Claims with ebay as Seller and Buyer

Well, I filed my first claim yesterday. Somebody jumped in at the last 30 seconds and won four ounces of trimmed gold fingers. I was pretty happy with the $26. He had good feedback and been a member since '02, so I wasn't worried when he didn't pay right away although he'd "sniped" it at the last minute. A couple days later, I sent him an email asking if he still wanted it. No response. Let another couple days go by and opened a claim with ebay. Through some kind of coincidence, received payment within a half hour.

Ironically, a couple days earlier I bought some scrap RAM that hasn't been shipped yet. Tomorrow, I'll open a claim for that. I'd sent him an email about it and need to wait so many days for a response before opening a claim.

My wife says I've just gotten too used to paying and being paid instantly. But I keep track of stuff I'm buying even if I do use the automatic bid feature and pay within seconds of the auction ending. I've never received an invoice. Sales are shipped the day after getting paid. I see it as a business. You either need to pay attention to it or go do something else. Ebay fees the same way - just a cost of doing business like gas, storage, buying equipment etc.

I've had a couple of buyers that set and set without paying, and on the 3rd day I'll send an invoice and they'll pay within a few hours, kind of like their waiting on the invoice.

On mine I have this in the listing. "Payment must be received within 3 Days of Auction Close or Buy It Now purchase". That's why I don't really bug them till the 3rd day. But if I have to file a claim you bet I'll follow thru so it gets marked against them. If the sellers set up their restrictions correctly then some of these buyers with black marks won't be bugging you. Here is how I have mine listed on the Buyer Requirements, "Block buyers who:

Have received 2 unpaid item strike(s) within 1 month(s)
Have a primary shipping address in countries that I don't ship to
Have 4 policy violation report(s) within 1 month(s)
Have a feedback score equal to or lower than -1".

I may have one claim a month or two, totally acceptable.

Almost all of my sales are "Buy it Nows" with an "Instant Payment Requirement" so that they can't click without paying. I start my prices on the high side and whittle them down over time till the item sells.

My .02:
Well back in my days of buying hard and fast on Ebay I too was a "sniper" Snipers aren't all bad, I always pay right away but I can offer some possibilities. There are sniping software out there, basically you buy points to "snipe" that off site and off ebay server stores your bid info and you can even set the amount of time you want the snipe for. I used it quite often when I would buy things overseas and not want to get up to snipe at say 2:00 AM. So I can see why on some occasions someone snipes the auction and doesn't pay right away....they are not actually sniping.. a computer somewhere is doing it for them.

Ebay somehow put a foot down on these computer snipers a few years back, basically if it didn't recognize your normal IP address it wouldn't allow the snipe to go in. I lost a few auctions before I figured it out.. I'm sure the "sniping software" folks have figured out a work-around for it now.

As far as sniping itself. People who lose by sniper always get pissed. They refresh seeing their item already in their hands and bam- in comes the sniper. But sniping actually saves your wallet. You have to make a decision on how much something is worth and you are willing to pay for, you plop that in one time, and that's it.. either you win or you lose. There is no bidding war, no human emotion to get mad at the next guy when he keeps outbidding you.. you pull trigger and either you have the fatter wallet or the other guy does. If he does- you just made him pay more than he was going to 3 seconds ago.

Originally Posted by spider03

thanks for the info sledge 42. I didn't know about that sniping stuff - that would take all the fun out of it for me. But makes sense why someone does not pay right away.

Spider: Yeah when I was new- I wanted that bragging right of "I got a 1 second manual snipe" And I had my share. After the fun of it wore off, I decided "No need for bragging rights- the bragging rights are in the fact that I walk away with what I was hunting- regardless of if I manually snipe it or a computer does it for me.. while I sleep"

Originally Posted by BroJer

That's exactly how I do things, KZ! For me, it is a strategy that is profitable, and...keeps my blood pressure down

You know what is funny. I've been on Ebay since 1999, and as I've gotten older.. If I want something that has say 100 of the same item listed at the time, I search for the buy it now auctions.. maybe I'm getting too old to want to fight for it 6 days from now when I know that a "BIN" auction will most likely get it to my door long before the "auction" item even ends and most likely at the same or near same price!

I didn't mean to imply that anything is wrong with sniping, just that he'd done it. I was actually glad for the extra dollar. I didn't know about the computerized sniping and figured he was putting the bid in manually. That's what I didn't see - him putting the bid in and winning but not paying. I have sniped, too, and often use the automatic bid feature. Once I understood it. I liked it cause I decide how much I'm willing to pay, put that amount as a high bid and let the computer bid for me. I agree with sledge cause when I sit and watch it, I'm likely to say "Maybe one more dollar (fifty cents etc).

Originally Posted by Bear

There's a "assistant" somewhere on there, I'm not sure where it was, JohnC was telling about it recently. If you use the non paying bidder assistant, it begins the claim automatically after two days, any time there's a non paid item

The assistant is adjustable to the settings you want. The initial setting I had was for thirty days, that didn't work so I changed it.

I have the eBay app on my phone which alerts me to winning bids by me and by my customers. It keeps me informed and current on my listings. Mike.