The new buyer cancellation policy is beyond stupid.

[alien_strings]

Once again, eBay catering to deadbeat buyers.  I have had more scams and flaking out buyers in the last month than I can believe.

This new rule lets them bid & win...sit on not paying for days..and then request a cancellation.  Effectively typing up your item for over an additional week of doing nothing.  

Why is the buyer fully refunded immediately but the seller is not refunded the fees until after a review?  If the buyer sits 3/4 days without paying and then requests cancellation and seller declines, does the clock start over for the grace period for submitting payment?

Why does it seem like ebay is encouraging poor behavior from buyers?   This is a great example of why ebay feels increasingly more and more as shady as shopping on AliExpress or DHGate.  Great job all!

I find it curious the email states it makes it easier for buyers and sellers.  How, exactly, does this make it easier on sellers?  It was pretty easy before...you won the auction, you pay.  Period.  No cancellations.  You don't pay after the grace period is up you get reported and I relist.  Pretty simple.  No, this rule is coddling the irresponsible.

[mam98031]

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@shop4animals wrote:

I just had an auction end and a few days later the high bidder asked that it be cancelled.  It was my first time to have the option to decline the request which I did.  Ebay cancelled the transaction for the buyer automatically anyway.  Why do they even ask you to consent or decline if they are going to cancel it per the buyers request either way?

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@shop4animals 

Had the buyer paid?  Probably not or you would have already shipped.  So Ebay went ahead and cancelled it because you have no ability to force the buyer to pay you, so it didn't much matter.  

What was your plan?  What were you going to do to force your buyer to buy your item?

The option to decline is on the request so that if you had shipped the item you could have denied the request.  Ebay also would not have stepped in if that were the case.

If it had been a "few days" since your buyer had purchased you item, since you didn't ship, I assume they didn't pay, so if they didn't pay, why didn't you file a Cancellation using the reason the Buyer Did Not Pay?

[aproudparent2010]

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@alien_strings wrote:

Once again, eBay catering to deadbeat buyers.  I have had more scams and flaking out buyers in the last month than I can believe.

This new rule lets them bid & win...sit on not paying for days..and then request a cancellation.  Effectively typing up your item for over an additional week of doing nothing.  

Why is the buyer fully refunded immediately but the seller is not refunded the fees until after a review?  If the buyer sits 3/4 days without paying and then requests cancellation and seller declines, does the clock start over for the grace period for submitting payment?

Why does it seem like ebay is encouraging poor behavior from buyers?   This is a great example of why ebay feels increasingly more and more as shady as shopping on AliExpress or DHGate.  Great job all!

I find it curious the email states it makes it easier for buyers and sellers.  How, exactly, does this make it easier on sellers?  It was pretty easy before...you won the auction, you pay.  Period.  No cancellations.  You don't pay after the grace period is up you get reported and I relist.  Pretty simple.  No, this rule is coddling the irresponsible.

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After 4 days cancel as payment not received. It's over and done with in 4 days not a week

[ittybitnot]

Four days unpaid and the Seller can open a Unpaid Item Claim.

@reallynicestamps 

Not so much anymore.  If a buyer "requests" a cancel, the ability for a seller to cancel for non-payment will not appear after the four day time allotment.  Buyers that 'ask to cancel' will not get a strike making the 'two in 12' block less effective.  

[oldwestgold]

I agree. This week, I have had several. In one auction, the bidder had a high bid for 8 days. Just 1 hour before the listing was to end, they requested to cancel their bids because they were placed in error. I told them they would have to retract, yet they never did. Another had a high bid in for 7 days and won. Hours after they won and paid, you guessed it, they requested to cancel as they had made a bidding error. The quality of buyers and sellers has dramatically declined on eBay.

As a buyer, I recently offered a high amount for an item. The seller agreed, and we completed the transaction with my paying - $200+ item. He canceled and refunded the next day, stating I requested to withdraw. He lied. I also noticed he relisted the exact item for $35 more the next day. He already has negative FB for doing this to other buyers.

