Dealing With An eBay Customer Who Does Not Pay

EBay is a great tool for anyone who wants to get rid of their old, unwanted stuff or wants to make some extra money. But while eBay is a great place to sell your items, it can quickly become not-so-great if someone is not paying you for the item you "sold." After all, on eBay, you do not get paid first and then give the customer the item - the way you would in a regular store - but instead, you have to wait for the person to pay you after they win the bid, and sometimes they can leave you waiting for a while!

If you are dealing with a customer who has won a bid but has not yet paid you, the first thing you should know is that they have four days to pay. At least four full days must pass after the end of the auction, and although this can seem like ages when you are waiting for a payment, eBay will not take your complaint seriously until this point. If four full days have come and gone, however, eBay tends to take these matters seriously and help the seller resolve the issue.

If someone has not paid you, the first thing you need to do is try to work things out with them by contacting them directly. If you contact them and find them to be uncooperative or, worse, unresponsive, you will need to take the next step, which is filing a complaint with eBay's Resolution Center.

After you file a complaint with the Resolution Center, the buyer will be notified, and they will have another four days. Although they are allowed to contact you and try to work out an extension or another arrangement during this time, you are not required to oblige. The item will go down as an unpaid item if it has gone another four days without any payment from the buyer.

This unpaid item will be listed permanently on the buyer's account, and you are then able to list your item again, or you can give a Second Chance Offer to one of the bidders who lost on the item. And keep in mind: you can look at people's accounts when they are bidding, and if you run into a bidder with an "unpaid item" on their account, you can block them to keep this from happening to you!