Winning bidder in a car auction backs down, what do you do?

[mach7000]

If you are relying on a winning bid to honour their bid and then they renege at the last minute, should they at least compensate a percentage of the value of the item? In this case it was a car which the winning bidder won at a price of £3900 and has caused a lot of inconveneience for defaulting when it came to collecting and paying for the vehicle. They hadn't even seen the vehicle and on a 'whim and a woe' decided rather apathetically to not complete the transaction. Does it not make these auctions a bit of a farce?

[jambuttyminer · Accepted solution]

Yes, there appear to be a lot of timewasters with vehicle auctions, classified ad is usually the best way to go then you can deal with any interested parties and only end the listing when you have a definite sale.

There's no way ebay can force them to pay for the item or to compensate

Open an unpaid item dispute in the resolution centre, http://resolutioncentre.ebay.co.uk/ you can do this between 2 and 32 days after sale; close after 4 full days from time of opening to get the sale fee credited back.

Buyer will get a strike, set your preferences to block those with 2 strikes in 12 months

http://offer.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?BuyerBlockPreferences

Add any non-payers to your blocked list

http://offer.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?BidderBlockLogin

Then you can relist