Problem Contacting eBay Winning Bidders

gemint

I've been having a problem recently contacting winning bidders. I have a handful of non-payers who don't respond to my emails but have good feedback. Is it just me or is there a problem with the eBay "contact the buyer" program? The only other thing I can think of is that these bidders have changed their email accounts and forgot to update their profiles.

Anyone know how to contact bidders if their email isn't working? I don't want to use feedback as a means to communicate.

fsjeter

I'm assuming your email hasn't changed. They can just as easily contact you but they aren't. I am in the middle of two NPB myself (one of which never contacted me as well). I don't know how long it's been since your auctions ended but buyers also have a responsibility to contact you as well. I would think eBay would notify either party if an email returned undeliverable but I guess they don't.

Scott

alohaet

Are the people you are trying to contact AOL users? I have had trouble in the past with contacting and receiving email from AOL. This problem has gone on for months now. I finally had to get contact info such as phone numbers from ebay. Just a thought.

Ed

fsjeter

I'm an AOL user and I don't recall any problems sending or receiving emails. It may take a few days for pages to load but other than that ...!

Scott

67standup

Not sure if this theory holds water, but this is the time of the year when many take vacation. When I send emails to distribution groups within my company, a good percentage are returned with "out of office" messages. Just a thought.

jrdolan

An "out of office" or "away on vacation" auto-reply would actually be reassuring. Hell of a lot better than selling a card for $600 and not hearing from the buyer for a week.

67standup

<< <i>An "out of office" or "away on vacation" auto-reply would actually be reassuring. Hell of a lot better than selling a card for $600 and not hearing from the buyer for a week. >>



A week, I've had outstandings that span three weeks with no email notification. Then a check floats in without any note or explanation. Moreover, I'll even send an email asking if they received the package - because I don't know since they didn't take the time to leave feedback - but get no response. The lack of common courtesy in such scenarios baffles me.

jrdolan

Yeah, I've had that happen too. An expensive card sells, the buyer does not acknowledge invoices or answer emails. Then a couple weeks later a personal check wanders in out of the blue. In those cases I'm tempted to let that check simmer for a few weeks before it "clears" ... or tell the buyer I've already resold the card since I assumed he had died after winning the auction.

However, I believe sellers don't enjoy the same luxury as buyers of being thoughtless bozos.

Snowball

I had a problem with AOL users before. At that time my ebay invoice wasn't set up and no paypal, yet. I sent an email but did not get any reply. After 3 days he sent me an email asking for the total price and included name and address. I replied to the email. After 25 days, no payment receive so I decided to file for credit. I did ebay's contact buyer several times and also sent payment reminders. I think one of the payment reminders ( with all info for payments) got through. He emailed me and told me that that's the first email he got from me. The buyer has been bidding on my auctions since without a problem. I have set up the ebay invoice and personal paypal account.

AOL buyer who gets my emails said that they have to adjust their spam settings. If set high, it's go their spam folder or gets totally block.


Recently, I sent an invoice to a buyer. After 10 days no reply or payment. I sent payment reminder and file for credit. I check the email found that buyer uses AOL. I used ebay's contact buyer and he replied to tell me "Never placed a bid. Sorry." I got pissed. I got regular buyers who were bidding on this card and he outbidded them and placed double bids so nobody can out bid him. I check this guys FB and found he has a neg for NPB. I still have 6 days to got to get a final value for this auction. I wanted to neg him but I know he'll neg me back like what he did to the other seller. My FB is less than 100. I'm sure he'll be kicked off ebay soon.

gemint

Several years ago I did have problems contacting AOL users but the one I spot checked was not an AOL address. The auctions are more than a month delinquent. Like I said, they have good feedback, they just don't reply to my emails.

kehfee

I haven't sold a lot but I never got response from some of the buys. Then I cut and paste their emails and contacted directly and found out they had already mailed money orders. That's fine and dandy but when I'm buying I try and keep guys in the loop as to what I'm doing. Puts everyone's mind at ease. You know?

metsfan

AOL has spam filters. The buyers need to check their spam folder. I use AOL and just delete my email, otherwise it doesn't go through. You may need to mention something in your listings.