Ebay Seller Without A Brain

So this morning I got an email from ebay that a seller had reported me as a non paying bidder for an auction that closed Friday. I was irritated for a few reasons.
#1, It's Sunday and I thought that was a reasonable amount of time. (I also thought it took a week before you could report someone as non paying). I know that back in August I had been waiting for a lot for over a month and had sent three emails to the seller with no reply. I tried to open a case and ebay replied that I had to wait a week. A week went by and I again tried to contact the seller and open a case. This went on three more times and then ebay told me I waited too long. I called ebay and they gave me a credit, so I am aware that there are quirks in their systems.

#2 The seller never contacted me at all.

#3 I was watching 16 other lots of his at the time and had submitted another bid on a 17th lot.

#4. I have a 17 year history on ebay with 100% rating and my feedback is over 3000. I think that would be even more reason for the seller to contact me before reporting me.

My response was to pay him right away. I cancelled my bid on the other lot I was bidding on and cancelled the watching status on the other 16. I told his I was doing so because of his impatience and I thought it was best if I took my business elsewhere. Boy did that ever P*** Him Off! His reply is he wishes he could give me negative feedback for my cancelling of my bid.

I deal with a lot of great sellers on ebay and I think they all appreciate repeat business. I'm glad this was not my first ebay experience as I have 1000's of good experiences for every negative one.

I normally leave five star feedback across the board for every transaction. This guy will either get no feedback at all or no stars for communication.

I thought that a seller had to wait 4 days before they could open an unpaid case. Wondering how the person could do so after only 2 days.

My sympathies - extreme impatience, as well as the sound of a vendor shooting himself in the foot.

The only time I've had a buyer not pay up, I left it for over a week before contacting him via ebay. I left further time. I then contacted him via e-mail. More time. Only then, after more than a fortnight, did I involve ebay. I eventually got an apologetic message from him. No abuse from either party!

I think you did the right thing. There are more than enough items to buy on ebay without dealing with idiots!

You have to wait 48 hours, and you have 30 days, starting then, to open one.

A seller can set up ebay to automatically open cases, so this seller didn't necessarily start one intentionally, but the seller would have had to choose the shortest number of days in the dropdown menu in order to have ebay open it automatically at two days.

Personally, I think waiting a week to open a case is about right. Two is ridiculous.

I have had buyers take weeks to pay. I send an email out the day the auction ends and then I usually wait at least a week before I contact them again. This is a hobby for me and I figure we all get busy. If I don't get a reply after a couple weeks I will involve ebay. ebay puts time limits on things so I try not to let things go over a month. Back in the days before Paypal it was not uncommon to wait a couple weeks or more for a check or money order. If someone needs payment from me within two days we are likely going to have problems. The first thing I do when I find a lot I like is see what else that seller has. I will be bidding on more of their lots if they have other like items. I did notice that this seller appeared to be a flea market or garage sale type seller with a lot of different types of items. They can have fun stuff, but it is possible he may never have covers again. I think his listing would have been written very differently if he were a stamp collector.
I had no idea you could choose to automatically file a claim in 48 hours. It's possible he may not know this. I know that I have selected the Global Shipping Program as an option by selecting or not selecting the right option. That can be a mess and I had to edit over 100 listings. I upset an overseas buyer when they were notified of the shipping on a small lot at a very high price. I have been very careful with the buttons since.

PJ... wow... very sorry to hear about this... what a whackjob...

If you feel ok about it, please share the seller's ID with us...
if not, I would appreciate it if you could email it to me so
I can personally avoid him, if you deem it appropriate...

Thanks,
Randall

PJ, I don't think it's that we're all busy, though it's very decent of you to offer us all that excuse.

I think it's more likely that most of us are waiting for the billing cycle on our credit cards to turn over so that our total for the month won't be quite so high and our spouses quite so mad at us.

Or at least so I thought. The things one learns on this site. :-)

Sorry that happened to you pj. I always have paid immediately with PayPal on all my purchases in order to prevent such incidents. So far so good...


-IBFS

Hi,
I buy/sell on ebay, have a 4 figure 100percent positive feedback, and have been active on there for 11 years. That's not bragging, just establishing my experience level.

As a buyer, I pay ASAP. I want the item, and I don't want to add to any delay in getting it.
As a seller, I want payment ASAP, for my goal is to get the item to the post office the next day.

