Ebay needs to take stronger action against non-paying bidders

[chris-5643]

On both my private page and the page I run for a charity, I'm now only listing BIN with immediate payment. No more auctions. I get higher prices at auction (and eBay gets higher fees), but it's simply not worth the aggravation.

revenue-wise it would surely make more financial sense for eBay to take the problem of non-paying bidders a little more seriously as not everybody the extra time or the inclination to deal with people who shouldn't be bidding in the first place

Judging by the cursory messages "Don't need it anymore" and "I changed my mind" (that's when you get a message at all) they slearly think this kind of nuisance is ok and know that there will be no effective repercussions.

With seller fees at 20%, sellers deserve better than this.

[jolly-chef]

Same for Best Offer, when accepted it should automatically take the cash from the buyer.

Had several personal items on my private account recently where people have made the best offer and not paid. I then have to wait until the next eBay promotion to re-sell or chance my arm on the facebook market.

[*vyolla*]

How are you managing to pay sellers fees at 20% - are you promoting your listings?

If you're operating a business account for your charity and the buyer asks to cancel, then you need to accept the cancellation and add their eBay ID to your blocked bidders list.

But, if you're a private seller I would wait 4 days and then cancel the order as unpaid, that will give them a non-payment strike against their account which will stick to it for a year, and sellers can block bidders/buyers with more than 2 strikes.

After 4 days you can cancel and select the reason as 'buyer didn't pay'. There's a link on this eBay page (it says 4 days but it's 4 x 24hrs after your listing ended before the option to select ‘buyer didn't pay’ appears):

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/selling/getting-paid/resolving-unpaid-items-buyers?id=4137&st=12&pos=1&q...

You'll get a credit for your eBay final value fees. The non-payer can't leave feedback and gets a non-payment strike against their account. Sellers can block bidders with 2 or more strikes.

Don't be tempted to leave feedback for a non-payer - it can only be positive and will enable them to remove the strike they receive.

Set your Buyer Requirements to block bidders with two or more non-payment strikes in the last 12 months and add them to your Blocked Buyer List with this link:

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

[chris-5643]

Yes - I've had that happen to me too, Best offer is always switched off now.

[*vyolla*]

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@jolly-chef wrote:

Same for Best Offer, when accepted it should automatically take the cash from the buyer.

Had several personal items on my private account recently where people have made the best offer and not paid. I then have to wait until the next eBay promotion to re-sell or chance my arm on the facebook market.

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Payments are now taken from buyers as soon as a Best Offer is accepted.

You must be the only seller I've seen here who has managed to find and turn the feature off in their eBay account! Are we talking about recent sales here?

[chris-5643]

You replied to jolly-chef: "You must be the only seller I've seen here who has managed to find and turn the feature off in their eBay account!"

Your comment puts me in mind of all those Sub-Postmasters who were told "It's only happening to you!"

Automatic payment IS switched off by default! In fact, I would counter your statement by saying you must be the only seller I've seen here who has managed to find and turn the feature on in their eBay account! 

[*vyolla*]

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@chris-5643 wrote:

Automatic payment IS switched off by default! In fact, I would counter your statement by saying you must be the only seller I've seen here who has managed to find and turn the feature on in their eBay account! 

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No, eBay have switched it ON by default.

To disable/enable it, go here to your Buyer Requirements page:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/bmgt/buyerrequirements

Then at the bottom this is the section you need:

[*vyolla*]

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@chris-5643 wrote:

Your comment puts me in mind of all those Sub-Postmasters who were told "It's only happening to you!"

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Must say, you should really be careful with your analogies - that's an awful one to trundle out because people's lives were ruined and some even killed themselves. Some people reading this may have been affected, or have relatives who were (given the huge extent of it). 

Ticking/unticking a box on your Buyer Requirements page is not comparable in any way. 

[chris-5643]

Yes,point taken, but it was still a bit naughty of you to suggest, somewhat mockingly, that it is only jolly-chef who had experienced the problem when you have absolutely no way of knowing. It looks like a discussion-blocking tactic. FYI I have experienced the same thing.

[plpmr]

Exactly what stronger action are you thinking about?