Why should we complain about this? Because it takes time, which equates to money lost. It would be nice if eBay started aggressively kicking these losers off. I couldn't care less if I lost potential sales because of it. We all know eBay won't, however.

I hate to say it, but the bottom line in our society today is all of our fault. Why? Because we allow it to happen and don't say anything. Gen Z or whatever has no morals or a foundation for what's right or wrong in almost everything in their lives. They continue to get away with everything in life because they fully understand they will have no consequences. This is also why we see inflation in the form of higher taxes, higher insurance rates, etc. IMO. Have a great day, all.

[oldwestgold]

BINGO! You nailed it.

[oldwestgold]

You make a good point, which I never thought about. Why have the seller decline or approve anything if eBay will automatically do it for you in either event? This whole process just irritates the seller.

[mam98031]

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@reallynicestamps wrote:

Four days unpaid and the Seller can open a Unpaid Item Claim.

The Claim opens and closes immediately.

The deadbeat gets a Strike.

The fees on the unpaid transaction are removed.

These are paid from the payment. No payment. No fees. A change with Managed Payments compared to Paypal.

A few years ago it took eight days to end an Unpaid Item.

Four days before the seller could open the Claim (48 hours if the seller was uS-Based) and another four days grace for the deadbeat.

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@reallynicestamps 

"Four days unpaid and the Seller can open a Unpaid Item Claim."  That process has been gone for quite a while.  Sellers no longer have to do this.  We can simply file a Cancellation using the reason that the buyer did not pay and we are done with that buyer and that transaction.  There is nothing more that needs to be done except to relist your item and hopefully sell it to someone that pays.

An important note is do NOT send invoices to a buyer that isn't paying.  When you send an invoice, it restarts the 96 hour clock as to when you can file the Cancellation for non payment.

[mam98031]

@oldwestgold 

Cancelling bids is a piece of cake, annoying for sure, but can be done.  That cancellation requested on an active auction 1 hour before the auction ended does require the buyer to get the seller's permission to do that.  

Now just my opinion, if it were my auction and they were the only bid, I would grant it.  If it wasn't, I would ignore it until after the auction ended, then the buyer asked for a cancellation, to which I would approve and then send an SCO [second chance offer] to the next bidder.

This kind of stuff has always been a problem with Auctions.  It isn't new.  It is why Ebay finally gave sellers a tool to get Auction bidders to pay for their purchases by declaring a funding source before bidding.

[mam98031]

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@oldwestgold wrote:

You make a good point, which I never thought about. Why have the seller decline or approve anything if eBay will automatically do it for you in either event? This whole process just irritates the seller.

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Ebay only steps in on a Cancellation in specific situations.  What possible purpose can it serve for a seller, that has not yet been paid by the buyer, to deny their Cancellation request?  What good could come from that?

[shop4animals]

My only plan was to see what ebay would do as this was the first time I had seen the option to accept or decline a request for cancellation.  Now I know that they just cancel the transaction.  Ebay used to make people pay when you opened an Unpaid Item Claim so I thought I would give it a go in case they were going to reintroduce their previous policy.  The first rule for buyers it to honor their bids when they win auctions but ebay has chosen to ignore their own policy.  And now that I know their new policy I will know what to do next time.  

[mam98031]

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@shop4animals wrote:

My only plan was to see what ebay would do as this was the first time I had seen the option to accept or decline a request for cancellation.  Now I know that they just cancel the transaction.  Ebay used to make people pay when you opened an Unpaid Item Claim so I thought I would give it a go in case they were going to reintroduce their previous policy.  The first rule for buyers it to honor their bids when they win auctions but ebay has chosen to ignore their own policy.  And now that I know their new policy I will know what to do next time.  

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@shop4animals 

Ebay has never had the ability to force a buyer to pay for anything.  You are not remembering the process correctly as this never happened in the old UPI [unpaid item dispute] program.  And if you think on it a bit more, you would realize that the current system for unpaid items is faster and less time for sellers to wait before they can relist to sell the item hopefully to a paying buyer.  

Now if you are going to run auctions, there is newer buyer requirement you can use in your Buyer Requirement settings that will make them have to give a payment source in case they win the bidding on the auction.