"First time buyers" How to remove safely?

[Cat PE]

Hi
I just joined here because Ebay barred me from the discussion boards. I'l probably learn more here anyway. I am 10 year Ebay seller ( for now)
The Question is- How can I safely remove bids from "0 Feedback Bidders" without Ebay getting pissed or waiting till after the sale and returning the money and calling it broken? I have tried all manner of polite discussion before the sale but so many of these are returning banned buyers that I can't afford to continue getting screwed and remain a Seller! What do you all do?
Cat PE

[holyhell]

Go under "Account" tab and you can search and adjust your buyer requirements.

[pod]

eBay wants to encourage new buyers so you cant block or ban them. You're experienced so you know how to ban pathological rule breakers under listing options I'm sure. But those are pretty pointless. I think you can block someone who has 2 unpaids in 30 days. Big deal, it takes a couple weeks sometimes to get a strike so a guy who doesn't pay once every 3 weeks is clear. And you can block -2 or lower or something, but since buyers dont get negative that is useless.

But bottom line is you have to let them in. So if the same person is signing up and giving you greif there is not much that can be done. sadly.

[First Edition]

10 year ebay seller and you don't know about buyer requirement settings?

really?

[IDK]

To be honest. 0-100 FB buyers are my favorite. The worst that's happen to me is they don't pay. They are less difficult to please, and are far more patient IMO. Nothing worse than a spoiled, seasoned ebay buyer who expects the red carpet when they hit buy it now. What you can do is make it where only people who have paypal can bid/buy and make it where they can only purchase ONE item from you if they have less than a certain amount of FB. That will stop competitors, and idiots from buying a bunch of your auctions, and leaving negatives for all of them. Good luck.

[pod]

Originally Posted by IDK

Nothing worse than a spoiled, seasoned ebay buyer who expects the red carpet when they hit buy it now

Absolutely. Veterans can be a nightmare too. New buyers are ok most of the time. I always get nervous when a 0-3 buyer buys something valuable. And I even go as far as to research their info for 5-10 minutes just to make sure real.

But truth is, its pretty rare to have a ton of greif from new buyers. Thing is, when there is a problem we tend to blame the new buyer factor because it stands out. But biggest headaches I've had are from cats with 100s of buying feedback and zero sales....

[IDK]

^Good point. And I keep forgetting. What I sell is extremely hot, but it only clocks about $130 at the most. If I was moving flat-screens and laptops, then I would be more careful and selective.

[First Edition]

Don't discount low rated buyers though... most people who shop on ebay nowadays make one purchase, and that's it.

[pod]

For sure. My last 3 bigger sales were all buyers with 1-2 feedbacks. One had a whopping 3 from 2004

[Cat PE]

Hi
My problems are mostly 0's and 1's and I don't want to stop new buyers but see no choice.
Pod; you research them? What are you looking for. Many have no info except date joined? I'd love more info. The buyer preferences can't be set to filter out most problem buyers, only a few of the most blatant long term.
Everything else aside though -Is there a way to prevent an obvious problem from buying your stuff once they have bid and without having Ebay hurt me?
Cat PE

[pod]

Originally Posted by Cat PE

Pod; you research them? What are you looking for.

I just do BIN, so I research after just to be safe before I ship stuff over $100. Dont think you get any info until they win. So not much help for stopping bidders...

Real people trend to have waaaay too much info on the net. Facebook can help prove they are a real person and in right city
Reverse phone number gives matching address if on the up and up
Even using google to search email address sometimes pops info [This helped me stop a scammer in his tracks once. it popped up on a complaint board]
Google name can bring up tons.

All it shows, and usually within minutes, is that they are real and living where they say. And that's good enough

But again, I don't do auctions [just for this reason] so not sure what you can do really.

[Cat PE]

Thanks POD. I think that's the info I needed. You hit the nail on the head in that the Bad ones will have no info. I concur. Google's good too. My goal is not to hurt the real new ones but avoid the bad ones. This way I can call it "lost or broken" and take a small loss if I need to rather than a total loss. Once those transactions start to go bad ad its like getting into a $#!+ filled hot tub!
BTW that's the question that got me banned from the Ebay Forums. I think I can learn and contribute more here than I ever could in their forums.
Thanks
Cat PE