to even bid, something most of those don’t have. And it eliminates the drive bys who register and bid and never come back to finish.

It doesn’t even have to be a rule for all- just require it for all new accounts until they have a certain amount of completed sales/time.

[toomuchstuffagain35]

Goodwill Online which is (or was) entirely auctions, had a policy that once you had 3 unpaid purchases you were prevented from any more bidding. Seems reasonable.

[theteamsetguy]

@paraquip,

2. Sellers should be allowed to restrict shipping individually by zipcode.....with that 92% correlation mentioned above.....there are about 15 cites or so that make up the bulk of the crime...... so secret as to what those cities are........just turn on the nightly news.

This will never happen due to discrimination. Just because someone lives in a certain city or neighborhood does not make them a criminal. Not everyone can or want to live in the suburbs in a cookie cutter house with a white picket fence. With the price of houses going up many recent college graduates due to the pile of student loans they have are buying homes in the city and neighborhoods where the homes are still affordable.  If financial institutions aren't allow to "red line" why should merchants be able to?

[pburn]

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@toomuchstuffagain35 wrote:

Goodwill Online which is (or was) entirely auctions, had a policy that once you had 3 unpaid purchases you were prevented from any more bidding. Seems reasonable.

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 Certainly you're aware sellers can block members who have TWO unpaid transactions in the last twelve months, right? That's more restrictive than your Goodwill Online example.  🤔

[paraquip]

Within certain cites there are certain zipcodes that will with a large degree of certainty have an issue.

Amazon has already has restricted delivery or requires actual signature at the site to combat this.

It's a sad state of affairs when Postal theft is not prosecuted.   

Unfortunately I know what too much about theft as my local postal annex had a huge theft problem this past year costing me over $3000 in products........law enforcement shows up 6 months after me reporting it and the thefts stopped.

There are many business that simply do not service certain geographic areas and I'm ok with that.

HK

[toomuchstuffagain35]

But what about the sellers who are unaware of that setting?

Having the venue (platform, whatever) clamp down would protect the newbie sellers  that are the most likely to not be aware.

[pburn]

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@paraquip wrote:

Within certain cites there are certain zipcodes that will with a large degree of certainty have an issue.

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Ouch! Sounds like the very definition of the old classic redlining to me. That's a scary policy, IYAM, and stereotyping at its worst. 

When ZIP Codes first were introduced, many were concerned those ZIP Codes would be misused for exactly this kind of discrimination. Since that time (circa 1963). there have been countless examples of just that kind of abuse.

With MLK Day being just yesterday, we all might be encouraged to look deeper to see how the misuse of ZIP Codes might not be what they appear to be on the surface.

[pburn]

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@kimbvin-89 wrote:

Done all of those, still happening regularly! 

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@kimbvin-89 

Wait--are you the OP?

[soh.maryl]

eBay has an option that requires a seller to cancel using as reason "buyer didn't pay" when he finds himself with a nonpaying bidder.  That bidder then has a "strike".  Most smart sellers have set their buyer requirements to block any bidder with two strikes in a twelve -month period.  

PS: Would like to point out that sellers who aren't using that option are themselves contributing to the problem.