eBay

baantiques · ‎05-16-2023

I've posted about him before. He's been my biggest buyer, he's probably spent $10k in the last 8 years. Up until the last year or so he's been a good customer. The problem now is he comes in and scoops up all my auctions with no bidders at the very end, and then much of the time doesn't pay. Last summer at one point he owed me $1500, all of which I had to write off and relist. Then he bought them again. And didn't pay. Currently he has 9 outstanding auctions in addition to the 5 I canceled late last month because of non payment, totaling about $300.

I'm sure he gets non payment strikes and has his account suspended, but he just opens a new account. His original account had over 25k feedback but now he has different accounts, all with very low feedback ratings. I have my listings set to not allow anyone with non payment strikes but he always seems to have an account that can get past that. It's like playing wack a mole - I can ban and report but he always has an account that he can use. I'd have to count for sure but I think I've seen 8 or so in the last year.

I'm not sure what to do here. He's costing me money and wasting my time.

mam98031 · ‎05-18-2023

@genv wrote:
Bay CAN block ALL the ISPs he uses... you just need a higher up.

@genv

I don't know what "you just need a higher up" means, but as I previously advised the OP, they need to Report the buyer to Ebay and I provided them a link to do so.

mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999

femmefan1946 · ‎05-18-2023

Block him.

Something has happened. A mental breakdown perhaps.

But you can't afford to stay friendly with him.

And move to Fixed Price /Immediate Payment Required. You have enough experience to know what a real customer will pay.

You don't have many auctions at the moment, so adding IPR to the others won't be a hardship.
And your auctions seem to get only one or two bids.

The worst is not what you have been telling us, I regret to say.

A suspicious member seeing many purchases by a single buyer , then those purchases being relisted, is going to think you two are in cahoots instead of you being victimized.

You may be losing customers, paying customers to this nonsense.

You may be able to go back to auctions some time in future, but at the moment, it looks unlikely.

What a maroon.- Bugs Bunny.

baantiques · ‎05-19-2023

He usually jumps in at the mast minute but not always. When I say canceled, I mean after the auction is over and he hasn't paid, I'll cancel the transaction after the minimum number of days. He's winning the auctions, usually by bidding at the last second on stuff that has no bids but not always, then maybe pays for one, sometimes none. I'll cancel the ones he hasn't paid for after the minimum payment time period and relist. Then he often jumps in with another user ID and buys them again. I just canceled 5 more this morning that he bought again after I canceled them the first time around, using a different user ID. I went back through and made sure all his user IDs I know of have been blocked.

monster-deals · ‎05-19-2023

@slippinjimmy wrote:
It is but you need to able to prove that the buyer tried with the blocked id and THEN used another id to purchase.

Sellers have no way of doing that.

ebay can do it in 5 seconds if they want to

baantiques · ‎05-21-2023

That's no longer effective. All he has to do is use a VPN and he can change IP addresses like we change underwear.

az93 · ‎05-21-2023

Your items are selling for your asking price. You have nothing to complain about. He may have downloaded a sniper app and is having a good old time. If i were you i would raise all my prices.

dhbookds · ‎05-21-2023

@az93 wrote:
Your items are selling for your asking price. You have nothing to complain about. He may have downloaded a sniper app and is having a good old time. If i were you i would raise all my prices.

point is......he's not paying for many of the things he buys.............

baantiques · ‎06-02-2023

Just got off a chat on the FB business page. They took a bunch of info on his accounts and items and said they would send it for review. Of course, they won’t tell me what if any action they took, so we’ll see. He just jumped in on 13 more auctions this morning with a new account I’ve not seen before.

shag182 · ‎06-02-2023

Just add this creature to your BLOCK Buyers list and say BYE FELICIA!

rugerskick · ‎06-02-2023

Block all his ID's. Contact ebay because they also are losing money here on a serial non-paying buyer. They can see everything hes done and not fulfilled his side of the sales contract on. It costs them money too when he doesn't pay.

zanmart · ‎06-02-2023

Definitely message eBay for Business on FB. They have been extremely responsive and helpful in all of the issues I've had. Tell them how the buyer doesn't pay and opens new accounts. They probably don't have the manpower to look into all of these accounts.

baantiques · ‎06-03-2023

I’ve blocked every single ID he’s used. The problem is he just opens a new one. This last batch of auctions he bid using two IDs I’ve not seen before. There have been 15 so far he’s used on my auctions, and who knows how many other sellers he’s done this to with additional IDs. So it’s basically a big game of wack a mole.

But I think his behavior is catching up to him. His initial ID that he started using years ago had a feedback rating of over 24,000, all as a buyer. This last one has a rating of 4. I’ve set my auctions to not allow anyone with non payment strikes to bid, and I’ve been keeping a close eye on my auctions and if he bids with enough time before the end of the auction, I cancel his bid and block the ID. If there are other sellers doing the same, then his IDs quickly become useless for buying and he’s got to open others. So hopefully my interaction with the business page people will get him on their radar screen and an investigation will reveal the extent of his crap and he will get permanently banned.

tabcu51 · ‎06-03-2023

@baantiques wrote:
I'll give that a go.
I counted 13 accounts he's used to buy from me over the last 2 years. Two of them are no longer active. I suspect what he does is bid on anything and everything, then only pays for a few items. When he reaches the point where has too many unpaid items, he switches accounts.

I just canceled 5 more auctions and blocked his account. Again.

How do you really know they're all the same person?

dirk12955 · ‎06-03-2023

Same name, Same address, Same town, Same guy. Same non-payments.

A buyer can't be blocked until he creates a new ID and bids with it. Every time the

poor frazzled OP gets a bid on an auction, He has to check and see if it's the same

sport bidder that's been harassing him previously.

It's an endless circle that only ebay can stop from happening.

baantiques · ‎06-29-2023

Just a quick update, the guy is still around and he's still buying from me, however, now he is paying albeit somewhat slowly (he just paid for two items almost a month old, but they were the last two so now he is caught up).

So I dunno if Ebay had a talk with him or if he wised up.