Have I ever forgot or procrastinated to pay for an item? No.
Have others forgot or procrastinated to pay me? Yes, about 1 out of 10 times.

Usually it is not a problem, but what really irritates me is going to the post office with a load, and the next day the tardy buyer pays, giving me another trip to take.

I don't look at ebay every day. I usually look a few times a week. It is very unusual to not be bidding on an item and sometimes I am bidding on hundreds at any given time, but that may only represent a handful of sellers. For example one of Forum members has 1100 auction lots ending today. I can tell you I am bidding on almost 100 of them. He starts everything at 99 cents and is a great seller to deal with. When the last of these end I will be watching the Superbowl and I will not be watching ebay. On Monday's I work 2 jobs so I won't be looking to see what I won until Tuesday at best. I have bought many lots from him and I don't expect this to be a problem.
Another reason I may wait a few days is that many sellers now have free shipping. I wait until all auctions are done to save them money. I appreciate the free shipping, but I don't want to blow their budget when I am bidding on a bunch of lots. I am never in a hurry. If I have not done business with them before I try to remember to ask. I obviously forgot with this guy.

Randall,
I will email you his ID. I am at work now and while the Forum is not blocked, email is. I don't want to share it publicly in case this was one of those deals where he chose the 48 hour option without even knowing he did so. I also do not want him to retaliate, (my bigger fear).
Pat

What were the seller's terms of sale? Did it state in the listing that payment was expected within 48 hours? Those would be the only questions I would have. You know, as a seller, no matter what you do, some folks will be unhappy. I used to have it set automatically to open an unpaid item case after 8 days of no payment, and some buyers think that eight days is jumping the gun. THAT is ridiculous, IMHO.

Two days, unless it is clearly mentioned in the listing, is ridiculous. If it is stated on the seller's listings (payment expected within 48 hours) then by bidding on an item, the buyer is agreeing to those terms, absent prior-agreed-to conditions...

John

Without seeing the actual listing and its terms, there's no way to know what's actually going on here.

As a seller, I thinks its always best to allow time for buyers to pay. You never know if the other person is dealing with a circumstance of life that makes paying difficult or impossible like hospitalization, dead of a relative, etc. I usually wait for a couple weeks before contacting a non-paying buyer. By that point 99% of the buyers have paid already or contacted me to let me know what's happening. Communication is always key.

I actually miss the days before everyone used PayPal. ebay was more laid back. After an auction was over and invoices were sent, one could relax and payments by mail would roll in a couple of days later and over the next couple weeks. Of course it wasn't perfect, but there wasn't much pressure. Now everything is digital and I feel ebay and PayPal has created this idea that buyers and sellers must act as fast as possible. People apologize to me for sending payments the day after an auction. I don't care, but Ebay/PayPal has created this illusion of pressure that others feel they must abide by. I kinda miss the ole slow days of mailed payments. I still have three banker boxes of covers from buyers.

I always wait a week if I haven't received payment before opening a case and would be seriously irked about having a case opened on me after 2 days. I also get irritated when a seller sends me an invoice for a single stamp (i.e. not a combined shipping type of invoice) after just a day or so, which can be a more subtle way of saying "pay up now". The only, and I mean only, time it takes me more than a few hours to pay is if I'm bidding on another of the seller's auctions. Most of the time I pay within minutes, if not seconds, since I can pay with the ebay iPhone app from pretty much anywhere.

As a seller I wait seven days plus and check underbids to see if they are still bidding but just not winning. In some cases I wait longer I even hold items for months for some buyers who are cosntantly bidding, they pay as they go or at the end & I ship in bulk after they accumulate many items as per their request. Or I ship daily what ever they want. I encourage my bidders to combine but some of them want to pay one at a time, thats ok to. I just send one at a time then. I send invoices every day that auctions end usually withing a couple of hours after auctions. Seller should always answer buyer questions within a day. Unfortunately not all sellers are good. I had one automatically open case after 5 days on me when I could not pay him because he had not sent an invoice and had not set the postal locations properly so even if I wanted to I could not pay him anyway. Then he wrote and said he was on holidays some weeks. Now that I found rediculous leaving automatically open cases set for 5 days when he was not even home to look after sales. Store was not in holiday mode either. Now I had another one within the last week who never sends combined invoice for several days. So just overpaid on postage and told seller to refund me the difference. I look after my bidders so its no wonder they keep coming back to my ebay store. Coming up to 5000 feedback score now. Look me up on the bay if you want good service and stamps on covers.