eBay

totallytextiles · ‎03-08-2004

I have noticed a large uptick in non-paying bidders recently. In total, I think 4-5% of my buyers are non-paying.Is this the general average? I would love to hear from other sellers as well as eBay staffers with some statistics on this issue. Thanks.

totallytextiles · ‎03-08-2004

Sorry, I got trigger happy and posted before I wrote the complete message. Please check my next posting. Thanks.

your-chic-shopper · ‎03-08-2004

I bet I know why you have so many NPB , it's cause your feedback # is at 666. Time to get it to roll over

ospreylinks · ‎03-08-2004

I would say I would be at about 5% as well.

Jeff

phoebescollectables · ‎03-09-2004

I consider myself very lucky. I average about 1 non paying bidder for every 150 items sold. I expect the bubble to burst anytime soon.

totallytextiles · ‎03-09-2004

Well, in addition to the non-paying bidders, this morning I got a Paypal chargeback because a buyer has used a fraudulent bank account. If this continues I may have to seriously rethink the viability of trading on eBay.

shooger · ‎03-09-2004

Yeah... when the going gets tough, threaten to quit! 😛

My rate is about 5-10%, but about half of those eventually pay when I file the first NPB alert. The rest end up getting the FVF filed against them.

moltencore · ‎03-09-2004

I'd say I have about 3 per month on average. I file more reminders than that but the reminder usually gets most deadbeats to cough up the cash.

itrecovery · ‎03-09-2004

5% is good result.

davesplace89 · ‎03-10-2004

Out of ever 10 I get around 4 non paying bidder
a lot of them are first time bidders with 0 feedback
This is Getting to be a major problem on ebay for a lot of sellers .I am tired of filing none paying bidder files
on these deadbeats. I wish ebay would do something to stem
this trend . like probation for new bidders
from the first of november till now i have filed over 50
non paying bidder alerts

amberwoodottawa · ‎03-10-2004

I generally get 2 NPB per month. The interesting thing is I usually get them at the same time, within 24 hours of each other.

There is never any relationship between the NP bidders, but I just seem to get them in sequence.

Last month was my strangest with 3 the same day and two of them emailing me to tell their story of how they wanted to get more details of what I was selling and they hit the BIN link and before they knew it, they bought my item.

Of course to do this, it is a 2-step process so I called their bluff. One I gave a negative feedback and the other a neutral. The one who got a negative only told his lie after he received a NPB alert however the other person emailed me before I even sent her a "congratulations for winning" email.

I do wish that eBay would make the recovery of our fees an easier and FASTER process and not one that takes 10 days. I am certain that eBay does not honestly believe that we are resolving some issue between ourselves and the customer and that the customer will all of a sudden pay us.

If there was some real 'meat' to the eBay contract with the threat of suspension by eBay to buyers who fail to honour their contract to complete the purchase then we might have an opportunity to get paid by NPBers or at least know that NPB will face some repercussions by eBay.

eBay does not have use of our money during this period either, except on paper so there is no cash-flow incentive for them to drag this on for 10 days or so.

Malcolm

zarzuella · ‎03-10-2004

I've re-listed 2 items recently for which I've filed for FVF. I don't see any evidence of the refund of listing fees (policy change that supposedly took effect at the beinning of February).

Anyone seen this credit on their account?

Ann

ankservers · ‎03-10-2004

NPB is not a problem. Just file the NPB. Problem is when you filed NPB and post negative feedback. The NPB reply a negative feedback too. I get mad that NPB is just want to post a negative feedback (they may be the competitor). I suggest that eBay should have better policy on NPB such as banned NPB for leaving feedback.

Any suggestions??

Kevin

systemagic · ‎03-10-2004

I have to agree Kevin,

Once a buyer has been established as an NPB on a particular auction their right to post a negative feedback should be rescinded. I haven't had a retaliatory negative feedback yet but (this may be because by the time I file an NPB report I've sent an abundance of patient emails requesting response) I'm always aware and afraid of the possibility.

(I was threatened once with retaliatory negative feedback by the boyfreind of an NPB and blasted him for his low integrity. Fortunately this worked out amicably with the actual buyer.)

Marty

shooger · ‎03-11-2004

I have somewhere around 15 or so negatives (out of about two thousand). Almost all of them are from bad buyers hitting me back. I simply don't care, anymore. I'm going to negg these idiots and scammers, and if I get burned in return, screw it. I think that potential buyers see my 99% positive rate and know that I'm not going to rip them off. I've only lost one shipment of cards, and I'm not sure if I really did. I believe the buyer may have been saying that to get a refund, but only they know the truth on that one. So generally, my negative feedback is from non paying buyers, which is kinda sad if you think about it. They screw a seller, and then they leave them negative feedback.

