eBay

benmurknsince91 · ‎04-08-2022

Anyone having issues with buyers bidding on your item and intentionally not planning on buying them? This has happened to me twice so far where a person bids on my item the last minute and wins the bid but messages me after winning the bid stating they did not mean to bid on the item after getting outbid a few times. Any recommendations??

mtgraves7984 · ‎04-08-2022

On Day 5 (after 96 hours of non-payment) you can cancel the order citing, 'Buyer didn't pay'. This will give your deadbeat an Unpaid Item Strike and will free up your item to relist. It protects all sellers the most. Sorry you've had troubles.

fashunu4eeuh · ‎04-08-2022

This is why i rarely do auctions anymore. (However, collectibles are one category where auctions still work.) To combat the problem, i mainly use fixed price with Immediate Payment Required. No Best Offers either.

Setting one’s Buyer Requirements may also help minimize the exposure to serial non-payers. BR can create active blocks whereby buyers with two or more non-payment strikes will not be able to purchase from those savvy sellers who employ it.

Don’t forget to put the non-payers on your manual block list too.

I strongly recommend (to friends and loved ones i’m teaching to sell on eBay) to not list valuable items until their feedback scores are built up some. New sellers with pricey items have scammer targets on their backs.

joseh1445 · ‎04-08-2022

Stop doing auctions. Just set up a Buy It Now price. I stop doing auctions about 2 years ago, and I don't miss doing them. Too many people do either overbid for the trill, game or just because they are bored. But they don't have the intention of paying.

Good luck on your selling journey.

robxznyc · ‎04-08-2022

You can't control what others do, so auction listings always have the risk of buyer not paying.

You can cancel order by indicating buyer hasn't paid, and then block buyers who caused more than 2 cancellations of unpaid purchases within 1, 6 or 12 months.

"What do we live for, if it's not to make life less difficult for each other?" — G Eliot

dbfolks166mt · ‎04-08-2022

I run nothing but auctions and this does happen on occasion and I just roll with the flow. After 5 days I cancel the order for non-payment and add the bidder to my BBL which has grown considerably over the last year. Others advise to use BIN which has it's own issues but is a viable alternative. A lot depends on what you are selling.

inhawaii · ‎04-08-2022

@benmurknsince91 wrote:
Anyone having issues with buyers bidding on your item and intentionally not planning on buying them? This has happened to me twice so far where a person bids on my item the last minute and wins the bid but messages me after winning the bid stating they did not mean to bid on the item after getting outbid a few times. Any recommendations??

How would you know it was intentional?

At Seventeen - Janis Ian

a_c_green · ‎04-08-2022

@benmurknsince91 wrote:
Anyone having issues with buyers bidding on your item and intentionally not planning on buying them? This has happened to me twice so far where a person bids on my item the last minute and wins the bid but messages me after winning the bid stating they did not mean to bid on the item after getting outbid a few times. Any recommendations??

Disregarding whether auction format may or may not be the best method for the item being sold, in this situation the best approach is to cancel, selecting the reason of Buyer Requested (which it is). Slam the deadbeat into your Blocked Buyer List (here) and send a Second Chance Offer to the second-place bidder.

Second Chance links can be found in the Bid History for your item next to each bidder ID that will accept those offers. (I don't mean that they will accept your offer automatically, but that their preferences are not set to block SCOs from being sent.) This may enable you to salvage the auction for no more than one bidding increment less than what your deadbeat winner was offering.

iart · ‎04-08-2022

If they were game cards, like the others you are selling, it is a problem in that category. We've made some good money on those kinds of cards but they also came with a lot of problem buyers.

Our recommendation? Sell something else.

anjofak · ‎04-08-2022

Why do these people always say stop doing auctions in these threads?

Out of the last 1200 sold on this site only 4 were buy it nows, the others just go around and around month after month..strange

theteamsetguy · ‎04-08-2022

1200 what? Widgets?

genv · ‎04-08-2022

Happens on FP... Order... Pay... 1/2 later, ask to cancel...

" Ordered by mistake. "

Good thing I don't run to pack & ship same day before PO closes anymore.

Waste of time, packing materials, etc.

reallynicestamps · ‎04-08-2022

After 5 days I cancel the order for non-payment and add the bidder to my BBL which has grown considerably over the last year.

That's a fast cure for your problem and gets the item relisted quickly.

It also allows you to make Second Chance Offers.

But allowing the Unpaid Item Dispute and giving the deadbeat a Strike helps all other sellers since most will have set up an Automatic Block against deadbeats with Strikes.

So you are making a decision between your own convenience and the public good.

Both are valid.

a_c_green · ‎04-08-2022

@anjofak wrote:
Why do these people always say stop doing auctions in these threads?

It depends on what the item is. If it has a commonly-known average retail price or value, it can be listed as a Fixed Price (for whatever you want to get for it), and you can add the Immediate Payment Required (IPR) option. That will prevent anyone from snatching your item off the market without actually paying you for it first.

Other methods can allow someone to win your item but not pay for it, at least not immediately. This generally means auctions, but can also include accepted Offers (i.e. the Make Offer option on a listing) or Fixed Price listings where the IPR had not been applied. (eBay is testing the addition of a payment method requirement on buyers making offers, to trigger payment if the offer is accepted, but it's not fully in place yet.)

If you have a rare or one-of-a-kind item, maybe vintage, collectible or antique, or a used example, any of which have no set value and might result in competitive bidding, then that would be a good candidate for an auction. You wouldn't want to put that out as a Fixed Price listing that sells in 17 minutes, leaving you to wish that you'd tried to get more for it.