Buyer decides they don't want item- too late to resell.

[maccreanorlavington]

Hi so I sold an item via auction over 5 days ago. The buyer arranged a collection today and had address before winning the bid. After 5 days of not paying they have now told me they no longer want the item as they dont want to pay the money to come an collect it. As I have been holding onto this item for them, I can no longer sell it, we are moving office premises today and will have to throw it away (and will probably have to pay for this).

Obviously annoyed by this, I have sent a message to the buyer saying that they had all the information about collection before bidding, and that we still expect payment (partly hoping this might incentivise them to come an collect)- I opened an unpaid item case this morning. 

Do I have a leg to stand on here? Can they just decide to not pay despite winning the bid and arranging it all? I havent found any information about this online.

[tsmgmd]

So your buyer sealed the deal before the current lockdown started, and now they would be possibly be breaking lockdown regs by driving to pick up anyway.

And if your buyer did pay you via PayPal then you would have to store the item anyway until they collected it, you certainly can't dispose of it if they pay. 

[rusticrye]

Not sure why you were wanting the buyer to pay in advance via PayPal. PayPal is totally unsafe for sellers of collection items. You should only ever accept payment in cash or by bank transfer, once the buyer has fully examined the item and is happy with it.

Also not sure how you managed to get the address to this person before they'd won the auction. A big red warning message will have appeared on-screen when you tried to send the message. Exchanging contact information before purchase is a massive breach of Ebay rules, and can get both parties suspended.

@maccreanorlavington 

[**peaseblossom**]

No one, not even ebay, can force a buyer to pay.   😞