So I had a buyer who used BIN on a laptop. They asked a bunch of questions after they bought (but not paid). Hadn't heard back for quite a few days, I was busy anyways.
I sent a polite reminder regarding paying for the laptop. Still nothing.
eBay automatically opens a case for me per my settings, and I get an e-mail saying something about the "son" bought it with the parents "open account" and that now there are health problems etc. and can I cancel or undo the sale.
I'm sorry to hear about your son's condition. I do hope he can find some relief.
In the meantime, because eBay automatically opens unpaid cases for me, I cannot stop or close the case. If I had known earlier I could have sent a cancellation request and stopped the transaction. As it stands now, there is nothing I can do.
You can contact eBay and perhaps they may be able to make an exception in this case or advise you in this matter.
Sincerely,
My opinion on this is that I am 99% sure there is no medical condition related to this sale, this is just one of those things that people use as an excuse because people tend not to pursue things when "health issues" are mentioned.
I went and reset the counter on my settings to have eBay open cases after 4 days (for items where I have Best Offer available) and the listings I make in the future (and the ones I remember to edit) will require immediate payment.
Was my reply neutral enough? I don't want to jump through hoops for folks. They had plenty of time, over a week, as my previous settings were to wait 16 days (I was on selling hiatus then missed the money lol) so that's why I threw in the whole contacting eBay bit. Make them work.
Now, a question. Let's say the case closes, my final values are reversed. But they leave negative feedback. Can I do anything about it?
If they pay, you send the purchase along with a nice note thanking them as if nothing unusual had happened.
If they don't pay, they lose the Dispute and get a Strike for the Unpaid Item. Two of those and they will find it very difficult to buy on eBay in future.
More to the point, they cannot leave feedback if they lose a Dispute.
You get your fees back, and can relist. You can leave positive feedback, but don't bother.
Worst case is if they do pay, then leave negative feedback or start a Dispute of their own. I would suggest that you :
use tracked shipping for your own peace of mind, even if you lose money.
Put them on your Blocked Bidder List, without allowing communication
Set your Seller Preferences to automatically Block bidders with UID Strikes.
Last week my brother (he's 60) on his computer bought something for $300 using my ID. He didn't realize that I was using his computer at his house and had not logged off ebay. So that stuff happens. Now I paid for it and my brother is good for the money. But I learned a hard lesson to log out each time I am on someones computer or if someone is using mine.
I have immediate payment required but I if someone tells me their child bought it without their knowledge, it is believable.
My son ordered this item from my open account for his birthday, at the time I was not aware.
Both my son and I have severe OCD and once he found out this laptop does not have an even bezel on both sides, it triggered his anxiety and worsened his OCD.
Therefore I am unable to pay for the item as my son is now seeing a family doctor and health issues have surfaced again.
I apologize for this mishap and respectfully ask you to resolve this with me or Ebay in a fashion where both you and I can be happy.
I am willing to pay for the listing fee for the item you posted, even 5 listing fees, to make it up to you. Or purchase another item for you that is level, exact, and will not trigger anxiety for my son and I.
Please let me know if you have any ideas.
Thank you, best regards.
While I fully support the struggles of those with health issues, this sounds far too "manufactured", in fact I even used things like this when I was younger (dad wasn't in best of health with heart condition) to wiggle out of auctions.
So I know the game. I don't do that anymore, I was way immature back then but, hey, you know the saying, takes one to know one!
Besides, something about this reeks of non sincerity. Again, if it's true, so sorry that my laptop made you feel ill. But the lack of communication until eBay officially becomes the debt collector and all of a sudden it's serious and they freak out trying to find a way out.
There are no names mentioned and I made it a spoiler, but yeah. Comments?
Edit: I don't want to sound like a harsh person but cmon, no contact for a week then suddenly this? We had exchanged a few messages prior I even sent photos of the laptop and everything seemed great.
