Increase in eBay Non-Payers

[Buythatcard]

Has anyone else been experiencing an increase in non-payers lately? I use to average about 1 non-payer a month out of about 350 transactions. But, over the past several months that has gone up to about 6-8 a month.

In addition, I have also experienced a big increase in the number of people who retract their bids. In the past 3 weeks alone, I've had 22 bid retractions.

When will eBay wake up and start protecting the seller?
Has the time come in which we list these non-payers on Net54?

[buymycards]

Howard, you are correct. Most of my items are low dollar items, with a BIN w/best offer. People will give me a $3 offer on a $6 BIN. I accept it, then I wait for a week with no payment. I file a NPB claim, then I get paid. In the past it happened once or twice in a couple of hundred sales. Now it happens 2-3 times in 20 sales.

I can't figure out why someone would purchase a $3 item and not pay for it until a NPB is filed. These aren't all low feedback new ebayers. Some of these people have feedbacks of 700 or more.

Rick

[sb32]

I don't sell that much on ebay, but I'd say in the last 6 months, I have had an issue with about 10% of transactions. After a week, I send a reminder email that if I don't hear back or receive payment by a certain date, I will report it. Usually I don't hear back. Every time, within a few hours of reporting the non-payment I get paid. Amazing. I'd say almost every problem has been for $25 or less.

I understand things come up and delays happen. I've worked with people in the past when they claim something unexpected happened since placing bid (job loss / storm damage) but I haven't gotten any explainations recently.

I also have found that it isn't necessarily bidders with low feedbacks

[t206hound]

I haven't had any non-paying bidders in the last 6-12 months. I did have one person ask to cancel his winning bid for some reason, but he sent me a message within 24 hours... I didn't play the waiting game.

Just curious based on the last few posts. Typically I don't sell any item under $25 on ebay; it's just not worth the time/effort to do so. Are these non-paying bidders typically for lower valued items, or are they people who put in max bids of some astronomical value in order to win, and then decide the winning price was too high? Or is there no pattern?

[caramelcard]

100% yes. Use to have very few and now a ton.

Rob

[vintagetoppsguy]

I really feel for you guys. That's a bunch of crap! I don't have that problem as I've only sold 10 items in the past year (although I used to sell a lot). I posted this question in another thread, but I didn't get any responses. Have you guys tried using BINs with immediate payment required? It seems like that would be the only way to stop this.

[sb32]

Erick,

Is all fair prices. I originally thought it may have to do with the economy leading to buyers remorse, but I would have expected people to try and cancel. Oddly, no one tried to get out of the purchase.

It also has been a mix of vintage and modern (the last remnants of a former collecting life). More of the problems have been on the modern side, but there has definitely been an increase in problems in both segments.

Scott

[Exhibitman]

On bid retractions, I just pulled one the other day. Decided to buy another example of the card for a better price that I found later on. Bid retractions are just part of the Ebay system--no point in getting all bunged up about them. After all, until the sale closes there isn't a done deal anyway. BTW, you can also retract your bid with nearly any auctioneer. They don't want a bad sale either so if you have a good explanation they will usually accommodate rather than have a NPB. You just have to jump through some hoops to do it.

As for nonperforming buyers, I don't sweat it. I make a NPB report so I can get back my fees but I don't chase goobers who bid on cards and then don't buy them. Not worth my time and energy. And if someone bids and later comes back and says they want to renege, I let them. Again, not worth a pissing match with some yahoo.

Life's to short to get stressed out about cards.

[Orioles1954]

I kicked ebay to the curb last week. I don't have problems with pre-war bidders but a lot of the modern guys are serious nut jobs.

[bcornell]

I had a friend who worked at eLoan before they were acquired a few years ago. They ran mortgage ads on almost every ecommerce site in existence, including eBay. He told me that eBay users had the lowest average credit score on any site they ever used. This was all before the economy went deeply wrong, so it could only be worse now.

I stopped selling on the site a long time ago.


Bill