Jester Posted April 5, 2004 Share Posted April 5, 2004 One thing I pride myself on, is my customer service and being fast at shipping and flexible when it comes to dealing with eBay Buyers. However here is a situation I would like some advice on. I have a Buyer who won a multiple-bid auction for one of my minis. However, the emails from his account keep being returned as "mailbox over quota". So, none of the emails, invoices, and notes I have sent to his contact account have been recieved by this buyer. How can this person NOT be aware that his email account has been suspended??? Given this day and age of technology and all the people who frequently use it? This Buyer has a really good rating, and has bought other minis from people before. However, per the terms of my auctions, I allow 7 days for payment to be received after an auction. The auction is now past 8 days old, and the Buyer has not cleaned up his email box, nor contacted me in anyway. Even if there was a computer problem, in my opinion you can find another computer (at work or public library) to send an email via eBay to me to let me know there is a problem, don't you think? In the past, I have allowed people who have contacted me with a problem to pay at a later date. I have no problems when the Buyer communicates with me. As I've said, I am flexible and understanding. As long as I can communicate, its not a problem. So, the two options are: 1 - wait until it is 14 days old, if he has not replied or paid, suspend the bid and offer it as a second chance to the next highest bidder; or 2- follow the rules of my auctions, suspended the bid now, and place the miniature back up for auction next time around and/or just offer it now to the next highest bidder? I don't want to irritate this Buyer, however, a week is more than enough time in my mind and experience to fix any problems with a computer these days. There could be some other perfectly reasonable explanation for why this Buyer has not contacted me, but as a "merchant" I have a business to run... So, opinions anyone? Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady Tam Posted April 5, 2004 Share Posted April 5, 2004 Well, Can you tell when he placed his last bid? Did he come in a snipe it at the last moment to win it? If so then go by you 7 day rule. But if he made the bid a day or so before the auction ended, give him the 14. I say this because I am an overly nice person when it come to selling on e-bay. And, it is possible something has happened, a death in the family, hospitalization etc, that has kept him from cleaning his e-mail box out. I guess it really depends on how fast you need the money from them. I tend to be overly generous, and have so far been pleasantly surprised when I have done so with my sales. But just because I have been lucky...doesn't mean you will be. It is a hard choice to make, but this is my two cents worth and muddled sounding as it may be. Lady Tam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gus Landt Posted April 5, 2004 Share Posted April 5, 2004 If they guy has a good rating, I would give him the benefit of the doubt and wait for the 14 day mark. In my years of selling on eBay, I've come accrss all sorts of things that made me want to give up on the buyer, but I've found patience is the key to completed transactions. I would also recommend that you not spend any more time on this though. Just set the minis aside and "forget" about them for another week or so. You don't need to burn up any more of your time trying to contact him. Last ditch effort - obtain his contact info via eBay and give him a phone call. I've done this a couple of times, and always with great success. Most of the time you'll find out the guys computer died and he's so busy trying to recover really important stuff (like tax info), that he just didn't have time to get to the eBay stuff. Anyway, that's just my .02 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lorderl Posted April 5, 2004 Share Posted April 5, 2004 I agree with the previous posts, a bit more time is good since the buyer has a good rating. You should also check if the buyer is placing any current bids. Elias Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jester Posted April 5, 2004 Author Share Posted April 5, 2004 Well, he has bid on minis and other auctions past mine. And the Buyer won an auction the day before mine. I've submitted to eBay for the Buyer's contact information and I will try to give him a call tonight in an effort to contact him... That's about all I can do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lorderl Posted April 5, 2004 Share Posted April 5, 2004 Well, he has bid on minis and other auctions past mine. And the Buyer won an auction the day before mine. I've submitted to eBay for the Buyer's contact information and I will try to give him a call tonight in an effort to contact him... That's about all I can do. What I meant to ask is if the buyer has bid on any recent auctions, like within the last couple of days. This would at least be an indicator as to weather he has PC access. In either case your phone call should clear things up. Elias Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jenova Posted April 6, 2004 Share Posted April 6, 2004 Hope this works out for you J. I've found that requestion the contact information sometimes does the trick, but if his inbox is full, he might not even see it. Good luck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jester Posted April 12, 2004 Author Share Posted April 12, 2004 Well, just to follow up with this thread, I called the client last night and got a hold of him. He was totally unaware that he had an email problem. He thanked me for the consideration and letting him know about the problem. He apologized and promptly paid. So, after all there was a happy ending... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orchid_Noir Posted April 12, 2004 Share Posted April 12, 2004 Woo hoo, not all my faith in humanity is as misplaced as some would lead me to believe. Congratulations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enchantra Posted April 12, 2004 Share Posted April 12, 2004 That's a great Happy Ending Jester. A friend of mine back a couple years ago had a full mailbox and did not know it. HE could SEND email jsut fine but not recieve it, so he had no idea that people were trying to get ahold of him. It took me calling him and telling him the error messages I was getting for him to realize he had a problem, and that was after he sent me a "hate mail" message because I had supposedly not responded to his emails. He apologized for that one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
squidders Posted April 15, 2004 Share Posted April 15, 2004 I'm having the reverse problem at the moment... I have purchased an old unpainted mini from someone and after e-mailing them (and getting a reply), paid them via paypal. I checked my ebay details and it still had the "Pay now" option. I checked with PayPal and the transaction was rejected by the seller twice and since then I have had no return e-mails. Weird... any thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jester Posted April 15, 2004 Author Share Posted April 15, 2004 I'm having the reverse problem at the moment... I have purchased an old unpainted mini from someone and after e-mailing them (and getting a reply), paid them via paypal. I checked my ebay details and it still had the "Pay now" option. I checked with PayPal and the transaction was rejected by the seller twice and since then I have had no return e-mails. Weird... any thoughts? Well, a number of factors could be contributing to this matter: 1 - Sometimes Sellers use PayPal, but a Buyer pays with a Credit Card and the Seller is not enabled and/or willing to accept credit card payments via PayPal. Reread the auction and see if they have some small note about payments? 2 - The Seller no longer wishes to Sell or has misplaced the miniature... possibly? 3 - As for the not answering emails, I guess I would use the eBay Contact program and get the Seller's contact information. Give them a call... 4 - Maybe their account was hijacked by a Phisher and it's now all locked up? 5 - If all else fails, you could either forget it, or go onto the Square Trade resolution and see if that works. I would try the email one more time, and if that fails, then get the contact information and try calling the Seller... IF that fails, then it is either Square Trade or walk away, but it would depend on you. The Buyer is the one getting hurt in this deal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
House of Dexter Posted April 16, 2004 Share Posted April 16, 2004 Here's another thing that could be the problem...he has the wrong Paypal account listed with Ebay...I had this with a new seller once...It took me a bit to figure out what was going on...wondering why the money was just sitting there unaccepted... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
squidders Posted April 17, 2004 Share Posted April 17, 2004 1 - Sometimes Sellers use PayPal, but a Buyer pays with a Credit Card and the Seller is not enabled and/or willing to accept credit card payments via PayPal. Reread the auction and see if they have some small note about payments? All sorted... there's too much humanity going around! It must be something in the water The problem was as described, it just took a while for my e-mails to be responded to. There was no payment note but the e-mail reply cleared it up. Thanks for the advice Jester Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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