Dealing with Deadbeat Bidders


To an eBay seller, the worst thing in the world is a high bidder who disappears from the face of the eartha deadbeat bidder who bids but never pays. If this happens to you, you're stuck holding the now-unsold merchandise. (This is also the good news. You might not have been paid, but at least you still have the merchandise to resell in another auction.)

If you find yourself a victim of a deadbeat bidder, you can report your case to eBay, ask for a refund of your final value fee, and maybe offer the item in question to other (unsuccessful) bidders. But you have to initiate all of these activities yourself; eBay doesn't know that you've been shafted until you say so. You'll want to follow the procedure outlined in the following sections.

Step One: Contact the Unresponsive Bidder

It's on your shoulders to go to whatever lengths possible to contact the high bidder in your eBay auctions. This contact should start with the standard post-auction email, of course. If the buyer hasn't responded within three days, resend your original email with an "URGENT" added to the subject line. You should also amend the message to give the buyer a specific deadline (two days from the date of the message is good) for responding.

If another two days go by without a response, send a new message informing the buyer that if you don't receive a response within two days, you'll be forced to cancel his or her high bid and report the buyer to eBay as a deadbeat bidder.

Step Two: Go Through the Unpaid Item Dispute Process

You can't be expected to wait forever to be paid. If you haven't heard from the buyer in 7 to 10 days, or haven't received payment in two weeks or so, it's fair to write off the buyer and move on. Give the buyer one last chance (with a 24-hour time limit); then notify him or her that you're canceling the auction transaction and contacting eBay about the nonpayment.

Now comes the extra work. The way you notify eBay about a deadbeat bidder is to file an Unpaid Item Dispute. You have to file this form (and wait the requisite amount of time) before you can request a final value fee credit on the auction in question.

An Unpaid Item Dispute must be filed between 7 and 45 days after your auction ends. You file the dispute by going to eBay's Security & Resolution Center (pages.ebay.com/securitycenter/), shown in Figure 18.5. Check the Unpaid Item option, and then click the Report Problem button. When the Report an Unpaid Item Dispute page appears, enter the auction's item number, click the Continue button, and follow the onscreen instructions.

Figure 18.5. Begin the dispute process in eBay's Security & Resolution Center.


Step Three: Ask eBay to Refund Your Fees

After an Unpaid Item Dispute has been filed, eBay sends a message to the bidder requesting that the two of you work things out. (It's not a very strong message, in my humble opinion, but it's what it is.) You then have to wait 7 days before you can request a refund of your final value fee. You have to make the request no later than 60 days after the end of your auction, and your claim has to meet one of the following criteria:

  • The high bidder did not respond to your emails or backed out and did not buy the item.

  • The high bidder's check bounced or a stop payment was placed on it.

  • The high bidder returned the item and you issued a refund.

  • The high bidder backed out, but you sold the item to another bidder at a lower price.

  • One or more of the bidders in a Dutch auction backed out of the sale.

If your situation fits, you're entitled to a full refund of eBay's final value feebut you must request it. To request a refund, go to your My eBay page and click the Dispute Console link. When the Dispute Console page appears, click through to the item in dispute and select the I No Longer Wish to Communicate With or Wait For the Buyer option. eBay then issues a final value fee credit, and your item is eligible for relisting.

Step Four: Leave Negative Feedback

Naturally, you want to alert other eBay members to the weasel among them. You do this by leaving negative feedback, along with a description of just what went wrong (no contact, no payment, whatever). Limit your comments to the factsavoid the temptation to leave personally disparaging remarksbut make sure that other sellers know that this buyer was a deadbeat.

Note

Know that if you leave negative feedback about a nonpaying bidder, that bidder might retaliate by leaving negative feedback about you. There's nothing you can do about this; it's a risk of doing business and shouldn't deter you from warning other users away from this particular deadbeat. The only way you can avoid retaliatory negatives is to never leave negative feedbackwhich abrogates your responsibility to other sellers via the feedback system.


Step Five: Block the Bidder from Future Sales

Next, you want to make sure that this deadbeat doesn't bid in any of your future auctions. You do this by adding him or her to your blocked bidders list. You can do this by going to eBay's Site Map page and clicking the Blocked Bidder/Buyer List link. Follow the onscreen instructions to add this buyer's ID to your blocked list.

Step Six: Give Other Bidders a Second Chance

Now all that's left to do is deal with the merchandise that you thought you had sold. Assuming you still want to sell the item, what do you do?

You can, of course, relist the item for salewhich we'll describe in step six. However, you may be able to save yourself this hassle by offering the item to other bidders in your failed auction. eBay's Second Chance Offer feature lets you try to sell your item to someone else who was definitely interested in what you had to sell.

Note

When a bidder accepts your Second Chance Offer, eBay charges you a final value fee. You are not charged a listing fee. Buyers accepting Second Chance Offers are eligible for eBay's normal fraud protection services.


You can make a Second Chance Offer to any of the under-bidders in your original auction. The offer can be made immediately at the end of the auction and up to 60 days afterward.

To make a Second Chance Offer, return to your original item listing page and click the Second Chance Offer link. When the Second Chance Offer page appears, as shown in Figure 18.6, select which buyer(s) you want to make the offer to, select a duration for the offer, and then click the Continue button to make the offer.

Figure 18.6. Making a second chance offer to non-winning bidders.


Note

Second Chance Offers can also be used, in a successful auction, to offer duplicate items to non-winning bidders.


Step Seven: Relist Your Item

If you don't have any takers on your Second Chance Offer, you can always try to sell the item again by relisting it. The nice thing about relisting an unsold item is that eBay will refund the second listing feeessentially giving you the relist free. (Obviously, you still pay a final value fee if the item sells.)




Making a Living from Your eBay Business
Making a Living from Your eBay Business (2nd Edition)
ISBN: 0789736462
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 208

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