Whenever I encounter these situations, if you sell enough stuff it is going to happen eventually, the goal (in my opinion) is do what you can do to minimize your time, risk and cost of getting it resolved.
Regardless what the reasons, which will change over time the longer you talk to them, it comes down to do they want it or don't they want it.
If they don't want it, there's no sense trying to make them take it.
The good news here is that they don't want it so you can cancel with "buyer changed mind" and that gets rid of any cost, and potential for SNADs and ongoing conversation, promptly followed with blocking them..... you can probably also report them if you wish.
eBay automatically open unpaid item disputes, so I have no way to cancel without phoning eBay.
More to the point, why should I?
Reasonable buyer gives me good lead time with issues etc., happy to help. Don't contact me and suddenly when cases are open freak out...lesson learned.
It's the same with anything in life be it mortgage, credit, taxes. Don't communicate until the last minute when liens are placed....well, big lesson learned.
I encourage folks to learn from their own misfortune. I had to, and I'm all about sharing.
I'd go with the UID as well. If they are so OCD as they claim then they shouldn't even buy online. They should only buy from a physical store and and inspect everything in person before buying. Who in the world, with actual mental illness, would do things on purpose and then triggering anxiety bad enough to see a doctor?! What they're doing is an insult to people with true mental health issues.
eBay automatically open unpaid item disputes, so I have no way to cancel without phoning eBay.
More to the point, why should I?
If a buyer asks to cancel before my unpaid item assistant kicks in then no problem. After that they get a strike. I've heard every excuse under the sun, with rarely an original tale. I appreciate honesty more than the typical childish yarns you get. Your reply was appropriate given the circumstances and the buyer at this point has two choices, to pay or take an unpaid item strike. For higher dollar items immediate payment required is worthwhile considering.
OOps my apologies, I missed the fact that a UID was already opened.
My comments were meant for pre-UID situations.
My normal process would be the same as others, I would just let the UID go ahead (I wait 32 days), minimizing the communication with the buyer as much as possible.
I do think that the way things are handled for "bad buyers" it takes a lot of times for anything significant to happen to them.....ie it takes an awful lot of bad strikes before anything happens.....
I do think that the way things are handled for "bad buyers" it takes a lot of times for anything significant to happen to them.....ie it takes an awful lot of bad strikes before anything happens.....
Every ebay supervisor I've spoken to has alluded to this. Everything is tracked, ip addresses, frequency of occurrences, etc, but as more than one has told me in call ins for various matters, buyers are given plenty of rope and can get away with some pretty flagrant and obvious things before any action is taken as everything is based on the number of occurrences of violations. My conversations with them indicated it is more of an issue of it being programmatic in the sense any action that is taken before the number of violations kick in for manual review, or an automated action, is an exception driven manual intervention.
From recent rumblings it sounds like they want to review how they are handling problematic buyers/sellers as they are currently getting royally fleeced by scammers on an everyday basis and conversion rates remain hampered by deadbeats abusing the create a new account or use guest checkout workarounds. All of this can be dealt with quite easily from a programming point of view as these are basic fraud prevention features you would code before allowing a transaction through your payment gateway. The hesitation just lies in the fact that even deadbeat and bad actors represent a given volume of revenue every quarter, and cancelled transactions get relisted.
The fact is a buyer can make a **bleep** or death threat while being able to request the personal contact information of a seller and still have their account active unless you find a supervisor willing to push through an exception to get an account closed. Ebay will refer you to the police while the buyer gets a tick off on their demerit card and is otherwise free to continue to use the site. That alone shows how badly they are handling account management.
It is so much similar to a situation I recently had. Except for me, the buyer paid and cancelled... twice. At least your buyer didn't pay. Yes, you loose time and energy, but a little less money than when the buyer pays and then cancel.
3g~~_7.JPG "retroman_studios"){kind=avatar}
eWBNqp99CHcg~~_7.JPG "zee-chan"){kind=avatar}
