What is reasonable time to wait for payment?

[catch-22.2013]

What is a reasonable time to wait for payment. People buy an item then you cannot contact them. This ties up the item waiting on a response that may never come. ebays arbitration process seems to be lacking. People that buy but do not pay should have their member status revoked. The "Ratings" seem not to matter much either. Any advice?

[kenwhitewolf]

I usually wait 4 working days and take action on the the 5th working day. Have adopted this from a few others that I met here on ebay along time ago, said it worked well for them and it has worked for me.

Good Luck!

Ken Whitewolf

[femmefan1946]

People that buy but do not pay should have their member status revoked.

They do. Many if not most sellers have set their Seller Preferences to Block automatically bidders with Unpaid Item Strikes. "Too many" (the number is unclear) and the member is Not A Registered User.

 The "Ratings" seem not to matter much either.

Do you mean Feedback? All buyers are 100%, but those Strikes can add up. If you sell at auction, you can read the FB left for others to get a feel for your bidder. You can cancel any bid without explanation.

[papamorty]

If you set up the automatic eBay thing it will open a case on the 4th day of non payment. I never opted in to the automatic program but I would send a message on the 4th day and if no response open a case on the 5th day but more recently I've switched it to the 3rd day and 4th day just to speed things up because eBay now has a program in beta that I think is addressing this issue.

[kristeinjoy]

You also should have your settings set so that anyone with 2 non-paying strikes in a 12 month period cannot buy from you.

And yes, reading the feedback that a buyer has left for others gives you a better idea of what kind of buyer they are than just looking at their feedback percentage since buyers cannot be given negative or neutral feedback.

[recordingsystems]

We use four days. not to be nasty but we have bills to pay! We use the auto feature set for four days and then Ebay gives them I think another four days. If they still don't pay, the item gets re-listed, they get dinged, and your selling fees are returned automatically. Works nicely and most people pay. We don't have time to babysit people and beg to get paid. I wish there was an Auto-Pay if they win an auction too, like Buy It Now.

Jeff

[gothicsteam]

We do like that too.

[pianone]

I usually give up to 2 weeks; it depends on the item too. If it was an auction and I had several bidders, I only wait about a week. I sell as a hobby though; if I counted on the income to pay bills I would be more aggressive.