Frustrated With E-Bay
 

I'm sorry to vent on here but I have recenly been selling some T206's on e-bay. After all the auctions ended I had 2 people wait almost 10 days to pay me, after numerous attempts to get them to pay me myself to no avail, I had e-bay rattle ther cage, they finally both paid and were sent the cards. One of them recieves the cards and I assume everthing is ok until I go in and check my feeback and I was left a negative and a neutral by the same person whom I had to practicaly beg to pay me (This person had bought 2 items totaling $50). I am beside myself as I did nothing wrong and E-bay protects these people. Buyers cannot even respond to negatitive feedback as far as I know, and god forbid you try to even leave them a neutral feedback. E-bay is becoming a bad joke and I don't know if I am unlucky or what but I seem to always encounter these few bad apples. I try to give all people the benefit of the doudt but this is very frustrating. Again sorry for lashing out but I needed to get this off my chest. Fell free to comment on your experiences along these lines. Thanks. Dennis.

What was the negative for? What did it say?

Yes, you can still respond to a neutral or negative.

I'm having a similar experience. An ebay buyer buys a run of vintage basketball cards I have listed and today's a week and I haven't heard a word. I check his feedback and see a seller just left a less than glowing "positive" saying how no communication for 9 days followed by payment, and I look at his (the seller's) feedback and see a negative from the same buyer saying the "card was creased and seller has a bad attitude". Now I know what this a-hole's capable of and I wait to send him a reminder to start the non-paying bidder process until after 9 days to get my fees and hopefully avoid my first negative feedback in quite some time. I do a lot of business on ebay and I'd say this happens with 2 percent frequency.

David, one said he would never deal with me again, and the other said I had not cummuicated with him throughout the process. Which is an outright lie, but what can you do their are (just a few)unreasonable people you encounter from time to time. Dennis.

Unfortunately, there really isn't much you can do. The feedback system really sucks. I would suggest that you divulge their user ids so that we can put them on our BBLs so that others may avoid the same headaches.

David theirs only one. The other paid (though late) they realized they were wrong and admitted to that fact, The other person is a different story. I haven't sold a lot of stuff on e-bay lately and negatives hurt badly.

all of this and more is why i quit selling on ebay

You may be better off just sending a cancel transaction case with this buyer. If the buyer doesn't pay and you send an unpaid item case, he will get a non-paying bidder strike. He may not like this and pay, then leave you a negative. With a cancel transaction case, the entire transaction is cancelled, including the fees.

I've been having a very difficult time lately getting people to pay on ebay...all of my auctions say payment is due within 5 days after the auction ends...I'd say about 25% of my buyers are now ignoring that. I can almost figure that if an items sells for more than $100 the chances that I won't get paid within that time period are up to about 50%. The last guy I turned over to ebay for non-payment after two weeks sent me an email with the first line "HOW DARE YOU!"..I asked him why he didn't comply with the 5 day period that was mentioned in the body of my auction and he came back and apologized and said he didn't see it. Well it was already two weeks, how long does he normally wait to pay???

Right now I am currently waiting on payment for a video game I sold for $188 in which I had to contact the buyer after 7 days...he waited two more days to reply and said he didn't even know he won it...now he tells me someone tried to hack his paypal and he won't be able to use it until next week. Last week I was waiting on payment for $450 for an old Polaroid camera...I had to contact the buyer who told me that someone in his shop bid on it and he didn't know...he waited 4 more days before finally paying me.

Once someone finally does pay I have figured out I have no choice but to leave them the most glowing feedback so the buyer is less inclined to leave me low DSR's. In other words I have to lie in order to protect my ratings.

The buyer cannot leave a negative on an item if he did not pay for it, and the seller went through the non-paying bidder process to get his fees back.

You most definitely want to make sure he gets a non-paying bidder strike. It's the only way sellers can police against dead-beat bidders.

Sure, you want him to, but is it worth getting the buyer angry at you for? eBay won't do anything to the buyer unless he has several non-paying bidder strikes. If you open a non-paying bidder case, the buyer may pay. Then, he'll say the item was not as described (or he didn't receive it if there is no delivery confirmation). If he opens up a SNAD and sends you back an index card, you're out of luck. The same people who rip sellers off like this are the same people who often don't pay. To top it off, he'll probably leave a negative too.

The only real way to get back at non-paying bidders is to let other people know so they can block him. Other than that, you just have to hope that bad karma will catch up to him.

Well, if the buyer pays, there is no strike and no reason to be angry.

I am very patient when waiting for payments, but if a buyer doesn't pay, I send a second invoice, then I follow that up with a non-paying bidder notice a few days to a week later and about a week after that I finalize it with a non-paying bidder strike if I don't hear from them and put them on my blocked bidder list.

Usually the buyer ends up apologizing to me for being late, and paying their bill.

Of course there are exceptions, but it's worked for me so far.

...........and yes, payments have gotten noticeably slower since Ebay took away feedback power from Sellers.

I've also gone from having one or two deadbeats a year, to a half dozen or so a year.

E-bay user name is hanibal1972 Be careful when dealing with this person.

Thanks. Added to BBL. Sorry this happened to you.

7-10 days
 

I believe a buyer has 7-10 days to pay according to the rules. While I love to receive a payment before then I do not bother asking for payment until that time span expires, plus I think eBay sends a pestering automated emails during the 7-10 day span....Perhaps you should readjust your expectations in terms of when you think a payment should come through...I would love if eBay would offer bonus bucks to fast payers...

I do feel for you that as a seller you are at the whim of the buyer with the fbk system although I think you can "reply" to fbk left....My worst Ebay moment was I sold a '71 midgrade set (700+ cards) that was missing one low # common and the guy negged me, I emailed politely and he retracted it but still....