[chris-5643]

I see you're trying to be helpful here, but wha you've done is highlighted the rigmarole you have to go through with non-paying bidders.

And, you've STILL got to relist and sell your item all over again!

2 strikes in 12 months clearly is no disincentive whatsoever or there wouldn't be such a spate of non-paying bidders.

I understand why you've put eBay's policy and procedures (which I've had to go through a few times now - especially recently), but it kind of suggests that that's the answer and that it somehow makes everything ok.

It doesn't.

[*vyolla*]

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@chris-5643 wrote:

Yes,point taken, but it was still a bit naughty of you to suggest, somewhat mockingly, that it is only jolly-chef who had experienced the problem when you have absolutely no way of knowing. It looks like a discussion-blocking tactic. FYI I have experienced the same thing.

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Not mocking, I genuinely am surprised because it is on by default and most sellers who come here have no idea how to access that feature, which is why I posted a direct link and a screenshot. 

That's also why I asked if these were recent sales, as it hasn't been a default for that long, in which case buyers making offers that were accepted wouldn't have been charged immediately.

[chris-5643]

How recent is this change? I've gone through all this and I found the default still came up as switched off.

Incidentally, I suspect that eBay behaves differently in different browsers. For example, I've had this issue in Firefox, where I monitor my private page whereas in Chrome (where I monitor our charity account I've had great difficulty bringing up postage rates on listing items - something I haven't found in Firefox.

[chris-5643]

Good question.

I would suggest that there should be restrictions placed on non-paying bidders for a month following just one witheld payment.

The restrictions should be payment must be must be ready to go immediately  if the auction is won in the same manner as Best Offer.

Alternatively, suspend their account for a month following them not honouring their bid.

Don't forget - a bidder can always ask for a bid to be retracted before the end of auction - something I've always done for people if they've messaged me. It's not as if non-paying bidder behaviour is unavoidable - just that it's in danger of becoming normalised.

[peturning]

As far as I know it does? I noticed recently (don't buy all that often so this may have been the case for a while) that when making a Best Offer it asked me to select which payment method I would like to use and stated very clearly that if accepted the method would be charged immediately.

[peturning]

I would say the 2 strikes in 12 months block-ability isn't enough, should be 1 strike in 12 months (or more) IMO.

I know eBay wouldn't like that but minimising opportunity for non-payment would be a good thing, I know in the past I was always under the impression that non-payment would be a Very Bad Thing as far as my account and potentially lead to a demand for payment eventually... turns out no, the absolute worst that could happen is that sellers who have found this preference might block me for at most one year if I did this twice.

That definitely isn't much of a consequence, I imagine many people wouldn't care less about that.

[*vyolla*]

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@chris-5643 wrote:

How recent is this change? I've gone through all this and I found the default still came up as switched off.

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I can't recall when this changed, I've been automaticlly charged for Best Offers for the past couple of months I think.

That's incredibly odd that yours isn't swithed on, loads of buyers and sellers have been here complaining about this feature being automatically defaulted to 'on'. Still, at least you now know how to access it.

eBay does behave differently with different browsers/the app. Chrome is supposed to be the most eBay friendly browser.

[chris-5643]

I knew how to access it anyway. To reiterate: it's switched on in the settings but appears as being off on send offer in my particular version of Firefox on my computer's OS.

However, that's a side issue and I'm not really so concerned with that.

What I am concerned with is a seemingly increasing number of non-paying bidders who would appear to face virtually no accountability whatsoever, thereby no doubt emboldening them and others.

[*vyolla*]

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@chris-5643 wrote:

I knew how to access it anyway. To reiterate: it's switched on in the settings but appears as being off on send offer in my particular version of Firefox on my computer's OS.

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Send Offer is a different feature.

[plpmr]

A major problem on eBay are non-paying bidders and sellers who don't honour transaction.

I've seen sellers profiles with lots of false positives of 'did not pay' - that only encourcges non-payers.

just one strike would not be really fair as some sellers who get paid cash or such like then hit the buyer with an unpaid strike to get their fees back.

The system being brought in for buyers to have to register to agree to payment being taken immediatly EG: best offer [once agrred to is for 'ever'] and also going to be applied to auctions [cannot bid unless agreed to] is simply badly thought out.