Are your bidders as stupid as mine?

[Philflound]

Ok, just to post this question to all you sellers out there.

 

How many of you have extremely stupid bidders? The example I'm driving at happens to me very seldom, but happens to my friend so often that he has created a form just for these "stupid" bidders.

 

You sell an item. You email your winning bidder the info. You receive the money in the mail only to discover this person has not left you any info on what they are paying for. Hell, there may even be no return address. So when you peruse your 100 currently unpaid auctions, you see this person's m.o. matches 15 of your auctions. What do you do?

 

This is what my friend does. He has this form stating that he has received money from the person. He then spends 37 cents on a stamp plus a couple of cents on an envelope just to mail this person this form. He then hopes that this person gets his form prior to leaving him negative fb stating they never got the item.

 

Better than this, what if you get a money order with no name on it. There is no return address either. I think bidders have the notion that my buddy works for the psychic network and can guess what item this is and where it is going.

 

So, back to the question: anyone have bidders as stupid as ours?

 

Phil

[Pitfall Harry]

I'm not exactly sure what you're selling in this post, Phil. But I'll be glad to take it off your hands for five bucks. How does that sound?

 

Ben

[Albert]

I don't think some people realize how much effort it takes to run many auctions concurrently and the logistics involved. I've run 70 auctions simultaneously and that can be a chore when they all end at the same time. Other people may not realize you're running several auctions and figure you're just selling an item or two. Thus, when you get their payment you'll automatically know what it's for.

 

I wouldn't be too harsh on these people, unless it's someone with a pretty high feedback rating, in which case they should know better.

 

..Al

[Lost Monkey]

I wouldn't be too harsh on these people, unless it's someone with a pretty high feedback rating, in which case they should know better.  

 

..Al

 

I received an MO last month with no name, no address on the envelope, no item number... absolutely nothing...

 

I dug through the 70 or so unpaid auctions I had and found 3 items which exactly matched. The stamp on the envelope was "cancelled" in Michigan, so I went looking for a bidder in Michigan...

 

I emailed the bidder and it took 2 weeks for a response... at which time she responded, "yeah its mine, sorry.".... WITHOUT FORWARDING HER ADDRESS!!!! So I emailed her back and got a completely different name from her (!) and (finally) an address...

 

This person has 200+ feedback...

 

What I am finding is happening a lot lately:

 

I'll get an email that is titled: "Question from eBay Member".. and the person inquiring will have input such a short, terse query (demand?) that I will often have no idea what they are asking about. Here is the content of the most recent one I have received: "would you be willing to sell me one of these for $22 w/ shipping?? i'll send paypal asap, thanks"

 

(I have about 200 auctions running at a time and have had about 400-500 different DVD titles up on eBay in the last 30 days...)

 

I responded: "I am sorry but you will have to be more specific..."

[Albert]

Okay Lost Monkey, you got me. The woman who sent the MO without any identifying information and not even an address to send the item to is classic. I don't know what people like this think, that you have some magic database that you can somehow use to know where to ship their winnings? I've never received anything this bad, fortunately.

 

Of course, it's been a while since the last time I've sold a large batch of items on eBay, and things certainly seem to have gone downhill since then. So I expect I'll have to contend with issues like this as well.

 

..Al

[CPUWIZ]

I'll get an email that is titled: "Question from eBay Member".. and the person inquiring will have input such a short, terse query (demand?) that I will often have no idea what they are asking about.   Here is the content of the most recent one I have received: "would you be willing to sell me one of these for $22 w/ shipping?? i'll send paypal asap, thanks"

 

Arrgh, I know exactly what you mean:

 

"I've been looking for this for 3 years, I'll pay $30 dollars"

 

WTF ?

[goatdan]

I don't know why, but apparently everyone is doing this. On an average day for the GOAT Store, I get at least two payments. Often times, it'll be a check or a money order in an envelope with no name, or a parent's name that doesn't match the child that ordered it or whatever.

 

Then, people wonder why it takes a couple days to match them up -- you've got to wait to see just who's is who's.

 

I feel your pain!

[krisjohn]

Check the postmark.

 

That's what I had to do when I had an otherwise unmarked postal order of the same amount as several auctions.

 

(Maybe it's worth having starting prices that differ by only a cent each time just to reduce the probability of two auctions closing at the same amount.)

[Room 34]

I haven't had this situation with eBay, but I have had it happen with my web sites.

 

I often get feedback e-mails from people saying, "Hey, I just checked out your site and it's really cool!" So I think to myself, OK, which site?

 

The sad fact is, a lot of people, especially in the U.S. I fear, have not learned good written communication. They don't realize they're not being clear or that maybe the recipient can't infer from their poorly-spelled, grammatically-fractured scrawls what they're trying to say.

[bloatedmonkey]

You receive the money in the mail only to discover this person has not left you any info on what they are paying for....What do you do?

