Solution to New-user abuses?

[neil6967]

Here's the situation now: Recently I had a new-user (chill061) who, over a 2 day period, had bid and won 8 or 10 items from different sellers and not paid for any of them. I was the third seller to send "chill061" an NPB alert, and eventually "chill061" had his account suspended, but all of those sellers lost money (listing fees, final-value-fees if they didn't collect), but ebay still made money (from the listing fees) and of course "chill061" had a good time and didn't lose anything.
I wish ebay would collect a $20 "new-user fee" from new members, which could be passed on to the sellers as re-imbursement for the listing fees, and would offset some of the risk of selling to a new user. You could still have non-paying bidders but at least you wouldn't actually lose any money from new-users like "chill061".
What do you think, Did I miss something?

[shooger]

Dream on! Nobody is going to pay $20 for the privaledge of buying something off eBay.

There are many ways eBay could prevent abusive NPBs, but that would decrease their revenues - bad business move for them. It will be encouraged as much as possible, and the sellers foot the bill.

[ospreylinks]

I agree with shooger.... a $20.00 fee would prevent a number of potential bidders from ever logging on....

Unfortunately, this is not a perfect world and none-paying, none-communicative bidders are just a fact of life and part of the cost of doing business.

Jeff

[your-chic-shopper]

Plain and simple , you have a credit card on file with Ebay. You bid and not pay within the time frame stated ,it gets deducted from your credit card on file . You contact the credit card company stating that you did not ask Ebay to take the money , you get suspended ..

You can disbute the charge , but it has to be done through Ebay and the seller

[www-labels4less-com]

I emailed them a suggestion to charge all new users $5.00 that would become a "credit" or "ebay anything" points that could be used for a first purchase. I DO think this would stop people from fooling around or "exploring ebay" to see "how it works" at the sellers expense.

[shooger]

Forcing new buyers to pay a fee (even if it is refundable later on) or register a credit card will alienate about 1/2 of all buyers. Ebay won't throw away half their members (and profits) just to save the sellers some money. They're quite happy to let us deal with the losses incurred by all the bad buyers they allow into the system.

[amberwoodottawa]

More advertising is spent by eBay to get mew Buyers NOT Sellers. The same goes for any retail store or business. The difficulty is in finding and keeping buyers.

There will always be someone who wants to sell and I am willing to bet that eBay depends on new buyers becoming new sellers so we are, like it or not, fully replaceable.

If you want some further proof, see how many other people are selling the same items as you are selling. If you or I or anyone else on this board are no longer selling on eBay, it simply improves the selling rate of our competitors.

Whether the remiaining competitors adhere 100% to the eBay rules, give customers their full attention, respect, service etc., is not important, there will be Buyers and enough Sellers to make it worth their while.

Malcolm

[shooger]

If you say buyers are the prey, and sellers are the hunters, then you can say that if you dump a huge amount of prey into the system, the hunters will multiply. You're right, Malcolm - eBay just wanted to get as many buyers into the system as possible. Sellers will sprout up to pay the fees and collect the "bounty".

[neil6967]

Here's another one "norma24312" just joined ebay, starts buying but never pays. I just left "norma24312" the 2nd negative feedback, held an unsold item in inventory for an extra month, and of course lost my listing fee.
Too bad ebay doesn't reimburse us (sellers who lose money on these non-paying bidders) since they have their credit cards on file.

[your-chic-shopper]

You do not need a credit card on file to buy on Ebay ...only to sell

[treasure-pot]

"You do not need a credit card on file to buy on Ebay ...only to sell"

Not exactly true - you are required to register with a credit card if you offer a Hotmail, Yahoo, Netscape, etc. email address as your registered email.

[amberwoodottawa]

eBay collects a considerable amount of money from Sellers where deals havent gone thru where those fees havent been returned to the Sellers as they failed to file for the return of those fees.

I would NEVER expect eBay to reimburse Sellers who lost listing fees to newbie NPB's any more than expect them to reimburse Sellers who lost listing fees to a NPB with a 150+ FB rating.

However, eBay could place those monies into a fund to reimburse Sellers who have lost fees as the result of newbies or other scam artists that have been set up for the sole purpose of scamming Sellers of their products.

This would be a very positive thing to do to reinstill confidence for the Sellers, that eBay is proactive and has an interest in making eBay a safe place for Buyers AND Sellers.

Malcolm