Just Another Rant about BIN Retractions

[shoplineca]

I have posted in reponse to others about this situation but I just needed to rant and rage about it as I am tired of what is becoming all too frequent an event (especially over the last 2-weeks).

I have just had my 6th idiot over the last 10-days, click on the Buy It Now link and then proceed to click it a 2nd time and then promply email me with apologizes saying they hit the BIN button by mistake.

I feel like jumping through the computer and grabbing these people by the neck. We all know you dont click the BIN once in error and buy the item, you receive a 2nd opportunity to go ahead or cancel without any interuption to the auction but no, these morons proceed to see what will happen and then when they get an eBay notice that they have purchased the item and it is a contract, they promptly email the seller with the same old tired line "I hit the BIN link and ended up buying this by mistake".

I used to be able to diplomatically handle getting 1 or 2 every 2-3 months but this last week has gone well beyond reason and my patience is thin.

Here is what I have been doing: I email them and tell them how they DIDNT hit the link once but despite being warned by eBay that they were about to purchase the item, they proceeded anyway. I then tell them I am out money, that I can recover the commissions eBay charges and some of my listing fees, however there are other fees I am out of pocket and I expect them to reimburse me for those expenses. I also tell them they have cost me the potential sale and have lost all my bidders and those watching the auction and it may now take another full 2-weeks to sell that item.

I tell them to reimburse me the $3 to $8 USD within 24 hours and I will do a mutual cancellation of the sale or will proceed as if they bought it, leading to my reporting them as a Non Paying Bidder (and I remind them about 3 strikes and youre out).

The problem is I cant relist the item until I do a mutual cancellation which I wont do until I get reimbursed and if I dont, I go the process of filing NPB and waiting about 10-days or so.

Maybe I should rethink this whole matter and forget about trying to collect from any of these idiots and just go the NPB route, however, I end up loosing over a week of not being able to relist without incurring additional fees (If I list the item before the deal has been cancelled by eBay, I list the item as a sell similar, not as a relist as eBay believes that the item has been sold).

If I do a mutual withdrawls so I can relist the item right away (within a day or so anyway), but I am out of pocket some of my listing fees and the damn fool can go on and continue hitting BINs with no reprucussions.

Not really looking for advice here as we all must handle these situations according to how we want to run our businesses. I just needed to rant and rage about an abnormal week of getting hit with these BIN retractions.

My personal preference is still to jump through the computer and grab these loosers by the neck and call them liars about their claims of hitting the BIN one time in error.

If eBay wasnt so damn interested in maximizing what they collect out of us, we could probably come up with a better system. As far as I am concerned, if you have an email from the buyer stating that he/she bid in error, the Seller should be able to get the auction reinstated and the Buyer be penalized by being charged an inconvenience fee by eBay.

It is not fair that the Seller is out of pocket cash or suffers delays due to Buyer error, especially when that cash goes into eBay's pockets as a result of their rules.

Malcolm

[zarzuella]

Malcolm, you sound like you need a break.

New users can get confused pretty easily.
On almost any other retail website, the buyer selects his purchases and they go into a shopping cart, where he/she can later decide to remove the item or complete the sale. A lot of newbies think thats what they're doing here.
eBay needs to get into line with the rest of the web.

No excuse for experienced ebayer buyers, though - buyers remorse, pure & simple.
Perhaps if you require immediate payment on your BIN's?

Ann

[shoplineca]

Anne
I could cope with it if it werent for eBay keeping some of my listing fees. Why should they profit from their crappy BIN tools? And why is at always at the Seller's expense.

I have about 3 NPB and 5 or 6 people who accidently hit the BIN and eBay's "My eBay" page is useless for trying to manage the NPB any longer.

I could easily adopt eBay's "I dont care about FB" attitude and not bother leaving these NPB any FB and not reporting them as NPB and go thru with mutual cancellation and loose about $2-5 each transaction but my plans are to have about 100 distinct listings running and that could be quite expensive writing off perhaps 10 - 25 NPB per month and loosing $5 per transaction in eBay fees.

I agree with you that the BIN should operate like check- outs on other sites or something similar. At the very least eBay, give us all our fees back, it wasnt our fault, it was the buyers.

