Why do some buyers never pay?

[mpssupershop]

Since I've started selling around this time of year I've noticed I've had to deal with a frustrating amount of occasions where I make a sale, and then the buyer just ghosts me, never actually paying for the item and never responding to my attempts to reach out to them until eventually I'm forced to cancel the order. I don't know why some of these people purchase something that they clearly had no intention of actually paying for, but as a seller it is extremely annoying.

[a_c_green]

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@soh.maryl wrote:

Have never heard of eBay doing it "automatically" after four days.  

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@soh.maryl : That option has been available for many years. In the past it was called the Unpaid Item Assistant, a seller option that you could activate, and which would open an Unpaid Item dispute automatically for you after 2 days (minimum) from the purchase or auction win. The buyer would then get 4 additional days to pay, after which the process would automatically close it out and award an Unpaid slap to the buyer. You could postpone the start of the dispute process beyond 2 days (I had mine set to 4) or cancel it for any buyer on request if desired.

Finally, a couple of years ago, more or less, eBay shortened the Unpaid process even more, and now the buyer has a 4-day minimum within which to pay, but after that the seller can slam the case immediately, with an Unpaid slap on the buyer at that time. The old Unpaid Item Assistant has now morphed into the "Preferences for items awaiting payment page" seen here: 

https://www.ebay.com/Cancel/Preference/UnpaidPurchase 

That page includes a field where you can enter buyer IDs who will be exempt from the process, such as buyers who have requested a longer payment window from you.

[a_c_green]

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@mpssupershop wrote:

I don't know why some of these people purchase something that they clearly had no intention of actually paying for, but as a seller it is extremely annoying.

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One other possibility that I'm not sure was mentioned here yet was an auction buyer who sprays bids across multiple auctions for the same or similar items, pays for whichever one he wins for the lowest price, and ghosts all the others.

As for Fixed Price deadbeats, check the Immediate Payment Required box near the bottom of the listing form, and no one will be able to yank your item off the market without actually paying you for it first.

As already noted, if you have Make Offer on your listing, be sure that you have the new seller option selected to require buyers to provide their payment info to eBay along with their offer, so that you will be paid immediately if you decide to accept the offer.

[dbfolks166mt]

One other possibility that I'm not sure was mentioned here yet was an auction buyer who sprays bids across multiple auctions for the same or similar items, pays for whichever one he wins for the lowest price, and ghosts all the others.

     This may be one of the downsides to the autopay option. Bidders can still shotgun the auctions with bids. If they win more than one they can simply request the seller cancel for the ones they don't want. If seller sends the item they could simply lie, not that a buyer would do that, and open a NAD. Hopefully, however at some point eBay would catch on to buyers that were doing this and suspend them but that is probably not going to happen. 

[reallynicestamps]

 why don't they just cancel the order so that I can relist it

Because they are thoughtless dimwits.

It's like the person who picks up a box of cereal in the supermarket then changes their mind and leaves it on a shelf in the detergent aisle.

Someone has to return that cereal to its proper place*, but thoughtless dimwits have trouble forming that concept.

You can set up your listings so that a buyer must make Immediate Payment or the listing remains visible and available to the first paying buyer.
You can set up your Auctions so that any bidder must register their method of payment before their bid is accepted.

You can set up your listings to automatically Cancel Unpaid Items after 96 hours.

All of these have some drawbacks, but all solve the problem you posted.

*The supermarket I usually use has bins near the cashiers, so that unwanted items can be returned to the shelves quickly and efficiently.  And those bins are usually full, so there are a lot of decisions being made at the register.

[a_c_green]

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@reallynicestamps wrote:

You can set up your Auctions so that any bidder must register their method of payment before their bid is accepted.

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Is that actually in effect yet? I've seen the new checkboxes on the Buyer Requirements page, and (in my buying account) I am now always asked to verify my intended payment details before I can submit an offer, but (so far) I have not been asked for payment details when bidding in an auction.

My nightmare is swooping in to snipe an auction with 4 seconds left to go, only to hit a payment details confirmation screen first and thus miss the ending of the auction. That hasn't happened yet.

It may be simply that I got selected for the first group for Make Offer payment info, but not the first group for Auction Bidding payment info. Exactly when I'm going to start getting hit for bidding payment info, I'm not sure.

[theteamsetguy]

@mpssupershop ,

Here are some good reasons.

1. They got in a bad car accident and is in the hospital.

2. They died.

3. They bid on your item and by the time the auction ends they forgot about it.

4. They went out of town.

5. Their wife, husband, boy friend, or girl friend goes what were you thinking?

6. They got fired or laid off from their job.

7. Their dog ate their only credit card so they can’t pay.

8. They got arrested and is in jail.

9. Their needed car repairs and they no longer have the money.

10. Their spouse served them with divorce papers.

11. They needed the money for something else.

[angelno_11]

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Many of us avoid auctions for this reason. 

why don't they just cancel the order

Probably because they have no incentive to cancel the order. 

Why just leave the item in that state of limbo until eventually Ebay autocancels the order and penalizes them

Probably because eBay does not really penalize them. 

I don't know why some of these people purchase something that they clearly had no intention of actually paying for

In some cases, they are comparison shopping. They bid on a number a items, and only pay for the one that turns out to be the best deal. 

[theteamsetguy]

@reallynicestamps ,

How about the guy that leaves the 🥩 or ice cream in the detergent aisle?

[reallynicestamps]

Oh gosh, my friend Duncan is a night shelf stocker.

He can be... eloquent... about those.

[soh.maryl]

Thank you for that information.  Am aware of the way the unpaid process works currently.

Guess I was not selling back when you could have a UPI opened automatically.  

[a_c_green]

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@soh.maryl wrote:

Thank you for that information.  Am aware of the way the unpaid process works currently.

Guess I was not selling back when you could have a UPI opened automatically.  

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You're welcome... 🙂 When they transitioned from the old Unpaid Item Assistant to the current cancel process, anyone who had activated the old Assistant for automatic use was grandfathered into the new process automatically. Sellers who were not using the old process automatically have the option of using the new one, but they'll need to turn it on first via the Unpaid Purchase Preferences page.

[soh.maryl]

Why bother with attempts to reach out to them? Does that often result in the buyer waking up and paying?

You have the option to cancel on day #4, citing buyer did not pay as the reason.

Or you can just set your requirements to have that done automatically.

[a_c_green]

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@soh.maryl wrote:

Why bother with attempts to reach out to them? Does that often result in the buyer waking up and paying?

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Agreed; eBay bombards the buyer with numerous notifications about paying, so there's no need to pile on to that with your own messages, especially if the unpaid buyer is already cranky about all the eBay alerts.

One thing I have not seen a lot of on these discussion boards is a buyer complaining that he got an Unpaid slap because no one told him that he'd won the auction.

[june_elizabeth1971]

Ive had that happen a few times.  I just add them to my block list and then won't ever have to deal with them again.

[soh.maryl]

Or the one who evidently somehow lost a package  of pork chops (not recently) that I discovered when I dropped my card at the checkout and stooped to retrieve it from the floor?