General

I believe eBay is going to start charging the buyers as soon as the auction is over, preventing this from happening. Unless I read wrong.

I've had the same thing happen. I had several non-paying buyers over the years, but lately most everyone has paid fairly quickly. Only a few have needed to be sent a second Invoice. I have my account set to submit a non-paying buyer complaint after 8 days - the shortest time allowed.

Appreciate the replies. Like I mentioned, over the last year or so, I'd say about 1 out of 10 buyers end up not paying me, and that used to not be the case. I thought there might be a fundamental reason why that's happening lately. Most buyers still pay on time, especially the ones that bid last minute. And if eBay's going to start automatically charging buyers as soon as the auction's over, then that'd be great. Any idea when they'll start doing that, if it's true?

I have always done BIN. Which I require immediate payment. From time to time I do best offer, but I usually talk to the person before I accept. So I get paid. I've been super lucky on eBay over the years. A few minor issues but not much else. I've had a buyer not pay maybe a few times out of many transactions.

Not lately as had a period of not really selling on eBay but over the years I've ran into all kinds of stuff.

My kid sent the offer.

I was drunk.

I was going to buy this game but then I found out my friend had it and he is letting me borrow it.

These are all on offers sent on BIN listings as that is my preferred sale method. Ultimately I always just grant the cancellation request as it is much better than dealing with a forced return. I've had some of those too, and I wish those people would just ask to cancel in the first place. Neither occurrence has been very common for me though. We are talking 1% or less, I just remember the bad/dumb ones.

Tony wrote:

This is such an absurd time window. 3 days would be more than fair.

Unless there is significant history for setting a specific price, I seldom set a Buy-it-now the first time I list something. I understand a number of eBay users want to just purchase an item and don't want to wait to see if they won an auction, but want to give items a chance to bring in the highest bid possible.

Several years ago my wife listed a first edition of Ice Station by Matt Reilly and put a BIN. It sold within two hours to a guy in Australia who was willing to pay to have it mailed there. When she finally looked at what previous copies had sold for, she found she could have gotten 5 times what she sold it for.

Again, several years ago, my wife listed a music box that we couldn't find any information on. Almost immediately we got a message saying they would buy it if we would put a BIN of $75. I explained I wouldn't do it on the first listing. The final bid was over $200!

@Tony I have auctioned rare items in the past but seldom find them here. Basically everything I have sold recently is video games, electronics etc

Last thing I remember auctioning was some art pottery book ends. With truly rare items I do think it's the way to go as people can get into crazy bidding wars.

eBay bidding can be unpredictable and frustrating.

I've listed items that didn't get a single bid the first week, but the next week received several bids.

Several years ago I listed an AOL disk in a metal case (yes, people collect these - or at least they used to). Two people bid it up to a final selling price of $16. A couple of weeks later, I found another, identical disk. I submitted a Second Chance Offer, but the losing bidder didn't respond. I listed it with a starting bid about half of what the previous one had sold for. It only received one bid - from the same guy who bought the previous one for twice the amount.

Several years ago I listed a softball bat. It was bid up to $200, but the guy backed out saying the bid was an accident. Only two guys had bid on it, and, again, the losing bidder did not respond to a Second Chance Offer. I relisted it beginning at the price where the two guys started the bidding war. It sold for $130 - to the guy who had "accidentally" bid $200 the previous week.

I actually go and block idiots who bid stuff really high then back out. They're doing that to figure out the current maximum bid. If they do that, then who knows what kind of other crap they'll try to pull.

Foxhack wrote:

I do this as well. Non paying bidders for any reason get banned

I would say 10% is high for non paying bidders but unfortunately you will come across people who do that. The next time it happens give them 4 days instead of a week. I avoid creating auctions and go to fixed price items on video games unless I don't know what the value is and there is no comps.

Reopened

My mistake for coming back to eBay apparently. I currently have 2 non-paying buyers (won via best offer) and they have 5 days to not pay. Pretty sure the first guy is just going to not pay, but I have some hope with the 2nd one for now.

Gypsy wrote:

I've started to refuse best offers as this happens far too frequently. I don't understand why people do it.

A friend told me he's been leaving best offers on, but turning off the auto accept, because he's been hit by a bunch of people who threaten to leave negs because the items are supposedly defective. It's usually reseller type accounts.

Foxhack wrote:

I use auto-decline for unreasonable offers but don't have any kind of auto-accept threshold. Anything that smells like an ebay to ebay reseller (like, this really shouldn't be possible and I'm certainly not going to enable it) I block. Had bad experiences with them in the past going for partial refunds, then listing everything as working. Makes sense that they have to scam and go for partials to try and get things cheap enough to flip.

I always wondered why more sellers didn't use the best offer feature. Now I know.

benstylus wrote:

Yeah you can require immediate payment for listings but it goes out the window on accepted offers.

Second guy did pay. Figured there was a reasonable chance there at least. First guy is just a ghost.

Foxhack wrote:

If someone threatens to leave a neg in a message, immediately contact ebay. It falls under their feedback extortion policy and the feedback will be removed. One of the few areas where they actually support the seller.

sa330206 wrote:

He knows. I meant that this becomes a massive waste of time for him because of these shady buyers.