I sold a coin some time back, did my usual drill: Invoice the next morning. Invoice after 4 days with a little note. Invoice after 9 days with a note saying "Please contact me or I'll be forced to assume you don't want the coin and want to cancel the transaction." Open Unpaid case after 11 days. I could close the case today at 09:18 PST. The buyer paid at about 06:45 PST. Well, I have the coin packaged and ready to ship off to him, which of course I will... but I feel a problem customer here. It seems like every buyer I have that refuses to pay until a case is opened ends up getting their money back because of some phantom problem. I've preached if before (maybe not in this forum), but I think it's absolutely ridiculous that a buyer can tarnish a seller's reputation with the threat or action of negative feedback and the seller has no recourse at all. I can't comprehend why a seller can't leave negative feedback for a deadbeat buyer. Who knows, though - maybe this guy will be happy with the coin as shipped and leave positive feedback without an issue. But I don't have warm fuzzies.
We need a deadbeat buyers list, for blocking purposes. Does one exist already? Not suggesting your buyer is a deadbeat. They may have valid reason for late payment. Best of luck.
I have opened several cases against buyers, they eventually pay, and I never have any problems after. Some people forget, dont check their account, some people wait til they have money. An opened case payment doesnt mean there will be a problem.
If you are going to use ebay then you have to accept up front that issues like this are going to arise. It goes hand in hand with the venue. That doesn't mean you have to like it. But there are things you can do to deal with it - if you want to avoid it. Simply put a notice in your payment terms that any and all auctions not acknowledged and/or paid for within 72 hours after invoice is sent will automatically be canceled. And that by bidding on the item the bidder agrees to these terms. End of story.
Instead of Going the unpaid route, go the request to cancel route, that doesn't ding him. In the dialog box put something to the effect: "Seems as if buyer no longer wants this item. I am requesting a friendly cancel to free it up for relisting. Thank you." They either pay up or agree to it. Win/win.
I've had 4 non-paying bidders over the past 3 weeks for $650+ in coins. Two of those buyers bought multiple coins. (I sell about 200 coins a month). It seems like I always have an unpaid item case open, but like others have said here, "that's just part of the game". If anyone ever leaves you a negative after putting off payment for 2 weeks, you can always call eBay and/or report the buyer for abusing the feedback system, and likely get that feedback removed. It's stressful, and a hassle, but it can be done if you're firm with the customer service reps on the phone.
On first two items I sold on that website in two years after starting over with a new name, because of one bad feedback from a no feedback buyer, I was threatened with a lawsuit because I wouldn't ship the $300 items together. I was only covering myself from a total loss if something went bad. According to an ebay email, I was responsible if anything went bad. So, after shipping first item I cancelled the transaction on the second, because I knew two negative feedbacks were waiting for me. Well, I tried to cancel. The buyer wouldn't agree and I was billed a final value fee as well as a shipping fee on an item I did not sell or did not ship. Also had to refund the buyer from my personal credit card because paypal was holding back my funds. Never again for me.
