How Long Should Seller Wait For Payment From New Bidder?

New bidder comes in wins 15 items over a week. No sign of him for the next 3 weeks and no payment. Buyer has 100% feedback as most will now days. Resent invoice multiple times and tried to message him but no reply. Sellers how long do you wait for a payment from a first time buyer who has won multiple items? I generally don't mind waiting for buyers that I know and who bid often. But for a new bidder why would he bid and have no intention of paying? I think ebay should allow sellers to leave negatives again. Tell me your bad experience with bidder who never pays.

File a non-paying bidder thru ebay.
That usually gets them to pay.
After 3 days...no pay....you get credit
for selling fees....then relist the items
or offer 2nd chance to next highest bidder.
Buyer gets strike thru ebay...
all you can do now.

The scariest ones are the new people to ebay with single digit feedback scores. I've gotten stiffed by a few of those. It always works out with ebay but it's just a pain to file the unpaid item claim and have to wait those extra days.

After 1 week I send the buyer a reminder, after 2 weeks I file an Unpaid Item case. Most buyers consider the Unpaid notice a reminder and simply pay, but about 3% of my sales go unpaid. I have my preferences set so that a bidder with 2 or more Unpaid Items strikes in the last 6 months cannot bid on my items, I think that keeps the problem to a minimum.

Some time ago, I had a Buyer make several large purchases over 2 months. He always paid via Paypal promptly and left me positive feedback. For some reason, he made several purchases over 3 days and held payment. After 3 days he then paid individually for each item, and then emailed me asking to apply a combined shipping discount. I contacted him by email and explained that the best way would be to refund his payments and then send him a combined invoice. He emailed back thanking me and said he would make payment upon receipt. I did the refund, sent a new invoice for all the items with the discount. He never made payment. After a week I sent him another invoice. A few days later, I sent an email asking he please complete the transaction before ebay opens any unpaid item cases. I never heard from him. Several days past and I then received a nasty email from someone indicating they were his personal secretary and I could keep my stamps and I shouldn't expect any more purchases from him chastising me for sending annoying invoices and emails. I filed unpaid item cases which went unpaid and never heard from the buyer again. By the signature, I determined the response was from his wife and can only guess she didn't like the fact he had made the purchases. You never know what strange experiences will happen!

TheStampNut I learned now never uncombine and resend ebay invoices. I rather just refund the postage through paypal as it saves a lot of trouble. I had many buyers who got in trouble with their wives for spending to much. It just goes to show that even with a positve result from buyer over time things could go sour at any time. On the account of the nasty email you need to report those to ebay.

I wouldn't give the refunds in your case because I wouldn't want to get the defects that would occur for each refund. I have even gotten defects for partial refunds.

Having a buyer more than one day to pay is a pet peeve I have with ebay. Rarely is there any auction or estate sale that one can have a delay in paying for what has been committed to.

A delay in payment cost time and money, especially if they don't pay. So after getting burned multiple times with buyers non-payment, I change the buyer requirements on all my listings.

Now I block buyers that don't have a PayPal account, received 2 UP strikes within 12 months, 4 policy violations with 6 months, and a feedback sore equal to or lower than -1. When I'm selling high value items, I will limit buyers within the last 10 days from purchasing more than 1 item.

Good qualifications beget good buyers.

duncanvr,

I know all about that. One of my other hobbies is model railroading. One time, many years ago, I ordered a brass engine ($600+) over the phone at my railroad club. When I got home, the garage door was open and there was my lovely wife waiting for me. Yikes. Seems the hobby shop was suspicious of a new customer and called to make sure the credit card wasn't stolen!

Yes, we're still married. Over 42 years. Lucky me!

Jack Kelley

What a hoot. Happened at a stamp auction that I was at last Saturday. Didn't even make it out to my car before the credit card company called me on my cell phone. I typically haven't used that card for such large purchases before.

Four days.