argh, I hate postal orders

soolin

I just remembered why I started to consider going paypal only, I've got myself in a right muddle.

I had a new line of goods, let's assume they were books, they were all the same price but in batches of different titles. So I had multiple BINs, 'title x' 'title Y' etc. I knew these items would appeal more to young people so although they were all BINs I left the cheques and postal orders enabled.

I sold dozens and dozens and started to get cheques with no covering letters which meant i had to try and track down who they were from, several children had obviously persuaded parents to pay for them but the parents had different surnames as I was getting 'John Smith' cheques that related to Suzie Jones buyers for instance. That took me hours to sort out. Then there were the postal orders, up to three a day all with no covering letter and sometimes just a post it note saying 'for the book'.

In terms of valuing my time not having these paid by paypal has cost me a fortune, I have spent literally hours emailing people asking what colour envelope they used etc trying to match payments to the cheques and postal orders.

I sent reminders to 3 people who have not paid and one has got back to me to say that his dad sent a cheque and his dad says it was cashed on 11th May, arghhhhh, that means that someone claimed a cheque in the wrong name and i have no idea who it was.

Luckily I am down to the last BIN on these items, then I'm closing that line down and putting the rest of my stuff paypal only and staying clear of things that young adults like as they don't use paypal.

cyril82

This used to happen to me all the time when i was selling full time on ebay. I was spending so much time tracing the person who sent the cheque i was considering hiring someone just to do that job. Then i made a decision, i changed the listing and where it already said in big bold red letters Don’t forget to include the item number if paying by cheque or postal order I just added we will not be held responsible for delay's in processing your order if your item number and/or ebay address is not included with the payment.

The unidentified cheques still didn't stop coming, except now they were just filed until someone cropped up asking had i received their payment, using their real name i would identify the cheque then explain that we had not cashed it due to it arriving without any identifying information and that we would now cash it but it would be another 5 days until the cheque cleared before we could send the order out.
I never had any problems with this system as most people were just a little embarrassed and apologetic.

Removing cheque as an option is one way around it but for me so many of my customers paid by cheque it would have undoubtedly resulted in a loss of profits.

It wasn't just payments either, i would often get items returned with no prior contact and no covering note, or sometime just a note saying "i would like a refund" no name, no item number nothing..:rolleyes:

soolin

I do have a request in my listings asking them to send a print out of their item and user name at least. As you say though that hasn't helped, I think that's what the post it notes are supposed to be when they say 'hi I'm Katie and this is for the book'.

I can't afford to sit on this line of items either as it is one of those 'popular today worthless tomorrow' lines, you know the sort I mean!

I've sent out the item to this buyer which means I am a payment short somewhere now. I know the cheque was received as my bank has a machine that scans the cheques when you pay them in, so I can match the cheque I paid in last week to the one he says has cleared.

Humbug,

cyril82

I think this just goes to prove one thing.....common sense just isn't that common!!

soolin

cyril82 wrote: »

I think this just goes to prove one thing.....common sense just isn't that common!!

:rotfl:

It only occured to me a few minutes ago that I could have made it slightly easier for myself d'uh! Instead of putting up all the bINs at exactly the same price I could have varied them by say 1p so for people that sent actual amounts it would have least have narrowed it down to the BIN item, which in turn would have made it easier for me to locate who hadn't paid after buying that particular item. At th emoment being all the exact same price I can't even narrow down which of the variations it was.

Does that make sense?

Next time I'll do better, I think this exercise was a B- effort.

frivolous_fay

soolin wrote: »

:rotfl:

It only occured to me a few minutes ago that I could have made it slightly easier for myself d'uh! Instead of putting up all the bINs at exactly the same price I could have varied them by say 1p so for people that sent actual amounts it would have least have narrowed it down to the BIN item, which in turn would have made it easier for me to locate who hadn't paid after buying that particular item. At th emoment being all the exact same price I can't even narrow down which of the variations it was.

Does that make sense?

Next time I'll do better, I think this exercise was a B- effort.

I was going to suggest that, but I thought it would get confusing again if people made multiple purchases :rotfl:

soolin

frivolous_fay wrote: »

I was going to suggest that, but I thought it would get confusing again if people made multiple purchases :rotfl:

Oh yes..back to the drawing board.