Non- paying bidders with zero feedbacks

[menmichef]

I have had so many bidders with zero feedback that never pay for their item after it’s won. I listed one particular item 3 times and each time, it’s been these loser bidders with zero feedbacks that have NO intention to pay. I put a lot of hard work and money into my eBay and such bidders make it very difficult to run a small business affectively. Is there a way sellers can not allow bidders with zero feedback to bid on their items? Am I the only one this is happening to? And what is EBay doing about it? 

[njcarpetbagger]

I wonder if you get this worked up about all the people who don't pay?

[ms.rodriguez*]

It's actually 96 hours after the ad ended. On the 4th day.  Give them an extra minute to pay . No $$, then cancel with the excuse that buyer did not pay. Make sure to block that buyer.

[pburn]

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@ms.rodriguez* wrote:

It's actually 96 hours after the ad ended. On the 4th day.  Give them an extra minute to pay . No $$, then cancel with the excuse that buyer did not pay. Make sure to block that buyer.

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@ms.rodriguez* 

All over the help pages on this topic, eBay states "four calendar days."

devon@ebay 

kyle@ebay 

elizabeth@ebay 

Does the nonpayment cancellation option appear after 96 hours or 4 calendar days? There's a definite difference . . .

[southern*sweet*tea]

I can honestly say I have never once had a zero feedback buyer fail to pay.  Not once.

Every non-payer I've ever had has had at least a few feedback points.  Some have had in feedback in the hundreds, and more than a few have had feedback in the thousands.  A handful of these deadbeats were sellers, you would think they would know better.

File the unpaid cancellation, give the bums their strikes and move on, that's what I do.  Since I prefer to use best offer it's just something I have to deal with every so often.  I really don't get a lot of non-payers, maybe two or three a year at most.

If I were having a lot of issues with non-payers I'd absolutely use BIN w/IPR

[iamalwaysright]

No.

Just stop doing auctions and use require immediate payment.

[nobody*s_perfect]

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@pburn wrote: ... Does the nonpayment cancellation option appear after 96 hours or 4 calendar days? There's a definite difference . . .

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So much of eBay's help is so badly written, I suspect that they said "calendar days" only to distinguish from business days.  In other words, it the auction closes on Thursday night, then you can cancel on Monday night which is 4 calendar days later, rather than on Wednesday, which would be 4 business days.   If that's what they mean then they should just say 4 days.

Surely there's somebody on this board who doesn't have automatic cancellation set up, who can tell us whether or not they were able to cancel 96+ hours later rather than waiting until the following (calendar) day.

[kyle@ebay]

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@pburn wrote:

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@ms.rodriguez* wrote:

It's actually 96 hours after the ad ended. On the 4th day.  Give them an extra minute to pay . No $$, then cancel with the excuse that buyer did not pay. Make sure to block that buyer.

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@ms.rodriguez* 

All over the help pages on this topic, eBay states "four calendar days."

devon@ebay 

kyle@ebay 

elizabeth@ebay 

Does the nonpayment cancellation option appear after 96 hours or 4 calendar days? There's a definite difference . . .

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Hey @pburn, an order can be cancelled after 4 calendar days, as outlined in our help page here.   As @nobody*s_perfect mentioned, it is stated as calendar days so as to differentiate from business days.  

[nobody*s_perfect]

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kyle@ebay wrote: ... Hey @pburn, an order can be cancelled after 4 calendar days, as outlined in our help page here.   As @nobody*s_perfect mentioned, it is stated as calendar days so as to differentiate from business days.  

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I also agreed that (as shown in the other posts) using the term "calendar days" is confusing.  96 hours is NOT the same as 4 calendar days. The page would be less confusing if the word "calendar" was removed. Or say 4 "full" days rather than 4 "calendar" days.

[craigstevensstudio]

ebays way of FORCING SELLERS away from auctions and towards "buy it nows".    (in my opinion this is a BIG MISTAKE!)   ebay is KILLING the thing that made them big in order to try and be someone like amazon.   but  the AUCTION WORLD is a very big and lucrative  world.  and ebay is turning its back.  (very foolish)   yes many  things can be sold as buy it nows, but some rare things need the auction format.   their should be different rules for each and the two types of sales should be seperated.      no auction house in their right mind would allow  buyer remorse for a auction purchase. or getting their product and having it for 30 days then being able to get their money back.  (THAT IS WHAT IS KILLING EBAY AUCTIONS)   

[pburn]

Thanks, kyle@ebay, but this might be a better page to link than the one you provided in your post.

Still, I think there needs to be more clarification on the "4 calendar day" process.

"If that happens, you can cancel the order after 4 calendar days."

In the following scenarios, which is correct?

• If a buyer wins an auction at 10 a.m. on Monday, four calendar days later will be Friday, and after four calendar days would be Saturday at 12:01 a.m.  The transaction could be cancelled at any time on Saturday. 
• If a buyer wins an auction at 10 a.m. on Monday, four calendar days will be Friday, and the transaction could be cancelled at any time after 10 a.m. on Friday.
• If a buyer wins an auction at 10 a.m. on Monday, 96 hours will be Friday, and the transaction could be cancelled at any time after 10 a.m. on Friday.

Will the transaction be cancelable on Friday or Saturday?

[craigstevensstudio]

no way??? really????  that is not correct.  ebay COULD make people pay when they win.  (or block them from future bidding)    ya...that  is what needs to be done but now days   but they are causeing their own problems by catering to it.    why not do away with auctions all together then?     i dont get ebays thinking.    heck, if nothing else break into a second business and seperate the two.   by down playing or driving away auction format you are loosing the entire market nitch witch is worth hundreds of billions of dollar.s    not real smart ebay.

[reallynicestamps]

Almost all of these complaints, and we see a lot of them, are about Auctions.

So.

Don't use Auctions.

Use Fixed Price /Immediate Payment Required.

Your item will be available for 30 days instead of seven, and will renew with no effort on your part after that.

You can Block bidders with Strikes for non-payment through your Seller Preferences or through Buyer Requirements.

And you can help other sellers by filing Unpaid Item Disputes which is how those deadbeats "earn" the Strikes.

[reallynicestamps]

The "96 hours" is better than calendar or business days, because it leaves out  "days" entirely.

[pburn]

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@reallynicestamps wrote:

The "96 hours" is better than calendar or business days, because it leaves out  "days" entirely.

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When this whole cancellation for nonpayment process was introduced, sellers who had their automatic cancellation for nonpayment in place (or if they switched to automatic), unpaid transactions were cancelled by eBay automatically after 96 hours. Period. No "days" involved--just after 96 hours.

Sellers who were cancelling unpaid transactions were the ones for whom the number of days (after four full days, cancelling on day five) came into play.

Lord only knows how any of this is currently being processed.

And I definitely agree with @nobody*s_perfect that the help pages on this topic are really quite poorly written. 

kyle@ebay 

Please pass along to the appropriate team that all the pages dealing with the cancellation for nonpayment process--both automatic and manual--need to be rewritten with precise language. People responded in this thread are long-time members, and they still can't figure out how the dang process works--timing-wise, anyway. That's definitely the fault of whoever wrote the help pages.

[nobody*s_perfect]

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@pburn wrote: ... Please pass along to the appropriate team that all the pages dealing with the cancellation for nonpayment process--both automatic and manual--need to be rewritten with precise language. ....

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FTFY

When the Help pages were reformatted a couple of years ago, many pages were badly rewritten, losing clarity and important details.