Would you block somebody making silly offers ?

mgdavid

On a couple of occasions I've spotted somebody buying at the second attempt with a different account - I just refund and block.

soolin

mgdavid said:

On a couple of occasions I've spotted somebody buying at the second attempt with a different account - I just refund and block.

It is also worth reporting to ebay as malicious bidding if you can show you have blocked someone on a different account- it is difficult of course as we can no longer see details of names and addresses of buyers who would don't end up selling to. Also if you get a random low star (and you used to be able to run reports to see who left it, it is also worth reporting the user ID to ebay as well if you think they are trying to artificially affect your business. 

The auction wrecker I had back many years ago that I often refer to on here ended up using multiple accounts to try and take me down- even at that time ebay would not give out any information about the buyers but instead I kept reporting user IDs I thought were the same and noticed that they went NARU quite quickly. 

GabbaGabbaHey

mgdavid said:

On a couple of occasions I've spotted somebody buying at the second attempt with a different account - I just refund and block.

That's why eBay has the Non Performing Seller option, I guess.

mgdavid

GabbaGabbaHey said:

mgdavid said:

On a couple of occasions I've spotted somebody buying at the second attempt with a different account - I just refund and block.

That's why eBay has the Non Performing Seller option, I guess.

NPS action is not automatic. If ebay look at a seller who has above average dashboard standards and an excellent feedback history they won't do anything. Their business model relies on lots of good middle-of-the-road sellers and buyers, they're happy to weed out serial troublemakers who cost them time and money. I think in general ebay's community on both sides works pretty well nowadays - I can't remember when I last saw the abbreviation TSFE whereas it used to be bandied around a lot.

theonlywayisup

GabbaGabbaHey said:

mgdavid said:

On a couple of occasions I've spotted somebody buying at the second attempt with a different account - I just refund and block.

That's why eBay has the Non Performing Seller option, I guess.

It isn't NPS it is malicious buying.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/selling-policies/unwelcome-malicious-buying-policy?id=4375

If you are banned from bidding and use another of your ID's to bid, then you are deemed to be circumventing the malicious bidding policy.

Examples of malicious bidding

Here are some examples:

• You can't place a bid that greatly exceeds the value of the item in order to prevent a sale without intending to buy that item
• You can't bid on multiple items listed by a seller unless you intend to buy all of the items
• You can't try to buy or bid on an item if you're on a seller's blocked bidder or buyer list
• You can't use another account to buy or bid on an item if you're on a seller's blocked bidder or buyer list

epm-84

General_Applause said:

You can set your listing to auto-decline offers below a certain amount.

That's the best option.  They can waste their time and use up the maximum number of bids bidding silly amounts and you don't have to do anything in response.

I think some people bid low amounts that they know you won't accept because they think it increases the chance of them getting the lowest amount you'll accept e.g. if someone bids £10 and you accept they don't know if you would have accepted £8.50 or not.

theoretica

I think some bidders are also used to bidding on things that start at 99p and will unquestionably fetch more - but still they put in 99p bids and fail to get it. So think why shouldn't they treat offers similarly?

epm-84

theoretica said:

I think some bidders are also used to bidding on things that start at 99p and will unquestionably fetch more - but still they put in 99p bids and fail to get it. So think why shouldn't they treat offers similarly?

There is always a chance that an item sells for the starting bid amount, it might be a low chance if something like a TV has been listed with a 99p starting bid but there is still a chance the seller will be required to sell it for 99p.

Although, what is actually worse is buyers who message sellers asking for them to change their listing so they can submit an offer when the listing isn't setup to allow buyers to submit offers.  That's a bit like the online equivalent of walking into an auction  house and saying you'll offer to buy a painting for £40 now, when it's due to be auctioned in two hours and might fetch £80.

RFW

GabbaGabbaHey said:

mgdavid said:

On a couple of occasions I've spotted somebody buying at the second attempt with a different account - I just refund and block.

That's why eBay has the Non Performing Seller option, I guess.

It's a good point. Refunding a paying customer seems a bit peculiar, especially for something most sellers never even look at.