What happens if a buyer does not pay

Unpaid orders are rare on a curated platform, but they happen. The platform protects you with a time-boxed flow.

The 48-hour window

After you confirm availability of an order, the buyer has 48 hours to send payment using one of your accepted methods. The clock starts when you confirm.

During this window:

• The listing is reserved for the buyer — no other buyer can take it
• The buyer sees a clear "pay by [timestamp]" deadline
• You get a reminder if no payment has arrived within 24 hours

What happens after 48 hours

If the buyer has not initiated payment by the deadline, the order intent expires automatically:

• The listing returns to active in the catalog
• The buyer is notified that the reservation lapsed
• You are notified and can re-list immediately or wait for another buyer
• The buyer's reliability metric is reduced (internal — visible to us, used for repeat-offender detection)
• No slot is consumed on your side for an expired order

You can extend the window

If the buyer messages you to say "the bank transfer is coming, give me till Tuesday", you can manually extend the reservation in the order page. This keeps the listing held for them and pauses the auto-expiry.

When the buyer pays partly

Partial payments are a yellow flag. Message us via support@vod-auctions.com and we'll help mediate. Do not ship a partially paid order without confirming the rest is on its way.

Repeat offenders

The platform tracks expired-without-payment events per buyer. We act when a pattern emerges:

• Multiple expired orders within 30 days → warning to the buyer
• Continued behaviour → suspension of buying privileges
• Bad-faith patterns → full account suspension

Sellers don't need to chase this — we see it.

What you should do

• Confirm availability promptly (within 48 hours of order creation) so the clock starts cleanly
• Confirm payment receipt in the dashboard once funds land in your account
• Don't ship before payment has cleared
• If the buyer goes silent, just wait — the system handles the expiry