"there is no cash-flow incentive for them to drag this on for 10 days or so"

Except that by making it a lengthy and difficult to find/navigate process, some sellers aren't able to figure out the forms, or even locate them. Others forget by the time the 7+10 days rolls around. Sometimes a computer crash will mess up your records, or a holiday will make you miss the deadline, or you just give up, saying you're not going to keep a mental note of something for more than two weeks, just to get 20 cents back. If NPB refunds were just automatically credited (as they should be - it's our money) then eBay would lose millions of extra dollars.

amberwoodottawa · ‎03-11-2004

shooger
I agree that some sellers may forget to go through the whole process for a refund. In my case, selling items with an average price of $250 US, those fees are quite substantial (especially as I use ths BIN and reserve in 100% of my listings).

However I dont think that number of forgetful sellers is great enough such that eBay has adopted this 10+ day policy for getting one's fees back. I believe that it was established under the belief that parties could work out differences and they didnt want to make it too easy for bidders to retract from their obligations.

By placing these delays on getting fees returned, I am sure that a number of 'newbie' sellers may work a little harder with some customers who backed out of a deal to purchase their product.

However for us "seasoned" sellers, it is a pain in the butt, a total waste of time and an insult to our intelligence to suggest we need 10+ days to convince a buyer to proceed to pay us when we know the guy is a deadbeat or a scam artist.

I think that one of the benefits of being a Power Seller should be for eBay to acknowledge we know our business and our customers and we can determine whether a sale will proceed or not. And if we determine that we cant get blood from a stone, then we should be able to get full credit for our fees from eBay immediately at the second we are prepared to report a buyer as a NPB.

The other problem with the current system is that these delays are allowing the scam artists too much time to scam other people. They can hit tons of sellers between the time NPB reports are filed and tallied and they get Naru'd.

eBay should examine their policy at this time and again my suggestion is to add instant return of fees to Power Sellers upon filing NPB who, by the time they reach that status, are fairly seasoned vetrans of selling on eBay.

Malcolm

sawtoothrc_com · ‎03-11-2004

I'm getting an unusual amount of 'accidental' bids:

'hi, sorry i made a mistake and accidently made a bid on an item i wanted to buy it now. and i was wondering if there is a way i could change that.. or make it so i can buy the wheel hex hubs for the buy it now price so i dont have to wait.'

'I WAS TALKING TO MY 6 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER AND SKIMMING AUCTIONS FOR THE CORRECT PART AND i ACCIDENTLY HIT THE BUTTON ON THE WRONG ONE, AGAIN I'M SORRY!'

The excuses remain the same... Seems to be I only get 2 different ones, it's a child's fault, or a death in the family.

How do you accidentally bid?

shooger · ‎03-11-2004

You can't accidentally bid. For BUY IT NOW auctions, you have to click BUY IT NOW, then enter your password (or if you have it cached, you go to a screen where you confirm the total) and then click another button to finalize the purchase. It would take a really weird coincidence to buy something by accident.

I've been getting a lot lately, too.

"I bought three identical auctions but only wanted one, so I erased the other two from My eBay so it only shows one now."

I replied, telling him that he can erase them from his My eBay all he wants, but that he bought them, and he owes me money or I'll leave negative feedback (he already has some) and file a NPB alert. He keeps replying "it's erased, I don't want it, stop trying to trick me". I keep replying "You bought it, either pay for it or own up to the consequences." His reply is always the same... until today. Now he says his little kid did it. I'm pretty sure he IS the little kid.

Malcolm - awesome suggestion! You should make it official... send it to someone/somewhere that matters.

coastwindchimes · ‎03-11-2004

I have had very, very few. Must depend on what you are selling. I have had about 2 per thousand sales. One was from Asia, and I could understand why he did not follow through, whent he surface postage was almost three times more than the item!

dynomitedeals · ‎03-12-2004

With regard to recouping your listing fees when you file a NPB alert. I spoke with ebay yesterday and asked how this worked. The way to get the listing fee back is to relist the item from the 'my ebay' page.
My % of NPBs depends on the items I am selling. As well, it fluctuates and I grit my teeth and send a friendly reminder. If nothing happens, I file an alert. This sometimes works. Finally, I file for a FVF credit. I rarely leave negative for the same reason as everyone else. I work too hard at this to have some disgruntled non paying bidder zap me with a negative as a method of revenge. I agree with the suggestion that a NPB should not be allowed to leave feedback.