Don't know what to do about this buyer

[Guest]

[kbmum]

I had an eBay buyer win two cards on January 26.  A week went by without payment, so I sent him an e-mail on Monday to remind him of this.  He immediately wrote back, "Hi. I hate to ask you this at this late date, but we have had a problem with our bank and PayPal (We think we got Hacked-Identity theft), the Bank has put everything on hold until they check it out. I was wondering if you could wait until Feb. 18 2009 for payment or if we get this resolved maybe sooner, I really want the items I won. Please let me know as soon as you can so I can make arrangements.  Thank you so much for your understanding."

Okay, sounds plausible and I didn't want to be a jerk, so I told him I could wait.  Today, though, I decided to see if there was anything new with his feedback.  He has received 11 positives for items purchased January 26-29!  What should I do?  If I write back and complain, he could say that those payments went through prior to his account being put on hold and he'll probably ding my feedback and DSRs.  On the other hand, I hate being taken for a fool.  He's still bidding on items (not mine).  Maybe I should wait a few days and see what else happens with his feedback?

[terryweasley]

I would be the good guy and wait until February 20.  If he hasn't paid by then, email him and find out why.  If he still fails to pay, institiute a nonpayment complaint with ebay.  Then you can defind yourself if you get a negative feedback from the guy.  You also can't be accused of not being cooperative.

[allender]

My approach would be .. If he's on the up-and-up, he very well might have paid for other auctions first, if he wasn't sure if he had other auctions that might trigger a 2nd Chance offer. Or he may pay for batches of auctions every few days and an earlier one triggered the problem. He does have a 100% positive feedback rating.

To protect yourself from any retaliation and to cover yourself with eBay, you want to post a non-payment notice before your chance to do so expires, and you can open a case up to 45 days after the auction ends. You can tell the guy first that you're going to do so, and that there's no mark placed on his record if it doesn't get moved up to the status of a real dispute. (The only 'mark' is that the non-payment notice won't disappear from his Messages screen for 30 days or from his "cases closed" screen in the eBay Resolution Center for 18 months.)

It sounds like his plans are to fix things well before then. If you're willing to wait, you've got protection. For the $ value, it's probably not worth worrying about it until the 18th.

I've had non-payment notices even from a seller that I sort-of know, when I tried to reach him to tell him that his invoice was faulty and I was waiting for a corrected one, but he missed the messages. No harm, no foul.

[kbmum]

The buyer has managed to pay more sellers since he told me that there was a problem with his PayPal account.  One seller left positive feedback yesterday, with the comment "glad things are resolved for you, thank you for payment."

He has 136 wins/purchases since January 16.  I have a feeling there isn't a problem with PayPal.  More likely, he overspent and is waiting for his next paycheck to pay for the rest of the items.

[tialessa]

I'd file a non-payment claim. That ought to light a fire under him/her. They have 10 days to settle the claim (or that was the deadline of the last claim I had to file). It's 13 Feb & the cards were sold on 26 Jan - that's been 15 business days.

[De Orc]

Any updates on this matter?