How to resolve an old incomplete transaction?

[bitsofsiliconvalley]

I allowed a trusted buyer to go for several weeks without paying for his purchases so he could combine shipping for several items he wanted. When he was ready to pay, I couldn't figure out how to make eBay combine shipping. ("Allow combine shipping" is enabled in my profile, but I couldn't find a way to do it; I concluded that it only applies to items purchased at about the same time.)

I sent the buyer a private offer for all of the items he had purchased with the appropriate shipping charge. To compute the shipping charge I marked one of his purchases paid so I could start the shipping process and set the appropriate weight in the shipping calculator. I intended to reverse the "paid" setting after shipping, then cancel all of the uncompleted transactions.

When I tried to cancel the uncompleted transactions, eBay wouldn't let me. It said it was "too late" to do that. Now I've got a bunch of transactions that I can't get rid of, which make one of my best buyers appear to be a deadbeat.

How do I fix this? The only way I can think of is to mark them all shipped, and absorb FVFs on a bunch of transactions that never happened. And I don't know if I can even do that; if eBay says it's "too late" to cancel a transaction for some reason, maybe it's too late to mark a transaction paid, too.

[partial*eclipse]

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@bitsofsiliconvalley wrote:

I allowed a trusted buyer to go for several weeks without paying for his purchases so he could combine shipping ...  if eBay says it's "too late" to cancel a transaction for some reason, maybe it's too late to mark a transaction paid, too.

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First of all: How long is "several weeks"?  ebay's limit on canceling a transaction or on combining an invoice is 30 days.  So if you went past that, then that's why it wasn't possible.

If you're not past the cutoff date, then the way to do it is to click on "Send invoice" for one of the items. The next screen will give you the option to add the buyer's other purchases to that invoice.  You can look up the shipping cost to enter in the invoice at usps.com or with eBay's shipping calculator.

http://www.ebay.com/shp/Calculator

Your buyer isn't marked as a deadbeat if you didn't file an unpaid item claim against him.

[siayan]

So you are saying you combined everything and sold off eBay????? Best to keep your head down.

[retrose1]

If the transaction is over 30 days old, it is gone and you can do nothing about cancelling or getting your fees back.

You made this more complicated than it should have been.  You should have issued a specific cut off point and had them pay off the accumulation up to that point and then started a new cut off point for the next round and then packed and shipped when full.  And refunded the difference in ship costs to the buyer.   Every week would have been good.

I have had people buy something and then insist that they want to pay after they buy something in the future from you.  It is rare that they pay for everything, and in most cases they don't respond after they don't win the other item.  The buyers get all the thrill of shopping and none of the expense.

And it sounds like you are trying to shaft ebay out of fees - ebay doesn't like that. 

[dhbookds]

Did you try canceling them?  I would alert your buyer as you want to use buyer requested and ebay may require the buyer to confirm the cancellation.

Having said that.......probably if Ebay said it was too late........it probably is.

[bitsofsiliconvalley]

dhbookds, yes, I tried to cancel one of the items. I didn't try to cancel the others. If the system allowed me to cancel some but not others, it really wouldn't have solved the problem. It would have reduced my final value fees, but eBay gave me no information at all about what "too late" meant, so that didn't occur to me as a possibility. Since then I've spent considerable time trying to figure out a way around the problem, so if it wasn't too late for every item when the problem occurred, it is too late now. It looks like all I can do is mark the items paid and shipped, and eat the FVFs.

siyan, I see how "private offer" could be interpreted to mean an off-eBay sale, but I do not do that, ever. I listed the buyer's purchases as a single item with a statement that it was being offered for sale to a specific member, and purchases by others would be canceled. I really don't know what to call this type of transaction. eBay doesn't seem to make a provision for it, which is odd, because they're just making it hard not to conduct a sale off eBay.

[siayan]

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@bitsofsiliconvalley wrote:

dhbookds, yes, I tried to cancel one of the items. I didn't try to cancel the others. If the system allowed me to cancel some but not others, it really wouldn't have solved the problem. It would have reduced my final value fees, but eBay gave me no information at all about what "too late" meant, so that didn't occur to me as a possibility. Since then I've spent considerable time trying to figure out a way around the problem, so if it wasn't too late for every item when the problem occurred, it is too late now. It looks like all I can do is mark the items paid and shipped, and eat the FVFs.

siyan, I see how "private offer" could be interpreted to mean an off-eBay sale, but I do not do that, ever. I listed the buyer's purchases as a single item with a statement that it was being offered for sale to a specific member, and purchases by others would be canceled. I really don't know what to call this type of transaction. eBay doesn't seem to make a provision for it, which is odd, because they're just making it hard not to conduct a sale off eBay.

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I apologize for my assumption.