[thecatspajamas]

Yeah, I had forgotten about this nice little change coming down the pike. What I foresee is a lot of headaches for any seller unfortunate enough to be stuck in the middle of one of these situations. I have a hard enough time explaining to several newbies a week, "No, I can't SEE what is in your Shopping Cart until you "commit to buy" the items, so I can't send you an invoice for all the stuff you've picked out." Now, I can add irate buyers who think they've committed to a purchase but had it bought out from under them to the mix. "Why did you sell it to someone else when you knew I was going to pay for it. Way to treat your customers. I was still shopping in your store, but I'm so pissed off now, you can just cancel the rest of my purchases." To which I respond, "No, I can't SEE what is in your Shopping Cart..."

In some backwards-thinking way, eBay sees this as a solution to buyers of Fixed Price items taking too long to pay, or not paying at all. As usual, they completely overlook the potential for it to backfire on the seller. And it will. The reality is that if some numbskull clicks on BIN and doesn't intend to pay, all this will do is soothe their conscience by making them think that they haven't really committed to anything, so no harm done.