posted on December 2, 2000 06:52:08 AM
Overseas bidder won a big ticket item (over 600.00) and did contact me promptly asking for shipping charges. He's a newbie with three positive feedbacks, but surely he understands that shipping is expensive, just going by what he's bought recently.
I sent him the shipping charges and hearing nothing from him, I sent him a duplicate email a couple of days later. Now it's been a week since the auction ended, still no word from him, so I sent him another (friendly) message, asking if he needed cheaper (ground instead of Airmail) shipping, did he still want to buy it, has he already sent payment, etc.
I need this money pronto and he's quit communicating, it seems.
posted on December 2, 2000 07:21:58 AM
Having a $600 purchase in doubt certainly would be "painful".....As this point, I would start a count down of sorts....I would email the buyer again (still being friendly, but firm) with a message something like:
"It has now been X days since the end of this auction & I have not received a response from you to my email regarding the total cost of eBay Item XXXXXXXX. As much as I would like to hold this item for your purchase, if I do not have a response by XX/XX/XX*, I will have no other option but to cancel this transaction. Look forward to hearing from you."
*XX/XX/XX being a date approx. 1 week or less from the date the message is sent out....
Of course, you could always pull his/her contact info & try giving them a call, however, depending on what "international" country you are calling, there might be a language barrier, which just might make the problem worse???......(unless of course your are multi-lingual???)
posted on December 2, 2000 05:42:36 PM
Thanks Rancher
I did almost what you suggested. I asked him to please contact us by email within the next 48 hours. Since three emails have went unanswered, and now have sent a fourth, I'm getting antsy. If it were not a large amount of $$ I wouldn't be sweating it. I also emailed the backup bidder to see if he/she would still be interested if this deal falls through.
He's from the Orient, and I certainly don't speak the language. I don't know if he speaks English well.
