Non-paying Auction Winner

[*missmarie]

Hello everyone.

This is my first time posting here, but I figured that the other sellers on this platform might be able to help me make some sense of the predicament that I'm in.

Recently, I put up a phone for sale. I already know that selling electronics leaves you open to potential schemers(I've dealt with this twice before.), so I was aware that it could happen again. Nonetheless, I posted the phone up auction-style. 20+ bids later and I have a winner. Great. So, I go to see who the winner is, and I am met with a long, confuddled username. It kinda puts me off, but that doesn't really matter. I merely need to receive my payment and ship off the item to its new owner.

Four days go by, and I have not received any sort of payment. I go to check out the winning bidder's profile. They have been a member of eBay since Nov-06-17 and have only purchased from two other sellers; one of which is no longer even a registered user. But the bidder has 100% positive feedback from these sellers so... I don't know if any of these little details really matter.

So, another day goes by, and I still have not received any payment. I decide that I will send an invoice to the bidder and if they do not reply and/or pay me by the next day then I will submit an unpaid item case. I made that decision yesterday, and I have now submitted my case to eBay.

So, I would like to ask, Did I take the right course of action? Was there anything else that I could have done? Did I react to this situation poorly in any way? I've only sold around 17+ items on eBay so I'm still quite new when it comes to being a seller.

[emerald40]

Welcome!

All buyers have positive feedback, because that is all sellers are allowed to leave them.

File non payment.  4 days later close it.

Block this buyer.

You are smart to be vigilant, especially with phones.

Always make sure to check your paypal account to make sure the money is in there and it is OK to ship.  Never rely on emails, and never give your personal email out to buyers who request it.

In the future, you may want to list it as a fixed price with immediate payment required.  I would also sell to US only in this case.

Good luck!

[labs118 · Accepted solution]

@*missmarie
Well your braver them me I have been here almost since the start & wouldn't sell a phone here

But either way opening the UPI is the correct thing to do

I wouldn't have invoiced the buyer because ebay sends an end of auction email, they know they need to pay.
Sending an invoice locks in the shipping rate to the buyers address on file but then a buyer can come along to  pay & on the payment checkout page change the delivery address to anywhere, Shipping can cost more. You can get burned that way so unless it is a combined shipping I don't ever send an invoice.

Also the buyer having 100% means nothing as buyers can't have anything but positive feedback.

Welcome to the boards & Good luck to you 
glad you found your way here, there are a great bunch of posters here who are very helpful, it does good to come here & just read to learn

[sandmansales]

You can

1. Change your listings to But it Now with Immediete Payment Required and never worry about payment again.

2. If you decide to keep auctions, go into site preferences and set an automatic UPI after 2 days. With very few exceptions there is no reason a buyer cannot submit payment within 48 hours.

3. No need to send an invoice, ebay does that for you.

Researching the buyer's profile is a waste of time. He either pays or he doesn't. All sole buyers on ebay have 100% positive feedback. They cannot receive negatives per ebay policy.

You probably just got another deadbeat. They are rampant here and very little to nothing has been done to address it.

[*missmarie]

Thank you for your reply.

So should I go ahead and just block the bidder now?

[*missmarie]

Thank you for your reply.

The only reason that I sent an invoice was that I thought that, for some odd reason, maybe the bidder hadn't received a notice that they'd won the auction.

[*missmarie]

Thank you for your reply.

I'll make sure to look into setting up an automatic UPI.

[southernfriedbelle]

Hi, @*missmarie. You did the right thing. I know eBay automatically sends an invoice, so the other responders are probably accurate in saying you don't need to send one, but in your shoes, I would have likely done it as well, as a little "reminder." I was not aware the buyer could change the shipping amount, however,  so as @labs118 pointed out,  it's probably not a good idea. 

The only thing I would have done differenly is I would have opened a UPI sooner. Once you set that up to occur automatically,  it takes a huge burden off of you.  The only drawback is you have to wait 48 hours, and then an additional 96 hours, so your item is in a listing limbo for nearly a week. Sure beats losing your item, though. Give me a deadbeat non-payer over a MBG abuser any day!

[castlemagicmemories]

OP, you might want to list that phone as fixed price, immediate payment required.  Then you won't be in this situation.

I understand that 80% of all listings are fixed price, immediate payment required.

You open an unpaid item dispute, UPI or UID, same thing, in 48 hrs, then close it in 96 hrs.  The buyer gets a strike and you get your fees back~just two of those strikes will block the buyer from buying from thousands of sellers who have their blocks set to block those with two or more strikes in a year.

Sorry this happened to you, wishing you success selling!

[*missmarie]

Thank you for your reply.

I did not know that a buyer could change the amount of a shipment either. This situation also leaves me pondering as to what to do about two other electronics that I was planning to sell: an iPhone and an iPod shuffle.

[*missmarie]

Thank you for your reply.

It's ok, I knew that there was a possibility of this happening. I will, however, that into account your advice for how I will sell my item when I ultimately relist it.

[drmarcalpert]

Why can't we give negative feedback on deadbeat buyers?  What is the ebay rational for this?

[missjen831]

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@drmarcalpert wrote:

Why can't we give negative feedback on deadbeat buyers?  What is the ebay rational for this?

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What is the rational for giving them negative feedback? It was never a deterrent and it wasn’t an adequate means of warning others. in most cases, the buyer will have bought from you before you see their negative feedback so......what purpose would it serve? To make the seller feel better? To give them a means of retaliation? 

[robot-hands]

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@missjen831 wrote:

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@drmarcalpert wrote:

Why can't we give negative feedback on deadbeat buyers?  What is the ebay rational for this?

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What is the rational for giving them negative feedback? It was never a deterrent and it wasn’t an adequate means of warning others. in most cases, the buyer will have bought from you before you see their negative feedback so......what purpose would it serve? To make the seller feel better? To give them a means of retaliation? 

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I find that any element  warning me of an imprending bad transaction is a good thing. If I had an offer come in and I looked them up and found they had a pile of negative feedback for not paying I could just block them and move on and not loose my time, position and watchers. 

and that is a good thing.

[the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth]

what about the thousands of good buyers who got bad feedback they didn't deserve? Would you be ok with bad sellers running off a lot of YOUR good buyers? That's what used to happen when sellers were allowed to use and abuse buyer feedback.

Never forget that things are great when you deal with good people. It's giving weapons to bad people that causes the problems.