Of course if you get an honorable buyer this will happen. Not worth it in my opinion. Playing it safe when it comes to eBay is a good idea. Stay unnoticed and the odds of selling limits and other things eBay does to sellers go way down.

Good point but the way I look at is when I buy on E-bay I pay in a timely manner and 7 to 10 days is not timely in my opinion, the truth is buyers can do anything they want on e-bay and sellers are at their mercy in most cases. It's kinda like when you loan somebody money the longer it rocks on the less chance you have to get your money back. Convenent memory loss.

No
 

No offense Eric and I'm not trying to pick a fight with you but I think the terms of service or contract is that the payer has 7-10 days to pay...I love to get paid right away but also realize eBay sets the rules and I am in their playground so occasionally it doesn't happen as quickly as I like...As a buyer 90 percent of the time I pay within a couple days but occasionally I am waiting for some funds to come through and I wait more than that to send payment 'cause in my mind I have a week or so to pay based on the rules

Pat, no offense taken, I think what as I see here is you shouldn't have to beg someone to pay you. I was not holding a gun to there head when they placed that winning bid. I realize that 99% of the people you meet along the way in life are good in some way. I reckon e-bay may be a neccessary evil to sell sometimes and I hold up to my end of the bargain whether I am buying or selling and expect the same in return. Thanks. Dennis.

Policy overview (from eBay.com)
When a buyer wins an item or uses Buy It Now to purchase an item, they're obligated to complete the purchase by sending full payment to the seller.

If a buyer doesn't pay within 4 days, sellers can open an unpaid item case in the Resolution Center. If the buyer still doesn't pay or reach some other agreement with the seller, eBay may record the unpaid item on the buyer's account.

When an unpaid item case closes without payment from the buyer, sellers are eligible to receive a final value fee credit to their eBay seller account. Also, if they relist the item and it sells the second time, eBay may refund the insertion fee for the relisting. Learn more about how the free relist policy works.

Excessive unpaid items on a buyer's account may result in range of actions, including limits or loss of buying privileges.

dead beat buyers....
 

I totally agree...95% of the time there should be no reason a buyer can't pay for an item within 2 days (and in my experience, 80% of buyers do).....7+ days is just LAZY and sloppy, in my opinion. If you don't have the money available, don't buy the item and don't waste the seller's time. If my items are unpaid or the buyer hasn't made an effort to contact me with a reason, I'll send a second invoice at 5 days and I won't hesitate one minute past 7 days to report a non-payment with Ebay. Most of the time it lights a fire under the buyer's rear end and they submit payment.....for me, taking the time to make extra trips to the post office 7+ days after an auction ends is annoying and a pain in the butt.....(in a way it's also my fault, I guess, because I choose to sell on Ebay and should be used to it by now). Ebay can be/frequently is frustrating. :)

I have no experience as a seller on ebay, but I constantly read about this scenario with certain buyers, and I think ebay is partially to blame by not letting sellers leave negative feedback for some of these jerk off buyers. They took away the added incentive for buyers to pay in a timely manner by doing this, and it's unfair to the sellers- big mistake.

When I used to buy on ebay, I knew exactly when the auction was ending, and for the most part would try to be online to be available to put in my bid in the last seconds if I had to (I didn't know about "sniping" :o)....point being- I would pay as soon as I was sent the message that I won the item.

Granted some people can't be there at that certain moment the auction ends sometimes for whatever reason,but taking 7 to 10 days to pay is ridiculous IMO.

I'm with Kzoo on this. If a buyer goes 7 days with no pay/no communication I file a non-payment report.

When I was selling I got used to using the click and ship through Ebay. A small discount on postage, cheap DC - like .18 on first class and free on priority, and I could just give the packages to the postman. Just that last bit saved a load of time. I'm in a fairly urban area, so if you're suburban or rural it might be less useful? I would be nice to the carrier and took all the big stuff to the post office, but since it had the click and ship labels I could just leave it with them if the line was long.

I haven't checked in a while, I thought Ebay wanted 3 days max for payment? I've always tried to get stuff paid in less than that. I have forgetten a couple, and always felt bad about forgetting. It usually happens when there are also buy it now items I'm considering. One I totally spaced and was way late. The seller was very nice about it, and I sent him a little extra for being so slow(He didn't ask, I just added a bit to the payment and explained the extra in the message)

SteveB

Failure to communicate...
 

Looks like the big issue is not non-payment, it's non-communication. I don't mind if people don't pay right away, but it is nice to know that they are aware that they need to pay. In the past, I've received messages from buyers saying "will pay on Thursday when I get my paycheck." To me, that's fine and I don't mind waiting.

In one instance (as a bidder) I sent the buyer a message when I saw the auction (before I actually bid) asking if it was ok to wait a few days to pay. In this instance, it was just before Ebay bucks became available and I wanted to utilize them rather than being out of pocket (and risking not using them).

Again, if the buyers would just send a message, I think most sellers wouldn't have any issues with delayed payments.

Re: Frustrated With E-Bay
 

An emphatic +1.

I recently had a buyer take TWO weeks to pay me. After my setup automatically filed NPBs against him (granted, he DID win other items, and was currently bidding on items), he proceeded to blast me, as well as retract all of his winning bids, making some of my items currently at bargain basement prices with less than 12 hours to go. I apologized to him, but I afraid the damage is already done. With Ebays current setup, the buyers have ALL the power!! I will be lucky if this person doesn't ding my stars! I am a buyer too, and I have NEVER taken two weeks to pay someone, but that is me.