By the way Anne, one of the buyers who hit a BIN and backed out a week ago had a FB rating of over 250 at 100%. He sent me a PayPal payment for my out of pocket expenses as requested. So it is not just the newbies mor inexperienced.

Malcolm

[darlg]

Hi Malcolm
You can rant away for I have been experiencing the same problems and yes all the bid retractors are not newbies. I get tired of the emails from these bidders for they state " I made a mistake and I would have expected you to understand my position".
Well I no longer understand their position. The post few weeks I am up to 30% of my sales are to DUDS.....
either bid retractors for they made the BIN mistake or they change their mind or they decide they don;t wnat to pay for shipping even thou I always clearly outline in my auctions the cost of shipping to the US or their email is a DUD or the winner has email blocking on so you can not get in touch with them.
Almost 100% of my sales are US or overseas winners.
Trying to make some money on ebay lately is very difficult. I am still sticking with it and opened a EBAY store last month.
But I just see IMO the sellers constantly getting the short end of the stick lately.
( my ranting I hope is over)
Darlyn
Malcolm I am I think almost a frustrated as you at this point.

[ospreylinks]

Yes it is a problem. Ebay's mutual withdrawl of a sale system should include a credit for the listing fee as well, (or offer to automatically reinstate the listing prior to the BIN being punched...)

Jeff

[shoplineca]

I would like to hear from a PINK why eBay keeps some of our listing fees when a Buyer makes the mistake. I would like to know (a) Why eBay should profit at the expense of the Sellers and (b) why the Sellers have a financial penalty and there is NOTHING to penalize the Buyers who go on and do this over and over again.

I would love eBay to make billion snad billions from the SALES of my items because that means we are both doing well but why do we finance your inadequate BIN and check-out system and the guilty people go on to back stab other sellers?

Why Pinks, tell us why?

Malcolm

[niko*_*]

I have had a similar problem lately with newbies buying the same item twice. I check with them - no they only wanted one, please cancel the second one. So I file NPB, they don't respond so I either have to put a strike against them or lose my FVF. And I always lose my listing fee.

[zarzuella]

I thought that if you open the Unpaid Disputes option on your My eBay page, you could relist by clicking on the item (after FVF comleted). I did this recently and got the 'Fees will be refunded if this item sells the second time around' message.

Not exactly a true fee refund but better than a kick in the teeth. The big problem, of course, is the timing - who can afford to miss the Christmas buying rush (I know it's coming ...) waiting for the NPB process to chug along.

[shoplineca]

eBay doesnt give you all your fees back and those that they do, only if your item sells the 2nd time listed.

Remember, if you had people bidding on your item before, they may not be inclined to do so again as they have propbably gone off and purchased elsewhere.

Its a kick in the teeth as far as I am concerned as the Buyers get off with no penalty at all and they are the ones that ended the listing early.

Malcolm

[ospreylinks]

Plus if you have any add-ons, ie gallery fee, 10 day fee, etc etc, these are never refunded. When Ebay says fees are refunded if the item sells a second time, it is only the basis listing fee that is refunded....

Jeff

[shooger]

I feel vulnerable when I have a BIN auction of fairly good price out there. Any buyer (even a brand new account created solely to screw you over) can click on it and put you $10 or even $20 in the hole in fees. Maybe they bother to email and say "I didn't really want this", maybe they don't. Either way, you're out time, fees, and mental stability. EBay's Unpaid Item system is better than the previous system, but only barel made it useable. What they should have done was make it MUCH more automated. If you say a buyer isn't going to be paying you, you should get a FULL refund (or reinstatement of the auction as it was before it got BIN'd) and you shouldn't need to wait 7 (or more) days. Ten minutes after it ends, they say they don't want it, and BANG you've got a full refund and the auction is relisted.

Another beef along the same lines as discussed here: often when relisting an item that you waited 14-20 days to get your FVF back, it says "This item does not qualify for a listing fee refund if it sells." WHAT? I waited more than two weeks for nothing? And why doesn't it qualify? IT DOES! I emailed eBay about it and they actually gave me a coherant, hand-typed response! This was several months ago. The email is buried now, but basically the jist of it was this.

