eBay time wasters

[Notafettler]

So this has happened to me a few times and I wonder why people do it.

The other day I posted a really nice, 3 months old mint condition child's bike on eBay with a desired price in mind of at least £100, (older, well used ones go for 80-90), reserve was set at £90. Local collection only, payment by PayPal.

Within 2 hours someone local with an okay ish history (some years, a slack handful of purchases) made an offer of 100 and I accepted. I ended the auction, invoiced, and messaged him to say once payment was received I'd supply address and phone to arrange collection. A few hours later he messaged back and said "I'll collect tomorrow".
No payment has been received, no mention of payment, and no further contact since. He could have paid instantly in the time it took to type "I'll collect tomorrow". I know from experience that this kind of buyer has no intention of paying.

I know that I simply report him for non payment, and he gets some form of warning (judging by previous time wasting experiences they're not banned), but does anyone know why people do it? What can they possibly get out of it? It's a faff for me as I now have to relist and eventually get paid further down the line. It's blimming frustrating behaviour.

Your taking a risk. People have been known to pay by PayPal turn up collect and then claim you never gave them the goods and claim back the money.
My problems are with sellers refusing to part with the goods because it went to cheap.
I do a search and save. Which means I get regular emails for the items I am interested in.
Bidding out of season generally gets you the bargain.
I use a bidsnipper. I set the maximum price and then forget about it.
Last person who didn't post the item said his wife had told the movers to load everything, "sorry the wife sent the bike to Poland " £700 for Santos travelmaster (Rohloff equipped) with loads of extras. It happens to me all the time. Aggravating to put it mildly

 

[Notafettler]

Arhh I have had problems with idiots. But always morons who think for instance, I will post a £30 fridge for free. The last one who didn't asked for there money back. The only way I could do this was to say I didn't have it in stock which reduce your seller score. So I told him to claim the money back via Ebay. He never did!!
I put it on gumtree and it sold the next day.

 

[CanucksTraveller]

Why do you want to be paid by Paypal? You have zero protection, somebody walks up to you says they've paid by Paypal, take the item, genuine person turns up no item to give them, you're screwed, genuine person turns up, takes the item, claims they never got the item, you cannot provide provide an electronic tracking number you're screwed, genuine person turns up, takes item, everybody's happy including Paypal whose just screwed you put of another 10%

Paypal & collection is a big no no as far as I'm concerned

As far as I can see, cash on collection isn't an option on the ebay app, it's PayPal or nothing.
I thought cash on collection was more a feature of the local free paper ads.
As to the PayPal fee, it's been factored into the price so I don't feel "screwed out" of anything.

As for proof of the genuine person turning up it would of course be with phone contact and a signature, it isn't like a blind drop kind of arrangement.

 

[Drago]

If the winning bid was a decent price, such as for a car or expensive bicycle, then if they fail to honour the contact you have the small claims court. For items of lesser value you're pretty stuffed if they don't cough.

 

[Globalti]

Not eBay but when Mrs Gti and I set up home together we had a lot of stuff to sell so we did a few car boot sales. There was a marked difference between English people and people from other cultures in the way negotiations took place. Supposing you had something on your table for 50p, an English person would happily pay and toddle off, pleased to have got a bargain. The other person would feign lack of interest then ask: "How much?"

"Fifty pence!" you'd reply.

"Thirty!" they'd snap back.

"Okay thirty pence!"

Then they would rummage in their pockets and produce a coin. "I only got twenty."

So you'd take their twenty pence and as they moved off they would turn round and ask: "Have you got a bag?"

It's called screwing the seller down then ripping the guts out of the deal and in 31 years of exporting to Africa, the Middle East and South Asia I've seen it many times. I have a Lebanese customer who spends huge sums of money with us and plays us off against a competitor then demands a discount and expects a rebate at year end.

 

[vickster]

As far as I can see, cash on collection isn't an option on the ebay app, it's PayPal or nothing.
I thought cash on collection was more a feature of the local free paper ads.
As to the PayPal fee, it's been factored into the price so I don't feel "screwed out" of anything.

As for proof of the genuine person turning up it would of course be with phone contact and a signature, it isn't like a blind drop kind of arrangement.

