Is there something wrong with my account?

[fancypants35]

Sometimes when I "accept" a counteroffer it says the item is awaiting payment. Then I never get paid. And it says the offer expired.  I thought  that once the buyer made an offer or counteroffer they were in a contract to pay? Or is the counteroffer not going through on ebay side?

[brightlightbookseller]

This has been changed a while ago, now offers accepted don't mark an item as sold until the buyer actually pays.  Presumably this was to cut down on the problems surrounding non-paying buyers.  Sometimes buyers don't know, though, how to access those "Accepted" offers (which really sometimes show up as Counter-Offers I hear), so they don't know how to pay for it or even that it was accepted sometimes.  If you see it sitting for a few days, it might be worth a nice message to the buyer to see if they saw the response.

[wastingtime101]

Unfortunately, a lot of buyers and sellers are reporting the same @fancypants35  ; buyers are not receiving notice their counter-offers were accepted. Some sellers have started sending messages letting buyers know they accepted their offers.

The process of the offer moving to pending status is something eBay has been testing with accepted offers - they remain in pending status while the item is available for anybody else to purchase until the buyer pays. It's one of several things eBay is testing to cut down on non-payers and the inconvenience to sellers when buyers lose interest after an item ends, and seller has to start from scratch when they relist.

If the buyer does not pay within a certain amount of time it will time out and be removed from the pending section. If the buyer pays then it will become an official transaction on your orders page. In the meantime, any buyer can purchase at full price or make an offer.

Listing Offer Management Page

[albertabrightalberta]

@fancypants35 

After accepting an offer, don't make the mistake of ending the listing if/when you see it still in your active listings and think it's a duplicate listing. 

That will prevent the buyer from paying for it and if you have limits and restrictions, you may have trouble relisting. 

Once it's paid for, it'll disappear from your actives. 

[ittybitnot]

Sometimes when I "accept" a counteroffer it says the item is awaiting payment. Then I never get paid. 

@fancypants35 

When a buyer makes or initiates an offer to you, you retain the buyer rules that force them to enter a payment source in order to make the offer.  If you accept such an offer, the buyer will be automatically billed, paid in full as soon as you accept.  Of course, this is not usually appreciated by buyers since their payment sources are quite limited, and any combined shipping for one price for multiple items cannot be done. 

In the above scenario, should you make a counter offer, it will be treated as if you sent an offer, and the buyer can either pay, deny, or ignore. 

When you send an offer, eBay has declared that all of these will be immediate payment required.  Though the buyer can choose to pay how they wish, the need to pay for the product in order to get it.  There is no accept button, so all have to be paid separately, and combined shipping is not an option for multiple sales. 

If the buyer in the above situation sends a counter offer and you accept, the buyer does not get a notice that you accepted their offer.  Likely, they think you are just ignoring them unless they happen into their "offers" list and see an offer from you for the counter offer.  If you accept a counter offer, it would make sense at this point to let the buyer know. It will remain for sale until somebody pays.