"In most cases, that message is wrong. Just ignore it. Always check your invoice every time an item that qualified for FVF return successfully sells. In the cases where your refund isn't received, email us with all the relevant information and proof, and we'll start the process of getting you the refund, regardless of what the message said when you relisted the item. We're trying to get the messaged changed."

Of course, the problem remains. Sometimes a FVF item can be relisted and it tells you that you quality, sometimes it tells you it doesn't. And sometimes you get your fee back, and sometimes you don't. Since there's no way to tell if the fee gets credited, you have to keep a close eye on your invoice. If you've got that much time and patience, good for you. Basically I just consider the failed refunds a loss of my time and money, and refuse to let it also be a loss of my sanity.

And yet, here I am, ranting and typing for 20 minutes when I could be managing my auctions. TSK TSK! 😛

*shakes my fist at eBay, Canada Post, PayPal, bad buyers, the US dollar, and some random people nearby*

[shoplineca]

I have given up on the principals of reporting NPB and trying to recover my out of pocket fees from those NPBers and elected to click the link for mutual cancellation of the sale.

So the NPBers will maintain their clean record and go on to screw others with NO reprucussions and I will get some of my fees back IF my item sells the 2nd time it has been listed.

My feeling now is to do only what is right for my business and to heck with the eBay FB and value system. Trying to live within it and report NPB and give negative FB and negative comments only results in getting screwed in return.

I only get retaliatory negs from people who dont pay and since I am going to loose fees to eBay whether something sells or doesnt or someone hits the BIN in error, I may as well eat my loss, file for mutual w/d and relist and try to recover those fees in a sale.

I will now also ONLY leave FB in response to FB left for me, NO EXCEPTIONS.

I tried for 2-years to play the game but the rules are pretty one-sided in fabour of the Buyers and eBay.

Malcolm

[sawtoothrc_com]

I changed to only responding to feedback quite awhile ago; I got really tired of feedback ransom. Now if someone asks, I just say:

'We reply to feedback in batches every 2 weeks or so'

I don't leave negs except as a reply also, and always file FVF for nonpayment. I'm not giving a buyer a break that I would rather not deal with anyway....

[rd1000]

You hit the nail on the head. From what I can see lately, it seems ebay is far more concerned about the buyers than the sellers. Kind of strange when you think that it is the sellers who are footing 100% of the cost.

I too am very frustrated with the NPB process. Trying to meet the deadlines and time frames. I try to be patient colecting payment from my buyers, especially since many like to combine auctions to save on shipping, but I always have to keep in mind the time restrictions placed by ebay. I have missed them several times. It is very frustrating.

Rob

[shoplineca]

There are many reasons for favouring the Buyers, it is very simple to understand and is a smart direction for eBay to make.

All sellers can be replaced and without buyers, there is no need for having sellers.

For every two or three new Buyers, one of them will likely become a seller.

When a seller quits, there are dozens ready to pick up the slack and the pieces and sell what the Seller had been selling.

When a Buyer quits, he spreads negative comments about eBay scaring away many other potential buyers/members.

A Seller who has invested so much of his time, effort and patience into building his eBay business and reputation is not going to be that ready to quit.

A Buyer can quit today and rejoin tomorrow under a differnt userid. He hasnt invested anything into eBay aside from 5 minutes setting up his new userid.

Not only the NPB system but many other policies and decisions favour Buyers over Sellers.

Its a fact, its too bad for us but there it is in a nutshell.

Malcolm

[darlg]

I never leave feedback until the buyer leaves feedback. At the EBAY School in Toronto around 4 years ago EBAY told us sellers never be the first to leave the feedback and I have followed this position over the past few years.
But when it comes to gving someone a negative that is a long decision on my part ( the non payers). I attain the final credit from Ebay but I probably hardly ever give the negative feedback for I do not a negative as retaliation from the buyer. If a buyer has a lot of negative feedback already then I will in most cases give a negative. But overall my point is why bother for I do not want underserved negatives back against me.

I thought Ebay was going to have visible how many Unpaid strikes are against everyone. I think that is a very needed tool for us sellers for we would know immediately if someone has a history of payment problems and are even close to the three strikes you are out.
I know I read somewhere this is to happen but I have not seen it yet.

Dar