eBay Buyer Serial Canceller

Quick question for some experienced sellers.

This guy bought a graded card from me valued at over $200. He cancelled the transaction a few hours after purchase. Then he bought it again a few days later and cancelled it again. I ended up wasting shipping material and tying up money with USPS twice for expensive labels. As a seller, I essentially complied with the buyer because, you know, eBay has us all gagged and whipped. I did ban the account after the second cancellation.

Today I wake up and ā€¦ surprise surprise. The seller created a new account to subvert my ban and purchased the same card for the third time this month.

Is there any way I can not sell to this guy? I have a feeling heā€™s going to take the card and, 4 months later issue a chargeback or something or file a claim with eBay for a return, etc. Will eBay help me out and cancel the transaction? Should I send a mail to this guy asking him whether he really wants the card or not?

Does anyone have any experience with this kind of thing?

All you can do is ban his username. Then further you can ban a specific e-mail associated with his account as well but it is so easy to just create more and more e-mails and eBay usernames. You can block out low feedback buyers I think, but that will diminish your reach to potential legit buyers.

Likely he is trying to sell the same card on one of his accounts so he wants to tie yours up and keep it off the market or he is just messing with you for some other reason. I have experienced both and they both suck.

Force payment upon buying a card. Raise the price and add a best offer feature. You cannot stop someone from creating additional accounts, but you can make it more of a headache on their part.

I do. In fact, both times, he paid and then subsequently requested a refund and to cancel the transaction.

I donā€™t think you can block low feedback buyers. Iā€™m pretty sure itā€™s just negative feedback buyers. At least thatā€™s what shows up when I attempt to set buyer requirements.

Soā€¦ this is getting into the gray area. I wrote a semi-shady response then got to the following point:

You also have all of his personal information at this point - he may just be phishing for yours - who knows?

Do you think this might be the case?

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Add shipping charges. When they ask for a refund make them pay for return shipping and only refund purchase price.

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@cullers is this possible to do even if the item has not been shipped?
I have had multiple buyers that buy listings, pay for the item and then contact me just to say that they do not want the item because their ā€œkidā€ bought it, or some other excuse and then demand a refund.
I have never seen an option to just refund the price of the item, I always end up refunding both the product + shipping. (Same goes for the people that claim items have not been received)
Itā€™s also very common that people commit to buy items and then never end up paying or responding.

Just curiousā€¦ why is it a problem exactly if a buyer cancels? I completely understand that it is annoying, a pain, and you need to refund, but why does (non-)shipment cost money?

If I personally ship the day after, then I will see that it has been cancelled and not waste anything, I donā€™t live in the US though, do I miss anything?

@martincollects , you have to go to Paypal to refund just the purchase price. I donā€™t charge shipping myself so Iā€™d rather have someone contact me right away instead of starting a return process. At that point I donā€™t really care as I just relist. If you donā€™t want to do that you can ignore the message and send the item. I donā€™t know why you would want to unless youā€™re trying to punish a bad buyer, like in the OPā€™s scenerio.

The non paying buyer is very common for me too. Often times I get offers I would accept. but if they have under 100 feedback Iā€™ll resend the offer to them so they have to accept before it gets sold. Iā€™ve found every now and again the offer goes unanswered. I donā€™t have numbers, but I feel Iā€™ve reduced my non paying buyers.

@skiwi, NEVER cancel an item unless the buyer is someone you have good standing with. If everyone had this policy everyone would have a lot less problems, by canceling offers youā€™re making buyers avoid non paying cases. I have a policy on my store that anyone with a non paying bidder case on them in the last year canā€™t bid/buy my items. Too many times people will ask to cancel order through me and Iā€™ll tell them itā€™s against my policy and not fair for other eBay users. By holding firm and closing cases against these people thereā€™s a lot less members that will will have to deal with these individuals. Youā€™ll also gain a reputation of not canceling and people who do this activity will avoid you.

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I know eBay is refunding fees when an item goes unpaid. But a BIN being sold and than the payment being cancelled might end up with you having to relist (eBay fees) and with a sold item you pay eBay fees again. Also, you got PayPal fees, fees subtracted from your listing price, but the price being refunded to the ā€˜buyerā€™ is always the full price, so you always lose the PayPal fees.

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@cullers , sorry, my wording was maybe a bit wrong, but I meant that if I see a day later that the buyer has cancelled, what is exactly the issue then? At least the OPā€™s post implied that the buyer had the ability to cancel the transaction.

Sure maybe but I meanā€¦ what can he phish for? My name + address? If so, he already had it a month ago when he first started up with this nonsense. There was no need for him to buy it 3 times. In any case, phishing isnā€™t really something you can protect against on eBayā€¦ unless you have a fake ID, SSN, paypal, address etc.

Yeah I might do this on higher priced items. I hate it though because free shipping is a really nice bonus and helps move productā€¦ at least in my experience.

Another question: he hasnā€™t cancelled the payment this timeā€¦ so should I send the item out to him? I donā€™t really see that I have a choiceā€¦
Should I contact him to ask whether he really wants the item?

I would contact him. Just be friendly and professional.

I have had this a few time happenā€¦

One dickhead keeps making new fake accounts. He filed a charge back on PayPal 5 months after it was sent and got a full refund because I didnā€™t have the tracking.

Name of the guy I know who does it in Canada is:

Joseph kubas

Or

David kubas

His username usually starts with Joe something. He keeps changing after one account is banned and deleted.

Call into ebay and explain the buyer created a new account to route your block, so you want to report both accounts. I have had several buyers do this, some to just create problems, but you should be covered in this situation. I have been in the past anyways. Yeah you lose out on those sales and the transaction fee, but at least you do not have to worry about the charge back.

Even if ebay says they can do nothing, I would cancel the order and ban the new account.

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What if the buyer leaves a negative for the cancelled transaction?

I have had 3 negatives removed from this before - all on separate accounts. The first negative I had no idea what was going on, but I blocked the buyer. They opened a second account and left another negative. At this point I was still in the dark. By the time the third one came through and I noticed it was the same email as the first two, and had them all removed. The buyer ended up getting kicked off ebay because of it.

It is a lot harder to leave negative feedback on a cancelled order, because once you cancel the order, it is no longer in their regular purchase history.

Safest route for feedback is to ship the order. Safest route for your money is to cancel the order. There are risks both ways, but I would personally cancel the order and block the new account.

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