I’m a relative neophyte when it comes to selling items on eBay. I’ve bought a couple of things, and I’ve sold one item. In the instances in which I’ve bought something, I’ve always paid right away. For the item I sold, the buyer paid within the hour.
On Saturday I sold my iPhone 3G. The auction ended just before 6:00 pm EST, and as of now I haven’t been paid. Plus, the buyer has a (0) rating, which makes me nervous.
In the experience of the Teeming Millions, how long do eBayer’s usually take to pay, and should I be worried?
I usually wait a week, but if a zero feedback buyer buys an expensive item, I’d get really nervous. As in, kiss this iPhone goodbye if you ship it nervous.
I invoice them within an hour if I don’t receive immediate payment. If I don’t get communication within three days, (I send an email once a day) Then I send them another stating I intend to relist the item and deal with them accordingly. If they lose out, then so be it.
The “rule of thumb” is four business days. I haven’t sold anything on eBay in ages, so I’m sure eBay has rules themselves now. If you sold the phone on Saturday, it hasn’t been any business days.
It doesn’t really matter as you have to wait so many days before filing a non-paying bidder so you can relist the phone. It used to be four days before you could file an unpaid item dispute. After you open the dispute a buy had an additonal four days to pay. (That’s how it was in 2009, unless they changed it)
It’s better to have a non-paying bidder and relist than to send the phone and have a chargeback to PayPal or similar dispute.
The last time I sold on eBay you could set your preferences to exclude zero feedback bidders, but then again, we all have to start sometime, so it may not be a good option for everyone.
Remember not everyone lives by their computer. Some people check it for a half hour a day after getting home from work and that’s it.
This. Also, sometimes computers break down, or the internet connection goes down. And people go on vacation and don’t always have a laptop to take with them, or they go on vacation to get away from the computer. My husband hasn’t been online since Thursday morning…he’s off in his hunting cabin with three other guys, because Saturday was when deer hunting season started in Texas.
I’d give the buyer at least another couple of days.
In my experience, many buyers have trouble coming up with money when they actually win an auction. It amazes even me that I have two adult friends today who don’t have credit cards. These people also only have limited access to computers via friends, so when it comes to paying for something, they have to make arrangements to have a friend pay with their credit card and then give them the cash, meaning they need to get to a bank sometime in the following week to make the arrangements. Still, why these people are sitting by their computer allowing them to win the auction, but can’t be bothered to e-mail and tell you that afterward is strange to me
Like you, however, I find this very annoying as a seller. Since I find selling a hassle, I usually save up several items and sell them all at once across numerous auctions. Inevitably, if I have six auctions end, five will pay within minutes of the auction ending allowing me to send off all their stuff in one trip to the post office the next day. Some random person with a feedback rating of 2 will snipe the sixth auction and then take over a week to pay, despite numerous e-mails, and only eventually paying when I first threaten to re-list and then threaten to report them. Every time this happens, I never get any communication back from the person in response to my numerous e-mails, which always makes me wonder who the Hell these people are. They just randomly pay one day.
I also recently had an even stranger situation where the same person won two separate auctions for ladies watches I was selling, but only paid for one right away. I shipped that one and had to badger them for a week before they paid for the second one. Then they e-mailed me back saying they were pissed off I didn’t combine the shipping for the two watches and left neutral feedback like it was somehow my fault.
If they haven’t paid in the 4 days they’re officially allotted, and do not return my emails in that time, I report them. If you just relist it, you’re out the fee of listing it the first time. It doesn’t put any dings on their record, it just lets them know that ebay is now involved. They then have 4 more days to pay. The two times I’ve done this they paid instantly after receiving the official ebay “you need to pay this” email.