HELP ME ELIMINATE DEADBEAT BIDDERS: FIVE QUICK TIPS AND IDEAS.

I sell football tickets, which are a very time-sensitive item.  When a deadbeat places a bid, and then doesn't complete the transaction, it causes all sorts of problems for me -- most importantly, I may get stuck with an expensive set of tickets that will soon be worthless after the event is over.  I have lost hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dollars because of them and am finally reached the point where I want to help strike back against them.

HERE ARE MY FIVE QUICK IDEAS AND TIPS:

FIRST: Sellers, you should join Square Trade.  Square Trade won't stop you from receiving bids from deadbeats but it will help you eliminate -- that's right: ELIMINATE -- any retaliatory negative feedback that the deadbeat gives you.  Square Trade provides an eBay-approved artibration service which has the authority to remove unfairly left negatives.

SECOND: Be vigilant in checking the feedback of your bidders!  Recently I violated this rule and assumed that one of my high bidders, who had a ZERO feedback rating, was a newbie.  Not so.  It turns out that terri5549 had FOUR pieces of feedback previously, 2 of which were positive, 2 negative.  Had I caught that earlier, I would have either (a) tried to email her and gauge her real interest in my item, and/or (b) canceled her bid.  Instead, I didn't catch it ... and she turned out to be a NPB. 

THIRD: ALWAYS report your deadbeats to eBay as NPB.  After three NPB strikes, eBay bans them.  Three strikes is a lot, if you ask me, so we must make sure that ALL NPBs get the strikes they deserve.  As an added bonus, filing a NPB report (and seeing it through to the end) will eventually result in eBay refunding your listing and final value fees.

FOUR: Don't be in a hurry to post a piece of negative feedback for your NPB.  Leaving negative feedback for a bidder rarely, if ever, spurs them to pay you.  Instead, it more often spurs them to post retaliary negative feedback for you.  That being the case, you should try to avoid your desire to punish them until AFTER eBay had refunded your fees to you.  That way, you not only have your own documented efforts to resolve the matter, you will also have eBay's several "Please pay your seller" emails to confirm your efforts.

FINALLY:  I am willing to share my "blocked bidder list" with any experienced, confirmed seller (with good feedback) who is willing to do likewise.  The only bidders I put on my list are those who either (a) I have personal experience with, (b) have other (usually multiple) negative feedbacks in their profiles, and/or (c) who otherwise seem to me to possess the Deadbeat profile.

PLEASE HELP ME MAKE EBAY SAFER FOR EVERYBODY!

(And if you found this guide helpful, or if you have any other tips to add, please let me know.)