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Ebay issues with problematic buyers / non payers etc

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chris
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PostPosted: Sun May 16, 2004 4:52 pm    Post subject: Ebay issues with problematic buyers / non payers etc Reply with quote

I'm not a large seller on ebay myself but have been speaking with a few friends and relatives who have had real problems recently on ebay.

The first involves a sale of a music related item, the price at the end of the sale was roughly £250 UK GBP. So my relation sends the payment request to the buyer and doesn't hear anything for a few days, not a problem he thinks at first. Then after giving the other person some time, after 10 days from the auction end he sends another email asking what the problem is and gets zero reply.

So at this point the auction has been won, there has been no payment received and the seller is now responsible for a listing fee plus ebay's percent cut of the total sale value, roughly £14 if I remember correctly.

Another friend also had a problem selling a mobile phone. He had his item listed with a buy it now price and said would ship to the UK only. Someone puts a 'buy now' offer in and wins the bid, but again doesn't make payment. He does however contact the seller and it turns out he is in Russia and will pay £5 for postage. This wouldn't cover it but my friend thought rather than re-advertise he would just send it, so agreed and asked for payment. The Russian user at this point ignored all responses and had gave the seller negative feedback stating something along the lines of 'fraudulent sale'

Looking at the Russians' profile it seems he had bought 10+ of the same mobile phone in the last few days, and left the same negative feedback on all the other accounts. Also in this profile the dodgy buyer was also selling the same phone, so in this instance it appears the user has abused all the other sales by buying them all so his was the only one left on site at the time.

Now you would expect ebay to be helpful with these sort of things, but this is where I was a little concerned, especially since their fees seem to have increased again recently, surely this is what you pay for, fraud protection?

In response to the first sale ebay simply said contact the next highest bidder for your item and sell it to them. Since my relation had waited around 10 days for the initial buyer (the non payer) it was now too long, upon contacting the next higher bidder he said he had since won another similar auction and was not interested. So for selling an item, and the buyer simply ignoring all further correspondence, ebays' reply here was simply to contact someone else, not the best solution really.

For the mobile phone incident, ebay actually removed the false negative feedback, although it still appears in the history as one negative entry in the last 6 months, the actual text can't be seen, and the users' previously excellent 100% feedback rating now stands at around 92%.

Usually I would consider selling to be less risky, especially when you receive payment up front, but the whole non-payer thing still seems quite an issue, especially for larger costing items where you owe ebay a substantial amount for a transaction, which might not have even taken place.

As I understand it, when bidding on ebay you are effectively forming a contract, so if you are a non payer and break this it should get you in trouble with ebay. From the responses I have seen above it seems that ebay isn't that eager to actually do anything against the problematic users.

Maybe these people have just had bad experiences, as I mentioned I'm not a big seller on ebay myself but I do make sure my adverts and items are always up to scratch. There seems to be a lot of rubbish at present, people link selling constantly etc. I also had a buyer contact me recently informing me another user was spamming their product and urging them to buy theirs instead of mine.

It would be good to see how people generally feel about ebay at present, my view is generally positive but after hearing these comments from others it seems more work needs to be done to make the auctions safer.
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Duckman
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 2:26 pm    Post subject: Re: Ebay issues with problematic buyers / non payers etc Reply with quote

chris wrote:
It would be good to see how people generally feel about ebay at present,


I dont like Ebay full stop. Sorry. I dont like the idea of someone offering me say a cheap telly, only to be sold junk. The whole site is based on trust, which is what we base all our purchases on regardless if it is Ebay or purchasing something from your local high street. I just have a real problem dealing with Joe Bloggs selling me goods when I dont know that much about them.
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chris
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 2:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well I wouldn't go that far. As I said I sell on ebay and have been praised and had decent feedback, as I send everything recorded delivery, pack it well and usually send the day after recieving payment. Adverts always include a photo, to be fair i've only sold decent elecrtical type stuff on there so far.

The stuff above is more loopholes in the system, people abusing 'buy it now' for example. I see what you mean though, personally I wouldn't touch like something like a TV off ebay, but you can always check out their feedback to see how they have been with previous people, I've found that to be pretty accurate so far.

In respect to the above incidents, he did actually a refund after submitting a 'non paying bidder' report against the false russian bidders. This can only be done 10 days after the auction, and then another weeks worth of emailing to get a refund for the listing fees. So in the end he didn't lose out but took nearly 3 weeks to get sorted.
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MattA
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 22, 2004 2:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I buy regularly and sell infrequently on E-bay. I've noted the following

Only agree to ship to UK addresses after you have received payment.
Make sure payment has cleared and is in you account before you ship.
A friend of mine had a problem with people in Thailand asking her to ship electrical goods (digital cameras etc) then cancelling payment.
Apparently the latest russian scam is to get someone with an address in the UK to hold and forward goods for them, and not pay.
I only buy and sell to people in the UK make sure the person has at least 5 positive reviews.
If they are a non paying bidder and in the UK take them to the small claims court for breach of contract. It's remarkably easy (obviously figure out cost).
As a side point I often go through listings that have finished and if no bids where made put in an offer privately to the bidder ,found i can get some real deals that way Wink
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PostPosted: Sun Aug 22, 2004 11:55 pm    Post subject: topic Reply with quote

Hi Chris,

I occasionally sell on ebay (concert tickets) and very often get Non Paying Bidders and other problems.

Alas!! It does seem I'm not the only person slightly peeved with ebays lack of involvement and back up with problem bidders.

As a seller I find this organisation quite useful http://www.squaretrade.com/cnt/jsp/index.jsp

I'm registered with squaretrade, who not only negotiate on behalf of sellers but also buyers as well provided that the seller is registered with them.

Hope this helps Wink
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 23, 2004 3:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've personally also used Ebay a lot to sell the odd thing and buy quite a lot of stuff and I've only had one bad experience myself..

Partially my fault though (too good to be true? it probably isn't true..).

I was looking to buy a new 19" monitor a few years ago and saw a great deal for the exact model I wanted reconditioned.

So I put my bid in and won, I was asked to send the money by wire using western union or something, so they could just go to the post office and collect the cash.

So I sent it..

I received a call about 2 days later from the US western union, saying the name I had sent my money too had complaints against it previously for Ebay fraud so they had stopped my transfer and made me a full refund including the fees..

Damn I was lucky as I was a student at the time and it was quite a lot of money..

A similar thing happened to my friend...unfortunately his was a lot more cash (a 42" plasma TV) and the transfer wasn't stopped...so he lost his cash Sad

Ebay don't tend to be all that helpful...so just be careful!
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uvebay
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PostPosted: Fri May 19, 2006 10:46 am    Post subject: security tool for bad ebayers Reply with quote

Hi

eBay are renowned for being difficult to contact (try finding there phone number and talking to someone) and in our experience they take little or no interest in your problems. You only have to search online and you will soon find a whole mass of hundreds of thousands of people with issues unresolved by ebay.

Because of this we have launched a new free forum on which individuals or businesses can expose ebay non payers and ebay rogue traders.

http://www.uvebay.com/

Obviously it's early days and the word is yet to spread, but hopefully with a little support and use from ebay users the website will become a useful tool for sellers and buyers alike and who knows, it might even make ebay pull their socks up!

best wishes
uvebay
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