I have had some frustrating experiences with children on this site. In the past year I have had around 15 situations where a child made the winning bid on my auction and the parents refused to pay because the child didn’t have permission to use their account. The last time this happened the father sent me a message saying that his daughter and her friend had used his account without his permission but he was going to pay for the item anyway. That was nice of him. In the other instances I had to either file an ‘unpaid item’ dispute or send a notice that both of us agreed that the buyer made a mistake and didn’t want the item. Each time I got my FVF back but it all took a lot of time to straighten out.

My question is how do children get their parent’s password to use their accounts? If the parents don’t want their children to use their account then they need to do two things:

1. Don’t give them (or any one else) their password and user name.

2. They need to make sure they know what their child is doing when the child logs onto the internet. My kids aren’t allowed to use my computer unless my husband or I are in the same room so we can monitor their online activities. Too many children are unsupervised in this area and they end up getting into deep trouble.

Here are a couple of ideas for all sellers but mainly for the new ones who may not have learned about the following solutions.

1. If your auction is won by someone who doesn’t have any feedback or has several negative feedbacks then you might be dealing with a child who somehow managed to open their own account. That is what happened the first time I found out I was dealing with a child. This girl won one of my auctions. I saw she was a new member and already had 2 negative feedbacks and no positive feedbacks. I had to contact her twice before I got a reply. She paid me and I asked her to leave feedback for me as I had left positive feedback for her. She admitted to me that she was only 11 and didn’t know how to do it. I was shocked that a child had an account but I didn’t think anymore about it until she won another of my auctions. This time I never got a response from her. I opened an ‘unpaid item’ dispute and she never replied. I got my FVF back and I put her on my ‘block bidder’ list. So be aware of who is bidding on your auctions. If you don’t have a good feeling about the person please contact them and ask questions. If you don’t get a satisfactory response then add them to your ‘block bidder’ list and please report the problem to the proper authority.

2. If a winning buyer contacts you and says their child used their account without their permission and they aren’t going to pay for it, you can open an ‘unpaid item’ dispute and choose the ‘We've mutually agreed not to complete the transaction’ option. Then choose the subtitle ‘buyer made a mistake and doesn’t want this item’ and send the message. When the buyer agrees with this statement the dispute will be closed, you will get your FVF back and the buyer will not receive an unpaid strike against them. You are still allowed to leave feedback for each other even though the item was never sold. It’s a good idea for both parties involved to leave positive feedback for each other if the dispute was civil and not harsh. This builds trust and good feelings toward each other and lets fellow eBayers know that you are willing to work things out.

Thank for you taking time to read this and I hope it is useful to you as you continue to buy/sell on this site.

God Bless You!

Paula =^..^=