My Auction Winner Is Ineligible. What Can I Do?
Sometimes an organization may find that a winner in their auction is ineligible. This article will discuss:
- Why an auction winner might be ineligible.
- How to select a new winner.
- Successful credit card payment.
- Unsuccessful credit card payment.
- How to keep the same winner when their credit card payment was unsuccessful.
Ineligible auction winner
There are several reasons that an auction winner may be ineligible. These include:
- The winner does not meet a specified age requirement.
- The winner declines the prize and wants a refund.
- The winner is not eligible per your rules/guidelines (Ex. Company employees are not eligible).
- The winner can no longer pay for the item/shipping/delivery.
When any of these scenarios occur, you may need to select a new winner.
Select a new winner
There are a couple of ways to select a new winner based on the original winner’s credit card payment status.
Winner’s payment successful
- Cancel and refund the current winner’s payment.
How-to: Cancel and Refund Credit Card Charges - Look under View Auction Bids in the management menu for the next highest bidder. If there are multiple items on your auction, you can sort by the prize.
- Contact the next highest bidder and manually charge their card.
How to Manually Charge a Donor’s Credit Card through Your Campaign
Winner’s payment failed
If a winner’s payment has failed and you would like to award the next highest bidder the prize:
- Click View Auction Winners in your management menu.
- Find the winner you wish to revoke.
- Hover your mouse over their name and click the three-dot menu at the right.
- Click Revoke.
- Enter the reason for revoking the winner. NOTE: This reason will be sent in an email to the winner.
- Click REVOKE WINNER to cancel this winner and automatically charge the card of the next highest bidder.
- The name of the new winner will show in the View Auction Winner table.
If you have chosen the option to send the winner’s an email notification (in experience setup), a winner email is automatically sent. If you did not select this option but would like to notify the winner:
- Hover your mouse over the new winner’s name and click the three-dot menu at the right.
- Click Send Email.
Keep the same winner
For highly-priced auction items, the winning bidder’s credit cards may fail if the amount of the item exceeds their credit card limit or if their bank’s fraud detection system places a hold on the purchase.
If this occurs, the donor and organizer will both receive an email notification. The donor’s email will include a link to donate again.
What Should I Do If a Donor’s Credit Card Fails?
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