I get about 5% non paying buyers. Often, they're accounts made up the same day as the purchase, with phoney contact information and no valid email address. So I report the buyer as having no valid email address after three days of non-payment (I require immediate payment). After waiting the customary (mandatory) 7 days, I file a NPB alert. At this point, eBay usually finally gets around to NARUing the account. Another 10 days later, I can fill out the forms to get my 20 cents back.
My question is, once a buyer's account is closed, why do we still have to wait up to 17 days to get part of the fees back? It's bad enough that we lose the listing fee, but to have to wait (for no reason) to get the other part back, is ridiculous in my opinion. If someone's banned from eBay, they can't pay. Besides, if fees were granted by mistake or dishonestly, the buyer could respond to the NPB alert email, which would get eBay to reverse the fee refund.
I believe that eBay doesn't fix this problem because it saves them millions in fee refunds per year. Half of the time, sellers lose track or forget about getting back the fees after such a long period of time. Even better (for us... worse for eBay) would be an automatic return of fees once the buyer was NARUd - no wait, no filling out the form.
Somehow I don't think that'll happen!
*JMHO* - to be taken with a grain of salt!