Easy. Put the check on a pile and wait for the person to complain about not getting their stuff. If the check sits there for over a month, cash it and have a beer. :wink: Think of it as tough love.

[Markimus of K.]

I'll get an email that is titled: "Question from eBay Member".. and the person inquiring will have input such a short' date=' terse query (demand?) that I will often have [i']no idea[/i] what they are asking about. Here is the content of the most recent one I have received: "would you be willing to sell me one of these for $22 w/ shipping?? i'll send paypal asap' date=' thanks"

[/quote']

 

When one clicks on "ask seller a question" and the auction title and # comes up above the area you type the question, does this not get passed along to the seller?

[Philflound]

Ok, since I started this title, I can chime back in with some answers.

 

As far as I know, when you ask seller a question from an auction screen, to my knowledge the auction # is supposed to come up. What I'm thinking is that they are clicking on your user id directly or not on an auction screen, and it will just email you with no info. I've gotten emails from people like this and also with Item #'s so I"m a little confused about it. Though I will ask what auction they are referring to if there is no item #.

 

As for postmarks, if the bidder never emailed you their address, a postmark will not help you. I get many emails like this example.

 

"Money order in the mail. Thanks. Bob"

 

Sometimes they don't even sign their name, but I do not keep any emails that don't have user information. My hotmail account is too small to hold every email. What I do have is my own system where I write 9 auctions on a page. I give each auction 3 lines, a normal looseleaf page that can easily put in a binder. On this I write the item won, item number, date the auction ended and price. That is on the left side. The middle I put the address. If there is a 4th or 5th line for apts or foreign bidders, I squeeze them in. I print neatly, so I can read the smaller print. The right side looks something like this, which I start about 25% off the end of the page.

 

Ebay Id:

Paid:

Shipped:

FB:

 

I usually will leave a space under the Ebay id and squeeze the person's email address if it isn't the user id already. Like I said, I print small and neat.

 

Paid I write the following: $20.00 paypal 7/15/02

 

This tells me how much they sent, how they paid, since I'll hold checks up to 10 days before shipping, and the date I received payment.

 

Shipped: I only put the date I shipped on 7/15/02. On foreign orders, I write the LC# off the customs form so I at least have some tracking. Though I discovered they print this on the US Mail receipt you get when you pay.

 

FB: Stands for feedback. I write the date I leave the person the feedback. Just for the hell of it. But I usually will do batches at a time and go through all my auctions to make sure everyone gets a fb. Yes, I will write down the date of negative fb. I leave a positive fb for every paid auction.

 

These are my usual three, but would deviate once in awhile.

 

Payment received within 2 days of auction:

"Instant payment. Highest recommendations!"

 

Payment received within 7 days of auction:

"Fast payment. Highly recommended!"

 

Payment received within 1 month of auction:

"Timely payment. Recommended."

 

Notice the last one does not have a ! in it. If they take longer than that, I will leave a positive, but definitely mention the massive delay in receiving payment. I don't bother with neutrals unless I'm on the buying end and am sort of unsatisfied with the item.

 

Last paragraph before I leave. Back to the subject of stupid bidders. Here's one for you. A Canadian wins an auction. He takes an extremely long time to send payment. In fact, I actually got my refund for non-paying bidder before he said he would still send the money. I mention clearly to him that it must be one of the following:

 

1. Cash (US currency)

2. INTERNATIONAL Money Order (my bank gives me a hard time unless there is a US Bank's full address who will be responsible for the money order. Else they charge a fee of $20 to cash this or any personal checks)

3. Canadian Postal Money Order (this works. You can bring these to the US Post Office and cash them there, so it's a good option)

 

So what do I get? A regular Canadian bank money order. I frown, email the guy (now going on 2 1/2 months after auction end) that I can't cash this whole $8.00 money order because of the $20 fee, and that he needs to send me another form of payment and I'll send this money order back with his item.

 

That was like 4 months ago. I still have his money order uncashed, and he never even complained.

 

Oh, well. Talk to you later.

 

Phil

[Lost Monkey]

I'll get an email that is titled: "Question from eBay Member".. and the person inquiring will have input such a short' date=' terse query (demand?) that I will often have [i']no idea[/i] what they are asking about. Here is the content of the most recent one I have received: "would you be willing to sell me one of these for $22 w/ shipping?? i'll send paypal asap' date=' thanks"

[/quote']

 

When one clicks on "ask seller a question" and the auction title and # comes up above the area you type the question, does this not get passed along to the seller?

 

Yes it does, but as Phil mentioned, if you just click on the seller's name you get the "Question from eBay Member" message.

 

The latest thing now is bidders who don't even have a REAL email address on file with eBay.. I had to call a guy in Nevada the other day to try to explain to him that his email is invalid..

 

He said, "Oh yeah, we had a problem with ebay, but we paid them, I got the credit card statement right here..."

 

I said, "No, your problem is with JUNO, your email is not a valid address..."

 

He replied; "JUNO? I haven't had that for over a year!"