Are There Ways Of Spotting A Bad Buyer?

Communication, as a buyer or seller, is key when making any purchase on ebay. There has been a time or two that I asked to wait a few days to have combined shipping with a seller and they have usually been very cooperative.

I just wish that others were as considerate.

Hi Weerdsteev,

Speaking from experience, as a seller of quite a bit over the last 3 or so years, NPB's are a problem and difficult to identify until the problem arises.

This sort of thing used to stress me out, until I realised there was very little I could do about it other than to block the buyer from future purchases.

While I offer terms of 5 days, I generally don't act on a NPB (non-paying bidder) for at least 10 days.

Yes, sometimes they don't pay, and it turns it to a headache, however other times they do, and sometimes even become repeat buyers.

The last thing I want to do is provide a bad experience for my clients, so I'm pretty careful about jumping the gun.

The trick is to not let it stress you - if they don't pay and you have decided you've waited long enough, contact them. No response within a couple of days: block the bidder (to avoid additional headaches), then make the NPB claim, and move on to something more productive.

If it worries you, there are settings that allow you to set rules about who can bid - they are pretty basic, but one criteria is 'NPB within last month', or something similar, where you nominate a number, and anyone who has had hit or exceeded that number of NPB strikes within the period is automatically blocked from bidding until they meet your criteria again.

I don't know exactly how well this works, as there are other similar settings that are redundant, such as negative feedback ratings (for buyers), which is no longer relevant.

I can't remember where these settings are, but they are somewhere in account management (set them up a long time ago ...).

I can say this doesn't catch all NPB's, as I still get them from time to time.

Hope this helps!

All you can do is set the buyer's requirements parameter. If you go and cancel the bid of everyone you do not feel comfortable with you may end up making other potential bidders leery of bidding on your items. The reason that a negative cannot be left for a buyer is that the only requirement they have is paying for item. If they do not do that then file a NPB. This will put a mark on their account that will prohibit them from bidding on other items from you or anyone else on ebay that has set their parameters to block. Selling on ebay is a business, wether you do it professionally or just tinker. With every business there is a risk. If there was no risk everyone would be in business.

Even though I do not sell on ebay yet, I think there should be a way for sellers to leave negative feedback. I'm sure.there are.tons of.things that sellers dont like about some of their buyers and they should have a way to express it. Even a rating system, az mentioned earlier, would be better then only being allowed only positive feedback. I feel it defeats the purpose of feedback if you can only leave a positive rating.
Just MHO.

"The very best way to give a buyer neg feedback is to add them to your "banned bidders list" as long as I know they are ratbags and on my list I have NO problem with them ever again"

I disagree. What you've suggested is a fine idea in that it keeps them away from YOU, but it does nothing to "rat them out" so that other sellers can be wary of them.