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Trying to stay under the radar. What if buyer doesn't pay?
 

If you are trying to stay under the radar and a buyer doesn't pay, is it a bad idea to file a notice to get your final value and listing credits back? Will that put you on eBay's radar?

Also a side question:

Does eBay charge you final value fees after you actually receive payment or immediately once your listing ends?

Thanks

1st q to you is what are you selling that would have you concerned like this? I do unpaid cases + block bidder stuff all the time without worries.

Side q answer: Charges immediately once your listing ends - yeah, they screw around with sellers like that.

The items I am selling aren't illegal, but eBay can be really weird with them sometimes. Basically vouchers for digital content. Their policy says you can sell them as long as you don't ship them electronically(email, phone, IM, etc) but the problem is random account people are under the belief that you can't sell them period. For example, one account person told me one time that you can't sell them period. But two supervisors told me that person was incorrect and you can, just don't do it electronically.

Yes, even their own staffers don't know the policy 100%.

So under the hope I don't attract attention from some staffer that doesn't know the policy well, I want to minimize risk.

in my opn, if it's not much, it's better to forget. when you open a case the buyer may leave a negative and you're right, you never know what to expect from eb. but if you'r account is 100% legit and confirmed, and you've got some positive history and feedback, sure do like rsot said.

I always do it.... I have over 100 non paying bidders on one account. Its a fairly normal thing to do. If someone doesnt pay, heck yea I want my $20 back. Also, the negative feedback would be removed if they didnt pay.

i open cases all the time if a buyer does not pay - i want my fees back, any normal seller would, don't you think.
I do alter the settings in unpaid item manager across different accounts.

Ive even got eb to revise feedback for me after a blatent scammer tried it on with me. They also chucked in a free revison as the eb employee was traditionally non-comprehending & got it wrong as usual, but to my benefit this time.
I have also reported buyers for suspicious activity and blocked them.

If buyers do not pay they cannot leave feedback. If a buyer did leave bad/neg feedback after paying after i have opened a case, I would smooth it out somehow.

Yep, for small things I just let it go, but when you have a $20 fee, I guess it's worth it to file an Unpaid Item thingy.... What I do now though is use the UPI (unpaid item assistant- it's an automatic setting) People will feel rushed/warned to pay, but since they can see it's an automatic setting, they will/might feel like it's less personal and less likely to leave those damaging 3 star feedbacks when they get moody. I'd say the UPI assistant is something to check into....

Open a unpaid case. It doesn't really draw attention to your account

Recent case - I had opened 20 unpaid cases over span of week - 2 months ago - no problems experienced.

I had a customer that wasnt happy with their purchase, so i gave them a full refund and they said they would retract the negative feedback (which they never did), they used bad language in the negative feedback comment, so i reported it to ebay.... Big mistake.... they said i needed to call if i had a problem with the language used in the feedback comment.... about a month later, i listed a reply to the feedback that i gave them a refund, etc.... the next day Ebay suspended the account...... looks like the report put me on the radar... never again..