Buyers making offers and then refusing to pay

[bmw.449]

Has anyone else had issues with people making offers and then refusing to pay? This is happening quite a bit lately for me.  Is there any recourse for the seller to take besides blocking them?  I end up losing other possible buyers and then having to relist. eBay needs to help the seller out when buyers do this.  Also with buyers making false claims just to get a refund

[eburtonlab]

You can avoid nonpaying situations by listing for a fixed price with immediate payment required and by not accepting any offers. If you receive an offer you think is acceptable, instead of accepting it outright, instead lower your buy it now price to the offer amount to preserve your immediate payment requirement. That way the buyer must complete checkout and actually pay in order to end the listing.

[femmefan1946]

There are quite a few reports.

I think part of it is that the customer expects an immediate answer, but the seller may be away from his computer for a few hours for stupid stuff like picking up kids at daycare or sleeping or working the day job.

One system for using Best Offer without that delay is to set parameters.

Say you have an item at $35.

You would be delighted with $35, content with $30. And insulted by $25.

You set your asking price at $35

You set Best Offer to accept any offer of $30 or more.

You set Best Offer to reject any offer of $25 or less.

If your buyer offers $25, she gets a very polite rejection and an invitation to reoffer.

If she offers $30 (or $32) she is automatically accepted, billed and likely pays immediately.

She got her "deal" you got her money.

You can set the accept/reject parameters even closer if you want .

It's been my observation that most buyers think in round numbers so the $25 rejected offer is more likely to be followed by a $30 offer than a $25.50 offer.  (Anecdote is not data.)

[s.scharmu0]

Hi!   The last 5 who have won & bid never paid.  The one now who won is sending me messages with their phone # & e-mails. Yes, I showed E-bay that each time they have messaged me.

OOPS!   Offers you were asking about sorry. My answer was for winning bids...

[albertabrightalberta]

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@bmw.449 wrote:

Has anyone else had issues with people making offers and then refusing to pay? This is happening quite a bit lately for me.  Is there any recourse for the seller to take besides blocking them?  I end up losing other possible buyers and then having to relist. eBay needs to help the seller out when buyers do this.  Also with buyers making false claims just to get a refund

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I'm assuming that after they've made their offers, you've accepted. 

Once you accept, send the invoice and if they don't pay in 4 days, the case closes automatically and they get a strike. 

Once the non-payers have a more than 2 strikes, they'll be blocked by sellers who have their preference tightly set and eventually, ebay will take action.