If I sold something for less than desired amount of money and the buyer for whatever reason doesn’t pay within the standard 4 day payment timeframe, is there any way I can delete the transaction without going through the Paypal resolution process which involves a request for payment?
I’d much rather eat the tiny seller fee than induce payment then have to ship the goods for hardly any money in return. (My shipping is clearly marked as free so I doubt the buyer is waiting for an invoice, and they haven’t sent any message indicating such.)
My advice: If you don’t want to sell your item for less than x dollars, then you should set x dollars as the starting price of the auction, or at least as a reserve price. I know many sellers don’t like doing that, because it may increase seller fees or deter prospective customers, so they just start with a lower starting price and without a reserve price and simply hope that the bids will go up to the figure they have in mind. But that’s just a gamble on the seller’s part, and it’s the seller’s problem if the thing doesn’t turn out as expected. But people, both buyers and sellers, should realise that what they are doing on ebay is concluding legally binding contracts. You can’t back out of the contract after it’s been made simply because you’ve changed your mind or because things haven’t turned out the way you had hoped for.
Now I realise that in your case there is some fault on the other side’s part in not paying in time. This may allow you to terminate the contract, but there’s a process for this, to which you agreed in a legally binding manner when you concluded the contract. It goes against the very concept of a contract to allow one party to unilaterally “delete” it outside the processes that have been established for it.
Clarification: There are actually several processes available for that: Those established by ebay, to which you agreed as part of the terms of the contract, and those established by contract law in general. I’m not aware of any possibility for “unilateral deletion” if you don’t want to go through these processes.
I agree with what has been stated. My feedback is great after a decade of sales, so it’s not like I’ve never backed out of a sale because the price was lower than desired. I’ve shipped out goods many times before with less than desired results. If he paid me this moment, I’d ship the goods out today and leave feedback thanking him for payment.
I generally do start my auctions at my minimum acceptable sale, but every now and then I try starting them low because I’ve seen other sellers have success with this. The idea is that a lot of buyers view the low-priced auction, get into a bidding war and you have a sale at a decent price.
But in this particular case, the buyer hasn’t paid within what is now the standard 4 business day timeframe. My question was specifically adressed to this nonpayment scenario where I’d be perfectly happy if he never paid.
Do I have to wait a few years to see if he pays, or is there a way to move on other than inducing a payment by going through Paypal resolution? I’ve been selling for a long time, and I remember you used to be able to offer a mutual cancel to the buyer without going through “resolution”'s demand for payment. But Ebay has changed it so everything now goes to “resolution” demand for payment or else a strike against the buyer’s record.
Okay, I found the answer myself. A seller can still request a mutual cancel, it’s a second option on the resolution screen which I never noticed until now. It used to be an entirely separate process, but Ebay changes. Next time, I’ll ask an Ebay question on the Ebay forums for a quick answer.
Of course, that’s a mutual cancellation of the sale. The buyer may agree to it, or he may not. If he doesn’t, then both the ebay procedures, and the contract laws of most jurisdictions, will only allow you to terminate the contract after you’ve given the other party a reasonable chance of paying, in which case you will have to deliver the item sold. Which is, after all, exactly what you contracted for.
If you’re ok with paying the listing and final value fees I would just ignore it and hope they don’t pay. I’ve found people that don’t pay right away tend to forget about winning the auction. If you send them a non-paying bidder notice or request to cancel it’s just going to remind them they won that auction and need to pay if they want to get there stuff.