My Live Chat Today

Here is the transcript of the Live Help Chat I had today on eBay in regards to the removed Pre-Approved Bidders option.

6:51:50 PM Lawrence: How may I help you today?

6:51:55 PM marcos.e$hop: I want to know how to make my auction listing available only to bidders that I give approval to.

6:53:45 PM Lawrence: That option is no longer available on eBay. It was removed by member request at the beginning of February. Did you have a particular person you had in mind that you want to sell something to?

6:54:24 PM marcos.e$hop: No I want to prescreen customers to ensure that they have fully read my auction and Terms of Sale

6:57:20 PM Lawrence: OK. I recommend that you include at the top of your description a line such as "Serious bidders must contact the seller before bidding or bids will be removed".

6:57:32 PM Lawrence: Then if you have a Buy It Now price include a Require Immediate Payment option as well.

6:57:50 PM marcos.e$hop: I have that already and they just ignore it and bid anyways

6:58:20 PM marcos.e$hop: I have a member request - bring back the Pre-Approved Bidders List.

6:59:22 PM Lawrence: Definitely make that suggestion.

6:59:55 PM marcos.e$hop: Members request got it removed, maybe I can request it come back? I know how to remove bids and I have done that, but it is too much to watch everyone all the time and that doesn't work with Buy It Now.

7:01:06 PM Lawrence: Yes, I understand. Which is why I recommend using the Require Immediate Payment option as that will require the buyer to pay for the item before it is ended.

7:01:07 PM marcos.e$hop: If I can't stop bidders with no intent on paying from bidding on my products, then what good is an eBay Store? The eBay store format is all Buy It Now and you can't cancel those bids

7:03:59 PM marcos.e$hop: You know there are some buyers that I would rather not do business with whether they pay or not. I sell some digital items and too many buyers, buy these and immediately after receiving the download request a refund and effectively get the item for free. Its plain stealing and theft and I can't do anything about because I'll get a retaliatory negative feedback from them and eBay doesn't do anything to protect the seller from this. And Paypal will automatically give the money back if there is any complaint. I want to keep these types of buyers away or at least educate them to my terms of sale before allowing them to bid.

7:05:52 PM marcos.e$hop: Can you help me?

7:06:07 PM Lawrence: I definitely understand. You should definitely pass what you just told me to our suggestions section so that our higher ups can review your comment.

7:06:53 PM marcos.e$hop: But...There is no help on the way

7:06:54 PM Lawrence: You'll need to consider my option of putting a bidder disclaimer on your listing. I do understand where you're coming from but the Pre-Approved Bidders/Buyers List feature was removed.

7:07:02 PM Lawrence: So I can't help you do exactly what you want to do.

7:07:46 PM marcos.e$hop: So now rogue bidders can sabotage auctions for high priced items such as airplanes, real estate, and yachts huh?

7:08:29 PM marcos.e$hop: And of course these scam artist bidders can buy, keep the item and request a refund without any recourse against them?

7:08:48 PM Lawrence: Anything like this is possible. In which case I would recommend reporting the member and making a Second Chance Offer if the second bid meets your expectations. But we do try our best to maintain scammer accounts where ever we can, 24 hours a day.

7:10:59 PM marcos.e$hop: I can't even report these people that do this because they will give me a negative feedback. How is that right? I try to report a violation and have my name ruined and effectively my business? Just today I had this happen twice, where I had to give in to this type of feedback exhortion. But if I report them, they will definitely give me a negative now that they have my product for free and their money back.

7:12:38 PM Lawrence: You should start an Unpaid Item Dispute if this happens. The dispute will remind the buyer to pay for the listing that they won. If it is not answered within 7 days you can close the dispute to get your Final Value Fees back. At that point the buyer will receive an Unpaid Item Strike on their account. As well, the non-paying buyer will be blocked from giving you retaliatory negative feedback. At that point you can give the buyer negative feedback to warn other members based on your personal experience.

7:14:00 PM marcos.e$hop: Are you telling for that once they have an unpaid item strike against them, they can not leave feedback for me?

7:15:11 PM marcos.e$hop: At what point are they blocked from leaving me any feedback?

7:15:18 PM Lawrence: Yes, that's correct.

7:15:43 PM Lawrence: As soon as you close the dispute due to inactivity on their behalf they will be blocked from giving you negative feedback.

7:16:42 PM marcos.e$hop: Okay, that sounds like it might work out. I'll give that a try. Thank you. You have been very helpful.

The moral of this customer service event is that there is no way to keep the undesirables out, but you can manage them once they get it.

But note what I was told by eBay:

7:08:48 PM Lawrence: "...But we do try our best to maintain scammer accounts where ever we can, 24 hours a day."

What does this mean? eBay has scammer accounts that they maintain 24 hours a day? Whoa!!!

I sure hope that was a typo on their part! I'm sure it was just bad wording on their part. I would like to thank Lawrence for his help, even if it was like pulling teeth to get an answer he could have given me after my second question.