eBay’s new Unpaid Item Assistant threw up an interesting situation this week. I received the following email from a buyer who hadn’t yet paid:
I am so so sorry, I was called away due to family problems.
Just got back this morning & have tried to pay for this item but I cannot find a “Pay” button anywhere. Please can you resend the invoice
To be honest I’d not been paying much attention and the Unpaid Item Assistant had opened and closed the case without me noticing, but it’s worth knowing that it does make it impossible for the buyer to pay once the case is closed.
All of the “Send payment details” options are removed for the seller as well as the links for the buyer to pay, to the only option was either to take the sale off eBay, or to ask the buyer to simply purchase another of the same item and pay straight away which is what I did.
If you’ve got the Unpaid Item Assistant turned on you what setting are you using? With the options of 4, 8, 16, 24 or 32 days before cases are automatically opened, is it more important for you to get cases opened and closed as quickly as possible, or would you rather give buyers longer to pay?
3 Responses
I’d suggest that for July and August, extending the amount of time people have available to pay might be a smart move, or there are only going to be more “I was on holiday” messages from buyers.
FWIW I tend not to bother sending them for a couple of weeks, I do them manually.
I’ve often been on the end of some form of abuse for daring to cast a doubt on there good character after such a short space of time (7 days).