Buyer wants to cancel 4 days after winning the bid

theonlywayisup

kalsha wrote: »

Got another one of these today - wants to cancel as he bid in error - 4 days after the auction finished! Why am I attracting these foreign buyers with bad English???

Last time I made a mistake - he asked to cancel so I started cancellation but he did not respond so I had to wait 7 days.

This time I am wiser and have opened a case already and then he asked for cancellation. I am not going to respond and just going to wait to cancel on the 4th day.

This is exactly the difference, you contacted the first buyer and they asked to cancel. That wasn't the best thing to do as you found out. Always better to let the NPB cancellation take it's course unless you hear from the buyer beforehand.

kalsha

theonlywayisup wrote: »

This is exactly the difference, you contacted the first buyer and they asked to cancel. That wasn't the best thing to do as you found out. Always better to let the NPB cancellation take it's course unless you hear from the buyer beforehand.

So are you saying that I shouldn't send a polite message to the buyer just to find out if they had forgotten to pay? That is what I have been doing usually on 3rd or 4th day. If they don't respond, then I open a case.

Sometimes I think the buyer does not pay immediately as he wants to bid on something that finishes a couple of days later- as I offer combined postage. That has happened before and the buyer informed me that he was going to bid on something else that finishes 3 days later and he was hoping for combined postage. Ideally he should tell me straight after the auction for the first item has finished.

I think I will need to make a few changes. Thank you all for the suggestions.

theonlywayisup

kalsha wrote: »

So are you saying that I shouldn't send a polite message to the buyer just to find out if they had forgotten to pay? That is what I have been doing usually on 3rd or 4th day. If they don't respond, then I open a case.

Sometimes I think the buyer does not pay immediately as he wants to bid on something that finishes a couple of days later- as I offer combined postage. That has happened before and the buyer informed me that he was going to bid on something else that finishes 3 days later and he was hoping for combined postage. Ideally he should tell me straight after the auction for the first item has finished.

I think I will need to make a few changes. Thank you all for the suggestions.

I don't send messages. If you do send a message then you must deal with the reply. If you don't want a reply that isn't to your liking (I want to cancel) then don't send it.

ANNA

I too have noticed a rise in ebay buyers changing their minds and wanting to cancel their purchase, usually after they have paid. Anything from 10 mins to a day later, so it is often that the goods may have been despatched.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if a seller initiates the ebay cancellation process at buyer's request, ie. Buyer wants to cancel/problem with buyer's address, the refund goes through and the seller incurs no FVF ebay fees.....BUT isn't there still a flat fee for PayPal?

I think PayPal keeps 20p from the seller's a/c.

Repeat often, and over time that could mount up....

soolin

ANNA wrote: »

I too have noticed a rise in ebay buyers changing their minds and wanting to cancel their purchase, usually after they have paid. Anything from 10 mins to a day later, so it is often that the goods may have been despatched.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if a seller initiates the ebay cancellation process at buyer's request, ie. Buyer wants to cancel/problem with buyer's address, the refund goes through and the seller incurs no FVF ebay fees.....BUT isn't there still a flat fee for PayPal?

I think PayPal keeps 20p from the seller's a/c.

Repeat often, and over time that could mount up....

Yes PayPal keep 20p of the payment.

Also my last buyer cancellation went completely awry, showed for 14 days as needing buyer to agree, and I spent hours on live chat asking them to just close it as a refund had been made. I got three red warnings from eBay saying that unless I refunded and buyer confirmed that the refund was received the cancellation would be declined.

On about day 15 I insisted on talking to a tech team and was told that sometimes the buyer does need to confirm, and on this occasion it was apparent that the buyer asked for the cancellation and there must have been a glitch in the system that didn't allow the system to close the request. It was eventually cancelled manually for me.

davemorton

So.... say you sold an item outside of ebay, instead of ending the auction early, and paying the fee's they now charge, you could just let it run its course, and the let the winning bidder pay, then refund and cancel the sale, and only incur a 20p fee??? Seems daft to me.