WWGRMD: Selling a car on ebay - how long do you wait for the buyer to respond and send a deposit?

The CRX "sold" on the 'bay on Sunday, as usual for less than I had hoped but for enough that I'm not unhappy with it.

I emailed the buyer (via the ebay system) on Sunday night, basically asking him to get in touch to let me know how he plans to collect the car and all that jazz. There's also the small matter of the auction stating that a $500 deposit is due within 48h of auction end.

So far, I have heard crickets from the buyer and the deposit hasn't shown up either. I generally don't work that way and tend to get in touch with sellers quickly, so I'm a bit stumped.

So far my plan is to check for deposits late tonight, if it's still crickets send the buyer another message to remind them. If it's still crickets tomorrow night, file a non-paying bidder claim against them and send the second highest bidder a second chance offer.

Comments?

You nailed it exactly. 48 hours is there so it is a binding contract, they don't pay, you move on.

Move on quickly.

Ebay will still bill you for the listing fees. I recently paid $40 to list something the guy never paid for.

I'm not sure how to fix that. Someone teach me something.

IIRC the listing fees have to be paid, but the "success fees" should get refunded if you end up with a deadbeat bidder. At least that used to be the way it worked with cars.

pinchvalve wrote: You nailed it exactly. 48 hours is there so it is a binding contract, they don't pay, you move on.

This

'cos I'm a nice guy I pinged the "buyer" again last night and told him politely that he had until midday today to get in touch and send the deposit.

If I haven't heard from him when I start munching on my lunch, he'll get reported as a non-paying bidder and I'm sending out a second chance offer.

<rant>Why is it that it's always the cheap cars that turn into a headache at sale time?</rant>

Gack, non-paying bidder case opened. Of course now I have to wait another four days before I can do anything else but I won't get my fees back otherwise.

In reply to BoxheadTim:

God, that is maddening. Why in the hell do they bid on something they have no intention of buying?! I'll never understand that sociopathy.

Wow. That sold for about half of what you were asking here. I'd have loved to buy it for that price.

Also, check your spam folder. When I sold the Civic, I didn't hear anything. Weird. Then I decided to check my spam folder. Inside a found a bunch of messages from the buyer.

jimbob_racing wrote: Wow. That sold for about half of what you were asking here. I'd have loved to buy it for that price.

Well, I had lowered the price on here, too, but not that far. Problem is that I really do have too many vehicles and am trying to consolidate the fleet.

It looks like you may get another chance, the buyer is still quiet - if you're serious @$2600, PM me as I'd rather deal with someone on here than try another round of ebaying.

David S. Wallens wrote: Also, check your spam folder. When I sold the Civic, I didn't hear anything. Weird. Then I decided to check my spam folder. Inside a found a bunch of messages from the buyer.

First thing I did . And then checked again a few times - I run my own email server so I have a pretty good idea as to what tends to end up in the spam folder and what doesn't, but I still check just in case.

I also sent all communications via the ebay messaging system[1] and there are no responses on there either. The high bidder unfortunately shows all the wrong signs - no communications, fairly low feedback (< 20) and not much in the way of recent activity.

Oh, and not to mention that there's an open non-paying bidder case against the high bidder now and he's not responded to that one, either. Even if all the emails got lost I would think as a buyer, that would really get my attention.

[1] It at least used to be the case that ebay would review the messages sent via their internal system during a dispute, so I never send messages outside their system "just in case".

I will never try to sell anything on Ebay after reading this. What a freaking hassle

I'm only an occasional seller these days and normally it's a good and smooth experience. This is really my first bad experience as a seller in the last 3-4 years. I've sold other cars on ebay and it was simpler and smoother than trying to sell them on CL.

This Honda just either seems to be clingy or there's something about cheap Hondas that brings out all the right people.

BoxheadTim wrote: This Honda just either seems to be clingy or there's something about cheap Hondas that brings out all the right people.

Oh, I'm pretty sure a large portion of the cheap Honda audience falls under the "scum of the Earth" category. Sadly, I drive cheap Hondas, so I have to deal with them.