@luckythewinner wrote:
@nobody*s_perfect wrote:
Maybe my memory is faulty, too. I remember that eBay used to have a "3 strikes and you're out" policy, which was actually 4 strikes because if you asked nicely they would forgive the first one.
I did not pay for dozens of auctions back when eBay was the "wild west" for sellers who could give buyers negative feedback, invoice for higher shipping amounts, and refuse to ship unless they got payment in cash.
So if there was a policy, it was probably never enforced because I was never "removed from the system" let alone have to "ask nicely" to be let back in.
Going that far back, you're probably right, which would partly explain why eBay soon got around to having some kind of organized method for dealing with deadbeats.
In its initial forms, it was insanely clunky and drawn out (I think you had to wait 8 days before opening an Unpaid case, then wait another 8 days before it would time out; something like that), but was eventually scaled back a bit in terms of how long you had to wait before opening a dispute, and how long you had to wait after that before you could close it. I can see why a lot of sellers didn't bother going through all that rigmarole, and were ready to just forget the deadbeats in the same manner that the deadbeats would forget to pay.
In later years it was firmed up a bit, and was at a four-day minimum for payment before the seller could file, followed by another four days' wait before it would close out and you could relist, so you had 8 days minimum before you could get out from under a deadbeat transaction and relist without risk of the original buyer suddenly reappearing.
This current procedure of waiting four days, then being able to cancel right then and there with no further waiting required, is the shortest term they've had. Outside of Immediate Payment Required transactions (which by definition bypass this whole procedure altogether), I think this four-day wait is probably the shortest they're going to have for the foreseeable future.
