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Problems Selling on Ebay - Buyers Not Paying!
- Thread starter redman042
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The problem with this is most members here know better not to pay ~$450 for an unlocked 32GB 4S and to buy a locked one for a lot cheaper and get it unlocked for a few bucks instead
Ah okay, but I do remember there being an option to force buyers to pay as soon as they won an auction, as well as some geographical options for restricting where bids can originate from. It may just be that they re-organized everything and I still haven't found all the options.
I do like what a previous poster suggested, which is to put "PAYMENT DUE IN 24 HOURS OR I'LL RE-LIST" into your product description.
This
I gave up on ebay a few years ago because of shady buyers and tons of issues with ebay.
You'll take a little longer to get your money on Amazon but if a sale is made you'll definitely get paid unlike ebay where the buyer can throw a wrench in it for any reason even after you get paid.
Still available under "Block buyers whose primary shipping address is in a location I don't ship to."
I did see your earlier comment, but only after I had listed my item (and had received bids to the point where I could no longer edit the item or description).
But as to your advice, I wouldn't want to "eat the fees" here. This isn't a situation where I am selling multiple items on a regular basis. I am selling a single item that as of now I am already $50 into the hole on eBay fees, Paypal fees and extra shipping costs (that last one being my since I should've charged more for shipping to cover the added insurance and signature confirmation add-ons).
So if I had done what you said and re-listed after the 24 hour mark, I'd be out another $20 for more eBay fees (as the high bidder did eventually pay me) and would have the hassle of dealing with the refund and a possibly angry, buyer. Completely not willing to do that for an item that I was trying to get $250 for.
It's just the listing fees you'd eat (as you'd refund the high bidder his money) and that's what, $2-4? If you're worried about negative feedback, you could've filed a NPB after just 4 days, return the money if they pay you and relist it, and they'd be unable to leave a feedback at all.
Personally, I don't worry too much about angry buyers if they fail to pay within 24 hours, as I make that perfectly clear that was required in my auctions. If you take them by surprise from not disclosing upfront, then yeah they're more likely to get angry.
After making said adjustments above to buyer requirements, I just had a successful sale on ebay. Sold an early Feb 2008 macbook for $460 and have already been paid via paypal. I seriously love how Apple products retain value after so long, now i'm gonna flip it for an iPad 4.
Can't tell if i'm a believer of eBay or of Apple... maybe a little bit of both.
Can't tell if i'm a believer of eBay or of Apple... maybe a little bit of both.
This is all well and good, except for the buyer who gets ticked off you did this and leaves you negative feedback.
Again, I get it, it hasn't happened to you yet so it could never happen to anyone ever, but believe me, eBay does NOT condone putting your own "terms" into the auction.
For example, I used to write: "Absolutely NO returns after 48 hours of reciept of item, if you cannot comply with this requirement, you are expressly prohibited from bidding".
eBay conatacted me and let me know that I could not say that, and even if it was after 48 hours, the buyer could use eBay's rules and not mine.
So in your scenario, a buyer could not pay, say that you violated the NPB rules, leave you negative feedback for pulling the item, and you would have NO recourse with eBay because you aren't allowed to make up the rules as you go (no matter how benign they may be).
It's a good idea, but it will eventually lead to a negative feedback you will NOT be able to get removed (because you broke the rules by relisting outside of the NPB guidelines).
It's crap like that that caused me to walk away from a 1000+ 100% fb account (Power Seller/Top Rated Seller).
They love buyers, they put up with sellers. Period.
I've always put "Payment required within 24 hours or it'll get relisted" upfront under description and if they fail to do that and are stupid enough to get pissed it's not my problem. I've learned long ago that you can't reason with unreasonable people. Sold 4 iPhones successfully that way and the one NPB I had who changed his mind was more than happy to honor the cancellation request right away.
The key is to implement a term that ebay can't force on you. Yes, ebay can force you to accept returns so it's pointless to say no returns at all. However, they can't force you to sell an item to a buyer even if they do pay, in which case you can return their money and either file a cancellation request (if the buyer is cooperative) or a NPB/unpaid item claim (if you're worried about negative feedback). ebay is the wrong place if you absolutely don't want to accept returns; use Craigslist for that.
Once you file an unpaid item claim the buyer will be unable to leave a feedback at all.
Not entirely true. eBay will not enforce the NPB strike if the seller didn't follow the process and the buyer points that out before being hit (like if they resold the item before they were able to state their case to eBay). They will be able to leave you negative feedback if they want, you have just gotten lucky. Your luck may continue, but don't count on it to do so forever.
Regardless, the reality is eBay stacks the rules HEAVILY in favor of the buyers.
And you can write whatever you want in your auction terms: "Buyers must pay in pennies" "I only sell items I have stolen, beware" "If you don't pay I will kill you" etc. But ultimately, per the eBay ToS, you are bound to their payment, return, and description policies, and it supercedes anything you write.
It's a GOOD idea to try it if your intent is to scare off fraudulent bidders. Just don't count on them reversing a negative feedback by saying "But I SAID they couldn't do that in the listing".
They won't. It blows, but they will side with the buyer EVERY time (at least in that case, only 99.99% of the time in others).