It is avoidable for cash on collection, but not If the auction runs its course or ends on a BIN (and eBay are quite wise to stopping sales before the auction ends...damhikt )

 

[Deleted member 26715]

As for proof of the genuine person turning up it would of course be with phone contact and a signature, it isn't like a blind drop kind of arrangement.

Both are worthless as far as Paypal are concerned, they would not even be interested in CCTV of the person loading the items into their boot & seeing a visible number plate, the Police wouldn't be interested in it if it was under many hundreds of pounds, unless they got multiple reports. I know all of this from experience, £400 set of alloys, paid Paypal, came, collected then claimed not received, Paypal found in their favour & gave him his money back. Fortunately the car scene that we were into at the time was a small one, word of mouth got out & the individual was identified, the alloys were removed from his car & returned to the owner, he was lucky as we liked the car & left it on bricks & not the floor.

But if you want to take the risk up to you, however back to the original point, if they intend to give you cash on collection why would they pay Paypal the night before, I certainly wouldn't. All my sales offer cash on collection, both in the text & as a buying option offered by Ebay, but then I have been a member for over 18 years, maybe not everybody has.

 

[Cycleops]

Selling phones on Ebay is a nightmare. A chap bought a Sony off me years ago, no payment, then sent an email with a Lagos address to send to and requesting my bank account details for payment when phone recieved.
The exact same thing happened with an iPhone 4, at which point i gave up.

I’m sure you’d have been okay, he was obviously a Nigerian prince and we all know how honest and straightforward they are .

 

[CanucksTraveller]

Both are worthless as far as Paypal are concerned, they would not even be interested in CCTV of the person loading the items into their boot & seeing a visible number plate, the Police wouldn't be interested in it if it was under many hundreds of pounds, unless they got multiple reports. I know all of this from experience, £400 set of alloys, paid Paypal, came, collected then claimed not received, Paypal found in their favour & gave him his money back. Fortunately the car scene that we were into at the time was a small one, word of mouth got out & the individual was identified, the alloys were removed from his car & returned to the owner, he was lucky as we liked the car & left it on bricks & not the floor.

But if you want to take the risk up to you, however back to the original point, if they intend to give you cash on collection why would they pay Paypal the night before, I certainly wouldn't. All my sales offer cash on collection, both in the text & as a buying option offered by Ebay, but then I have been a member for over 18 years, maybe not everybody has.

Okay thanks, I should probably try and relist it via the desktop site as the cash option wasn't on the app when I listed it on the mobile app.

 

[Notafettler]

I always type this at the top of the description:-
Cash on collection. No PayPal. If you pay by PayPal, I will cancel the sale and relist the item.

 

[rogerzilla]

I finally sold the 650c fork on Saturday night. 24 hours later, the buyer messages me three times in rude, village-idiot terms insisting I refund him and cancel the sale because he bought and paid for it in his sleep (requires three specific keypresses on the app - try it!). Obviously I have to cancel, or he'll ruin my 100% feedback in retaliation. Lucky for him I hadn't taken it to the Hermes drop-off yesterday.

That's the biggest load of BS since "my husband had a heart attack and won't be able to ride it now", which is one I had a few years ago.

 

[Notafettler]

I finally sold the 650c fork on Saturday night. 24 hours later, the buyer messages me three times in rude, village-idiot terms insisting I refund him and cancel the sale because he bought and paid for it in his sleep (requires three specific keypresses on the app - try it!). Obviously I have to cancel, or he'll ruin my 100% feedback in retaliation. Lucky for him I hadn't taken it to the Hermes drop-off yesterday.

That's the biggest load of BS since "my husband had a heart attack and won't be able to ride it now", which is one I had a few years ago.

Refund him?
So he must have paid for it as well?
eBay would have removed the negative feedback.

 

[Notafettler]

He actually said:-

he bought and paid for it in his sleep

 

[Drago]

If they were of any real value I'd remind them that they're legally obligated to honour the transaction and send them the small claims court forms. Done it twice and they fold immediately.

If he has a problem with automatic behaviours in his sleep then he need to switch his phone off and place it where it cant be accessed. It's not your responsibility to nanny him. Stand up to these pith takers.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

If they were of any real value I'd remind them that they're legally obligated to honour the transaction and send them the small claims court forms. Done it twice and they fold immediately.

But then you would be lying to them, they have no legal obligation to follow through with the purchase, it is not an Auction site, it is a Marketplace, in England there are a whole different set of rules for Auctions.