eBay

rose-dee · ‎01-06-2015

A buyer made an offer on one of my items just before Christmas, which I accepted. She hadn't paid by today, despite my "friendly reminder" a couple of days ago. I was going to give her another day to respond before opening a UIC.

However, today, on checking her ID, I see she's now shown as NARU, so I opened the UIC. I thought eBay would immediately refund my FVFs and close the case in such circumstances, but apparently not. I got the usual message to wait 4 days to close the case.

I really don't fancy hanging around on the telephone trying to get an answer from Customer Disservice. Just wondered if any other seller had ever run into this, and whether they had their FVFs refunded immediately. It seems rather stupid of eBay not to do so in this sort of situation -- obviously the NARUed buyer won't be paying.

rose-dee · ‎01-06-2015

Well, I guess I should retract that word "stupid" I used above. It seems eBay does immediately refund FVFs in such a situation:

I found this note on my "Sold" list under the item in question, about 10 minutes after processing the UIC. I guess the programmers just forgot to change the usual message on the UIC screen.

It's odd that this person went NARU since they really hadn't purchased much at all in the last few months. Maybe this was a back-door way of avoiding payment, and going on to a new ID?

Anyway, thank you eBay.

recped · ‎01-06-2015

You an only go NARU if eBay turfs you out. Probably this "new" id was associated with another id that was suspended. Either that or they went on a massive buying frenzy and never followed through on a single one.

"What else could I do? I had no trade so I became a peddler" - Lazarus Greenberg 1915
- answering Trolls is voluntary, my policy is not to participate.

rose-dee · ‎01-06-2015

A few minutes ago she sent me an eBay message saying she'd had been trying to pay but had trouble with Paypal, and had got it sorted out. The message of course has the subject line "I didn't receive my item". Now suddenly, her ID doesn't show as NARU anymore!

Any idea what may be going on? I'm just curious, never had anything like this happen before. I checked her eBay history, and it goes back a couple of years, with no previous ID change. She made quite a few purchases over a year ago, one or two in the last few months.

At this point, I think I'm just going to block her, the transaction/UIC has been closed by eBay anyway. I think if she was really serious about attempting to pay, she might have got in touch with me long before now -- it's been over 2 weeks since the sale.

I'd better not get a defect for this nonsense.

rose-dee · ‎01-06-2015

A follow-up thought on this set of circumstances: How is it even possible to be NARU one minute, and not NARU a few moments later -- on the same ID? That seems very, very odd to me.

This buyer's ID history shows no change since 2008.

At least as of a few minutes ago, eBay hasn't retracted the UIC closure, and I've blocked the buyer. I've never come across anything remotely like this back-and-forth scenario on eBay before.

reallynicestamps · ‎01-06-2015

If she is also a seller, she could have had a credit card for her fees that had expired.

Paying the fees would reinstate her.

If she's only a buyer, I am, as usual, clueless.

rose-dee · ‎01-06-2015

@reallynicestamps wrote:
If she is also a seller, she could have had a credit card for her fees that had expired.
Paying the fees would reinstate her.

I've just checked her history, and the last FB for her as a seller was over a year ago (no details shown of course). It's hard to tell from the FB page when the actual last sale was of course.

Another possibility occurred to me. She may have, as 'recped' suggested, made a whole bunch of purchases in the last couple of weeks and had some problem with Paypal that resulted in a lot of UICs which ended in eBay making her NARU.

Perhaps when she sorted out the Paypal problem -- assuming Paypal made the error -- that information was sufficient to allow eBay to reverse the NARU designation. Whatever the explanation, that reversal happened at some point this afternoon, after I had (thankfully) already filed the UIC and eBay had closed it automatically.

If that is the explanation, it may not have been the buyer's fault, but I find it hard to excuse her from not contacting me at all for well over a week. I'm sorry about it, but it wasn't my issue to sort out, and I really don't want to get involved further with this buyer. I've told her the transaction is closed and the item won't be relisted.

rose-dee · ‎01-06-2015

Do you happen to know whether a blocked buyer (on my BBL) can still make contact with me through eBay?

I am hoping that the answer is 'no'.

ricarmic · ‎01-06-2015

Hi Rose! Yes blocked bidders can still contact you, or at least they could. I have had them contact me to ask me why they can't buy stuff. Now I don't remember the last time that happened so it might have changed in the meantime.

vintagenorth · ‎01-06-2015

You can stop blocked buyers from contacting you (probably under communication preferences) but if they have purchased from you before being put on your BBL then they can still contact you regarding their original purchase.