posted on August 15, 2000 06:31:58 AM new
I am not sure which one would be better at this point. Out of 7 auctions on Yahoo four of them have resulted in non-paying bidders.
Is anyone else having this problem? How do you handle it?
Thanks all!
Leilani M. Ramsey
[email protected]
http://www.gardenmosaic.com
posted on August 15, 2000 09:34:42 AM new
The bad news:
Yahoo does NO verification of bidders and very little of sellers. even if you set you auctions to require a high rating before bidding, all that means is that everyone else must enter a CC number. Yahoo doesnt check to make sure it is their CC number. Since the card isnt even charged, any kid can use his parents' cards or any other numbers he happens to spot. Any delinquent too stupid to write a virus is out on Yahoo bidding for the sheer fun of hurting others. Some even go so far as to leave bad feedback on auctions they have never paid for. Yahoo doesnt charge for the auctions. They just want lots of clicks. They dont care how many of these clicks are delinquents as long as they click.
The good news:
I started a new policy a while back and it has really brought down my deadbeats to almost zero. I put in every auction "Due to the high number of phonies, you must email me or I may cancel or ignore your bid." The link for the email is right there. If I get a bid from someone with a zero rating, I email them at their Yahoo ID. If no response, I cancel the bid. About half the time they email to ask why and I point out my requirement and then repost the auction (once a bid is cancelled, that bidder can not bid on that auction again). If they dont email, I assume I have just protected myself from a deadbeat.
Incidentally, this only works on no reserve auctions. People are not going to bother emailing you in order to bid on a reserve auction.
posted on August 15, 2000 09:47:25 AM new
I have about 1 in 10 deadbeats and I handle it by leaving simple feedback "did not complete transaction" and moving along. Since there are no fees the loss is limited and so I expend very little energy on the problem.
posted on August 15, 2000 07:30:36 PM new
i have placed "Serious buyers are appreciated" in my auctions' descriptions and added "payment must be sent between XX/xx/xx - xx/xx/xx! If I do not see payment afterwards, I must leave a negative feedback."
posted on August 16, 2000 01:00:27 PM new
Yisgood has a good strategy that works well for him/her. For me that would be too much legwork though.
I agree with Very Modern. I don't expend too much energy on the problem. I'm generally patient in waiting for payment, and I usually do get paid. I, like everyone, have my share of deadbeats though. It doesn't get my goat like it used to at ebay, because all I have to do do is "resubmit". NO big deal.
My current policy is that payment should be made within 10 business days after I email my invoice to the customer. I don't even require them to email me. I do let them know that I package items ahead of time & they will usually get faster service if they send their mailing address to me ahead of time. Most people do email, but not all do.
I'm about to implement a new strategy for dealing with deadbeats. If I haven't heard from a customer or received payment after a week or so I plan to email them a request for payment through PayDirect.
Might be that different customer bases require different strategies. I sell things that primarily appeal to an "established" clientele- my target customer is primarily female, over the age of 35, & has kids & possibly grandkids. If your target customer is under the age of 20 you might want to consider adapting a strategy like Yisgood's.
posted on August 16, 2000 01:13:18 PM new
We had this discussion in the Seller Zone, with someone asking, "So what's the big deal? Just relist. It didnt cost anything."
But this is a big problem for high ticket items like digital cameras. I bought two digital cameras for $400 that were selling all over from $600 and up. I figured if I got $450-$475 I would be happy. I "sold" these cameras eight times on Yahoo to deadbeats. Each time they dragged it our for a few weeks with "check is in the mail" (this was pre-Paypal). The price started dropping. Eventually somebody local spotted the listing, came to my house and bought them for $410 each. The wasted time and aggravation for a lousy $20 on a $800 purchase. That's when I decided I would rather stop deadbeats than waste time with them. Because these are high ticket items, I dont have a bunch of them sitting around. So when someone bids and a week goes by with no reply and I relist it and get a new bidder. Then the first bidder wakes up and sends payment. Now what do I do? I have one item and two bidders. Either way I wind up with a neg. On high ticket items deadbeats cost money, even if the listing is free. And even on low ticket items, I have heard from other sellers (I have been fortunate so far to escape this) that there a deadbeats on Yahoo who give out bad feedback for fun. I worked hard for my reputation and I dont want to give some freak the chance to destroy it.
posted on August 16, 2000 01:36:31 PM new
yisgood, it is no fun for sure, and I agree that it costs time and money. Considering that, I just opt not to add to the damage by
stressing over it.
