Discussion on buying and selling on E-bay...

[George M]

Hey Gang,
Since most of us by now have bought and sold on E-bay, thought I would ask how most respond to a couple of different scenarios and what the result has been. Want to say, I have been pretty lucky overall and the E-bay system seems pretty solid but have a question about both buying and selling.

Selling: Have a item I sold recently and the buyer who won the auction hasn't paid. I sell only to people in the US and only accept Paypal. I stipulate on my description that if payment isn't made in 3 days, buyer will forfeit item and I will relist. That is where I am at as I write this. I have sent of course an invoice and follow up e-mail requesting payment and would ship immediately upon payment...yada yada...no response and no payment. What do you guys do at this point? Do you contact E-bay...if so how? The single most important thing to me is my feedback which is 100% and want to protect this at all costs. I don't want a disgruntled dead beat buyer to ding my feedback if I take them to task for not paying. How long should I wait?...any advice?

Second scenario:
Buying: By and large I have had great experience buying stuff on e-bay. Of course it is incumbent upon the buyer to purchase from reputable sellers with good feedback...I avoid those with less than 98.5% or so. The question is...what do you do when a seller is very slow to ship you something. I bought an item on Sunday and paid immediately on Paypal and sent them an e-mail a day or so later since I heard nothing about when the item would be shipped and they still have not responded and its Wednesday. Most sellers will respond to e-mail if not be forthright with when an item will be shipped. What do you guys do in this instance?

Since I have a couple of different things going on with e-bay right now, both of which aren't the best I thought I would poll the collective board for experiences as this board is always a wealth of information and real car guys buy and sometimes sell stuff on E-bay Believe a good discussion about personal e-bay experiences would probably benefit most.
Thanks for any advice,
George