I had one, where I sold a mid Victorian era Sutherland Table, that had some nice little Regency design features to it as well. Lady brought it and said she would pick up on the 10th of the next month, so she was asking me to store it for 3 or 4 weeks, not ideal but ok, she then said she would pay… this is where I broke my own rule, normally I prefer inspection welcome before payment, but she seemed so pumped I figured what’s the harm. The 10th comes and goes, and I emailed her on about the 14th or something, she said she was held up but would be in the next day. That comes and goes, and I e...
This is exactly what the problem is S, there is no real formula for buyers and sellers to follow, how long do you wait after someone has paid to come and collect their item? What is a reasonable attempt at contact? Who should be making contact? At what point do sellers get to keep the cash as on offset of storage cost and general inconvenience? I did try raising this a while ago with that red tape commission reporting outfit, but they never got back, next time I bump into a politician I will raise with them in person.
This has happened to me, more times than I care to remember. Someone buys something says they will pick up in a week or 2 and then poof! They are gone like a fart in the breeze. Never to be heard from again. Normally I wait 90 days after the 45 day trade me feedback window and then put the item up for sale again, have never actually had someone come back after 5 months or any amount of time longer than that and ask for their money back? I have never figured out why this happens, why someone will pay for something and then vanish, I am certain the odd one dies, or goes to prison but it see...
There is a way around this - just don’t offer shipping. Make all your auctions buyer must pick up. What you offer instead is a free packing service, so that way the buyers can organise the couriers themselves from their end and pay the couriers themselves, we have found that it really doesn’t hurt sales, and it takes away all the dramas of dealing with the couriers ourselves or the accusations of overcharging etc. Give it a go for a few items, if it doesn’t work for you then it doesn’t work, no harm done, however it might really suit and change your life. Don’t know if you don’t try.
A lesson I learned long ago, was dont try and compete with the All Blacks, dont set your auctions to close during an All Blacks game, but otherwise evenings between 6:45 - 7:30 are best.
This sounds so fishy, so very, very fishy, like snapper fillets left out on the bench in the kitchen for a week in full sunlight kinda fishy. For a start getting a negative after 2 hours of non payment, is completely unreasonable, and that is not acceptable and unfair, you should also talk to chat about getting it removed, that is ridiculous.
You are welcome Hayley. Personally I do wish there was a simple "Report this Question" feature, not just for your situation, which is common enough, but also to report trolling and low balling, some buyers treat the Q&A like a facebook forum as well, to share the opinions, rather than ask legit questions, I think this is something that should be looked at.
If they are putting in phone numbers for example you can do a community watch. Which is the little sherifs badge at the bottom of every listing. Just follow the prompts, select Q&A feature being abused. Word it something like this = "Hi there! I am reporting my own listing, Someone is sharing personal details in the Q&A, can this be removed please, also I have had this problem before, can you also email them, to ask them to not abuse the Q&A like this. Thank you for your trouble." T-Me staff will remove it, they just need a couple of days to get it done.
Callum's list is good. The only one I would add / ask is have you logged in and out recently? Have you put things onto you watchlist or place bids? How active is your account? If you account is inactive for a long time, they get suspended/closed, because Trade Me assumes you are DEAD! They have an automated system for identify accounts of members who may have died before closing their accounts, (if they didn't, their servers would be full of dead peoples, dead accounts wasting space) if your account was inactive for a while, this may have triggered it.
Also another option, sometimes this also happens if Trade Me have suspended, or kicked the member from the site. They may already be gone.