Regardless, the reality is eBay stacks the rules HEAVILY in favor of the buyers.
And you can write whatever you want in your auction terms: "Buyers must pay in pennies" "I only sell items I have stolen, beware" "If you don't pay I will kill you" etc. But ultimately, per the eBay ToS, you are bound to their payment, return, and description policies, and it supercedes anything you write.
It's a GOOD idea to try it if your intent is to scare off fraudulent bidders. Just don't count on them reversing a negative feedback by saying "But I SAID they couldn't do that in the listing".
They won't. It blows, but they will side with the buyer EVERY time (at least in that case, only 99.99% of the time in others).
That's exactly my intent. Buyers intent on committing a fraud are more likely to move to easier targets (i.e. someone other than me). I've been lucky so far, but I'd rather get a negative feedback than risk shipping my item to shady buyers who won't follow directions, as I can always sell somewhere else. I only ebay once a year and am always ready to blow off a suspicious buyer/ebay by withholding my item. All I'd lose is the listing fee.
Exactly. Both times I tried to sell anything on Craigslist, I ended up up getting calls from really skeezy-sounding people. They insisted I travel to a location of their choosing, and lost interest when I suggested somewhere nearby (to their location) that I preferred like a Starbucks.
Yeah, no. Even though I'm a 6'5" guy it only takes a couple of thugs with guns to relieve me of my item and possibly life. I can't imagine how physically smaller people must feel.
I think I'm officially done with eBay. I sold an iPhone 4 on there to someone who had good stats and all that. It took them 2 days to pay which wasn't too bad. So I shipped it that day and marked it as shipped on eBay and added the tracking info. 3:00am that night I get an email from eBay saying the bids were canceled and that I shouldn't accept a payment or ship the item. Of course that ticked me off since it was already marked as paid for and shipped on eBay. PayPal at first suspended the funds but after I was able to show that I shipped it with tracking info they gave me my money. So I was happy with PayPal, not so much with eBay. Had I not tracked the phone I would have been out an iPhone because eBay thought it would be a great idea to cancel bids after something was paid for and shipped. Anyway, just wanted to add that eBay has increasingly become not worth the risk.
Not to mention the insane fees, and the double dipping of paypal fees. I sold my macbook pro on ebay for $2700 and ended up with almost $170 in fees. Greedy bastards.
You were protected under paypal seller protection, which requires you to track the package (with signature confirmation for items over $250). You got your money, no loss and they covered the risk for you.
To be fair, it's easy to call them greedy bastards if you focus solely on the fees, but you have to consider whether you would've gotten $170 less had you sold elsewhere due to limited audience and the lack of bidding war. In my experience it's essentially a wash as Craigslist buyers expect to pay less as they know there are no fees or bidding war involved.
I don't understand why everyone is having a hard time with people not paying on Buy It Now. When your setting up your listing, if you just check Requires Immediate Payment then they cannot even bid without paying instantly. If they don't pay, then the auction goes on.
I never sell as auction, but rather fixed price. And as you say, ebay has extremely many users, and that's the only thing that keeps people using it, cause the fees are just ridiculous. But I guess someone has to become billionaires right?
So list it for $170 higher than what you'd get through Craigslist and someone will buy it due to the sheer volume of customer base. If you check the sale price trends for iPhones, you'll find that buy-it-now sales historically go for a bit more than auctions.
The issue is primarily involving actual auction items (as opposed to BIN items) because you cannot enforce immediate payment on those types of listings.
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Right but only after he had to prove his case to them. If I understood his post correctly (and I agree completely) he was upset that it even happened the way it did. eBay canceled the transaction AFTER the item was marked as shipped. That shouldn't have been allowed to happen.
Ehm, that still doesn't justify the crazy fees. We could go back and forth for ages, but the thing is, the double dipping fees are just retarded.
"just list it higher"; Like people will pay more just because I list it for more?
I'm throwing my 2 cent in. I stopped using eBay for like 4 years for one reason or another and I've just come back to buy/sell stuff but have had nothing but trouble with scammers and liars I've had to file 3 claims in the last few months and eBay sent me a message saying "after reviewing your account we have removed all your negative feedback from sellers and will take further action if you continue to file claims" I won all these claims because they were blatant things that people lied about but I have eBay telling me their going to suspend my account if I file one more claim. I'm not fond of eBay anymore after seeing this huge change they went through
I sold my black 3GS on ebay and thankfully had no issues, but that was years ago. I refuse to use ebay now on expensive electronics, because there's so many fake ads .
I wanted to buy an iphone 4s 64GB for my daughter for Christmas and now have to buy the 5 due to the amount of ads on Ebay that could be just siphoning money from the buyer and not delivering the goods as they are stated, or no goods at all.
Then you have the issue of not knowing if the phone is in the condition it's listed as.
So many headaches. So now I am having to shell out the same price for the 32GB on the apple store.
Craigslist has it's pitfalls but there is no listing fee and no cost to ship. You meet on safe ground that you are near or going to anyway. I proactively suggest the Apple store which gives both parties confidence that the device is legit. There is still the chance a deal can fall through but I've got much less invested that if I were dealing with a middleman that protects the buyer over the seller.