Slow payment

[daisychain2a]

How long do sellers wait before opening a case for non payment?    Perhaps I expect everyone to be like me and pay right away.

[luckythewinner]

Some sellers wait the minimum.

I wait four weeks.

There really is no "right" answer.

[klhmdg]

I have mine set for 48 hours. eBay automatically opens an unpaid claim.

 I want to get my fees back and be able to relist as soon as possible.

[lisa5768]

Up to you. You can file a Unpaid Item case as soon as 2 full days have gone by and then anytime up to 32 days. After that it is too late.

[soh.maryl]

Per eBay rules, sellers can open an unpaid item case after 48 hours and have 32 days to do so.

[teltuooutlet]

I allow 4 days before I have eBay open a case for me automatically. I always make sure to send the buyer a note though the next day thanking them for the order and letting them know I cannot ship until I receive their payment. The note always works and I have few instances of having to open a case.

[katzrul15]

We send a reminder at day 3.  Day 5, we go ahead and file if no response to the "reminder" on day 3.

Lately it seems like folks are a little slower to pay.  Only 1 did not follow thru and that was early January.

Do you have a specific issue or just seeing a trend?  The ones that do a Best offer and then wait a week to pay are the worst.....never understand why they did the Best offer when they did.

[bimm_corp]

Unfortunately sellers are going to lose even the minimal protection that the Unpaid Item Case provided. eBay is replacing it with some nebulous "unpaid item cancellation" and even expects the seller to initiate the cancellation. It's supposed to start some time this month, so if you have the Unpaid Item Assistant active for any of your selling accounts it will soon stop working. A real crock. Check it out here,

https://pages.ebay.com/seller-center/seller-updates/2021-spring/business.html#m17-1-tb2

[reallynicestamps]

Sellers can open an Unpaid Item Dispute after 96 hours. (48 hours if the seller is US-based).

Since eBay sent an invoice within seconds of the purchase, I wait until Day Three (I'm in Canada thus under the 96 hour deadline) and file the Dispute if there is no communication at Hour 96 or so.

Sometimes "communication" is a polite explanation of a problem. I can handle that.

If there is not response/payment to the Dispute, it can be closed after another 96 hours.

Waiting eight days is long enough, but I do know of sellers who wait up to 30 days to open the Dispute. Usually those sellers have buyers who are amassing a larger purchase and looking for combined and discounted postage.

The advantage for those sellers, besides the obvious additional sales, is saving the 30c non-refundable fee on each transaction. With a dozen sales and one transaction the seller saves $3.30, which buys a small latte.

[katzrul15]

Had not seen or even heard about this.  

Will I be able to use Unpaid Item Assistant?

Formerly known as Unpaid Item Assistant, “Preferences for items awaiting payment” can be customized to automatically cancel purchases where buyers haven’t paid.

Hopefully the preferences we have in place carry forward, but am guessing no.  One more thing we would have found when it did not work as in the past.

Thanks so much for posting this.........on here every day and still miss so much on this "spring/sprung it on us" update.  

[crescentstation]

I give them 10 days. It probably should be less. I've had very few non-payers in 20+ years, but I'm in a category with mostly honest Buyers.

[postingid7659]

The longer it takes someone to pay generally the more likely they will not pay.

I open the case at 48 hours as if they do intend to pay that serves as the reminder.  If they don't pay then I can get the item back on ebay sooner with less disruption.   If they haven't paid in 7 days and have made no contact they aren't paying.  

[inhawaii]

Number 2 rule on ebay .......... Don't expect others to be like you.

Number 1 rule on ebay .......... Don't  sell anything you can't afford to lose.

I never wait to get paid.  I only have fixed price listings with buy it now and immediate payment required.

Good luck and stay safe.

[jonathankirkland]

---

@luckythewinner wrote:

Some sellers wait the minimum.

I wait four weeks.

There really is no "right" answer.

---

Wait, seriously?? You give buyers a MONTH to pay!? How many of them actually pay in that time?

[jonathankirkland]

@daisychain2a 

Are you doing auctions or buy-nows?

If you're doing buy-nows you can require immediate payment. That's what I do to avoid the non-paying nonsense tying up my inventory.