Tips on dealing with deadbeat bidders on eBay

Tips on dealing with deadbeat bidders on eBay2

I spent years selling on eBay and I have run into a few deadbeat bidders on eBay. If some one had not paid in 7 days I would usually email the person and try to find out what was going on. I don’t usually call because most people are in different countries and I don’t need the added expense of a long distance call. Most people would email back with an explanation for why they had not paid yet. Usually they just had not gotten around to it or were waiting for their money to get into Paypal. One was waiting for their Paypal account to be approved. I found that most of the people I contacted paid with in a few days.

Then there were the people who were not going to pay. I have had some interesting reasons. One man was quite upset because his 13 year old had used his account to put bids and several 100 items. He was not paying for any of them, and because there were so many he had not contacted everyone. One asked to cancel the order as she had an unexpected financial issue, and could not pay for it that month; she did ask that I repost it the next month if possible. Another just said he did not want the item, had never wanted it. Others never responded to my emails.

How I dealt with each deadbeat bidder depended on the individual bidder. The people, who had good reason not to pay, like the Dad or the person who ran into money problems I just did a mutual agree not to complete the transaction. As for the guy who never intended to buy the item and the people who never responded to my emails I reported them to eBay.

EBay sent each of them an unpaid item reminder to try and get them to pay. I had to wait to give the bidders a chance to pay. Some did once eBay became involved; all they needed was the official eBay contact. I have only had a few people not pay at this point. I filed for a final value fee credit. I do know that there are real consequences for not paying for items you bid on. The one guy who never had any attention of paying for the items he bid on lost his account very quickly. Others have been blocked from bidding on my auctions. The lady who ran into money problems did bid on other items of mine, but at first I was never very comfortable about it, but she did end up always paying for all other items of mine that she did win. She ended up being a loyal customer in the long run.

Rule number one when selling any place including eBay is to never ship or give the item to anyone until payment has processed. We made this mistake once, had a lot of items to ship and were waiting on the payment and item was shipped in error with a bunch of others. We were lucky as the person did pay for it in the next few days. Just keep in mind that as long as you don’t ship an item that some one has not paid for all you really loose is some time. More often then not I would offer the item to the next highest bidder and would still make the sale.

So what are the eBay consequences for the deadbeat bidder? According to eBay a buyer automatically enter into a legally binding contract to purchase the item from the seller if they win the online auction or use the Buy It Now feature. Bay’s unpaid item policy requires buyers to pay the seller for the items that they commit to purchase. EBay will issue a strike on the account of the buyer who does not honour their obligation to pay, unless the buyer and seller mutually agree not to complete the transaction. If a buyer gets too many strikes in too short a time period, their account will be suspended indefinitely. In some cases, limits may be placed on the buyer’s account in advance of suspension.

Basically if some one will not pay for an item with in the stated time on the eBay ad then you must report that the item has not been paid for. If you do not agree with the person not paying for the item you should not mutually agree not to complete the transaction. Let eBay know that the person will just not fulfill their side of the contract and eBay will take action against there account. You get your fees back and re-list the item. End of story for you. You move on; life is to short to waste it on jerks that don’t follow through on their commitments.
Source - eBay

Written by: Lori-Lee Craig
Medieval Magic
http://www.medievalmagic.ca/