Buyers enter a legal contract under English law when closing a deal on ebay.

[30terrym]

Although the buyer enters a Legal Contract under English Law, and then doesn't pay, Ebay are very weak to carry out harsh sentencing.

Short of taking the buyer to court (which is an expensive undertaking) in my opinion ebay do not take strong enough action.

Protection under Ebay Rules has greatly favoured the buyer over many years. The poor old seller ends up getting a NEGATIVE FEED BACK for no particular reason, which Ebay do nothing about.

To try to get the balance back  someway towards equal, my suggestion is to Ebay that buyers who enter into a contract, and then do not pay up should receive a NEGATIVE FEEDBACK. Perhaps then they might think twice before before pressing the buy button.

30terrym.

[plpmr]

"my suggestion is to Ebay that buyers who enter into a contract, and then do not pay up should receive a NEGATIVE FEEDBACK"

Much, much better they get an unpaid strike as long as the seller follows procedure.

As to 'contract' eBay cannot enforce any such thing.

Another problem regarding enforcing any 'contract' - buyers have numerous ways to defend that, for example, they could cause sellers who are incorrectly registered far more trouble then they face.

[tsmgmd]

Talking of UK Law you currently have 165 items listed but I can't see a business registration including trading details on any of your listings.

[ruby*tuesday]

It's been about 12 years since Sellers could leave Buyers Negative Feedback. The system was badly abused so EBay put a stop to it. Good thing too. If you have a Non Payer you open an Unpaid Item Case after 2 days in the Resolution Centre. Close 4 days later. Your EBay Final Value Fees would be Credited back to your Seller Account. The Non Payer receives a Damaging Unpaid Item Strike on their Account. Which is far more effective than Neg Feedback as Sellers can Block Buyers with 2 or More Strikes from Bidding on any of their Listings. 

[m25jet]

Although I agree that eBay's feedback system is very heavily biased in favour of the buyer, there is no way in Hell that eBay would ever reconsider the possibility of reinstating the option for sellers to leave buyers negative feedback, which they did away with over a decade ago.

One mistake that a lot of sellers make with non-paying buyers, much to the detriment of other sellers who subsequently have the misfortune to have to do business with those timewasters, is to leave them a negative comment on a green dot.  Not only is this a breach of eBay's feedback policy it could also get sellers who do that a defect on their account if the buyer saw the comment and asked eBay to remove it.  However, if sellers were to resist the temptation to do that and instead opted to open an Unpaid Item Dispute and closed it at the first chance that they were given if the buyer had still have failed to pay up by that point, then non-paying timewasters who amass two or more Unpaid Item Strikes during a twelve month period would find it extremely difficult to find a seller that they can actually purchase anything from, as most savvy sellers have got their Selling Preferences set up to automatically block timewasters who have received two or more Unpaid Item Strikes on their account during the past twelve months.

[tsmgmd]

The contract to buy is between a buyer and seller.

eBay only provide a platform for the transaction.

So eBay cannot take any legal action as they are neither a buyer or a seller.

If a seller does the correct thing and reports a non payer than can register the fact on the system, but it needs sellers to report the transaction.

A seller could attempt to go through small claims court, but needs to be careful.

You cannot claim a loss for the sale value and then sell the item to someone else..

[angelah1847]

"Ebay are very weak to carry out harsh sentencing."

Sentencing?? Really!!

The option to leave neg or neutral was removed 12 years ago because some sellers were abusing the system and using it to bully and threaten buyers.  Ebay will not reinstate the option so wipe it from your mind.

Use the tools ebay provide (which does not include leaving any FB) - unpaid item case, add to BBL and set buyer requirement blocks to block anyone with 2+ strikes in last 12 months.

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/sell/unpaid-items.html
http://offer.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?bidderblocklogin
http://offer.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?BuyerBlockPreferences

Never be tempted to leave false positive FB for a buyer, it is a policy violation and will damage your account if it is picked up by ebay. It doesn't help you and it doesn't help other sellers. The strike from an unpaid item case does far more damage to the non-payer's account than a few silly words on their FB profile.