A mark against your account for winning an item and not paying for it.
Not for losing an auction, not for asking a question, not for a return, not for a complaint. One thing only: a win you did not pay for inside the payment window.
What it takes to matter
Three inside ninety days pauses your bidding. Below that, nothing is stopped.
The window rolls, so a strike from four months ago is not counted. And a pause is not permanent — the message tells you the date it lifts.
What a pause actually stops
Bidding. You can still watch shows, chat, follow stores, buy anything at a fixed price, and pay for anything you already owe.
That is deliberate: the problem a strike describes is an unpaid promise, and a fixed-price purchase is not a promise — it is a payment.
How to get one lifted
Ask. This is the part people do not realise is available, and the app says so on the message itself: if there was a reason, you can ask for it to be removed.
Your strikes have their own screen, and from it you can ask about any one of them.
Two people can lift it — the store, or Metzee — and the screen records which did. Asking the store is often faster, because the store is one person who remembers your evening.
What to say: what happened and when. A hospital week, a card that failed, a phone that was lost, a wrong number on the account. These work, and they work more often than people expect, because almost nobody who misses a payment did it to be difficult.
What does not work: nothing, said at length.
How to avoid one entirely
Pay from the win notification rather than going back to find it later. The window is 30 minutes and most strikes are simply forgetfulness.
Do not bid on something you are unsure you want. A bid is a promise to buy at that price. How bidding works
Check your notifications are on. A win you never saw is the saddest version of this, and there is a grace allowance for exactly that case. What is an unpaid win?
One thing that does not cost a strike
A second-chance offer you do not take. If an item was offered to you because the winner did not pay, letting it pass costs you nothing at all — it simply goes back to the store. What is an under-bidder?
For sellers
Sellers have their own strikes, for different things, on their own screen. Same principle: a small number, a rolling window, and a route to ask. Why was my account suspended?
More: what happens if I do not pay, unpaid winner, every Metzee term, explained.