Bid retractions - just seeing what others think of them , are they fair ?

[buggerit234]

My opinion  - the fairest solution is that if a buyer wants to cancel / retract a bid within the last 24hrs of an auction this  can only be done by contacting the seller & all bids removed by this bid retractor.  If the seller doesnt agree to cancel their bids , tough luck ,  that bidder either pays up or gets a non paying strike.

I was outbid by someone making small manual incremental bids , about 10 of them with about 1 hr left on the auction,    his/her last bid outbid me, fair enough.  But with about 7 mins left on then auction his/ her bid was retracted leaving me the next highest bidder.  The problem is only that last bid is retracted leaving me to pay my MAX bid not the next highest up from the bidder below me,  result is I'm expected to pay approx $40 more than what I should have been if this idiot bidder did not bid.   

I'd wear it if he/ she stopped bidding just below my MAX bid but when they bid over me to see what my max bid is then retract it,  well what can i say.

Normally I'll wait till the last few mins of auction end to see what price its up to & decide to bid or not.  This time I was on road trip & had no internet connection,  so I used ebay proxy bidding by putting my max bid in 2 or 3 days before.   Needless to say I'll never use ebay proxy bidding again.

Looking at Ebay's bidding policy they dont remove all bids by the retractor ( if those bids come in within 12hrs of auction end ) to combat buyers bid "sheilding"  which I've never done or heard of before.    But this does nothing stop sellers "shill bidding"  ,  or even its not bid shilling & just a buyer finding out they can find a cheaper item elsewehere ie changing their mind  it still pushes up the price higher unfairly .  

Its a joke using the excuse " entered wrong amount " as a reason for a bid retraction , more so when they have made several small bids previously say $3 or $4 each bid 8 times before  , then **bleep** I've bid $4 too much ,  now I'm the highest bidder ,  I'll retract my bid......  

What other auctions can you retract your bid??   Please let me know  . 

Yes I contacted the seller ,  they are not intested in either cancelling the transaction or me to pay my bid above the 2 highest bidder.  Understand the seller pays no fee if the transaction is cancelled ,  relisting the item would probably be the fairest solution and the seller blocking that bid retractor from bidding again.

When I mentioned to the seller did they know about a bid retraction with mins to the end of the auction and I thought the bidding activity looked unusual he said if I was trying to say it was bid shilling he'd be offended.

Yes I emailed Ebay after that & the person who responded wasnt helpful at all & made no sense,  English wasnt very good at all.

[buggerit234]

That same bid retractor had 1 retraction ( for a 30 day period) last Thursday but now its Sunday & he/ she has 4 more retractions. Something not right there. Either a useless bidder changing their mind all the time or it shill bidding.

[go-tazz]

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@buggerit234 wrote:
That same bid retractor had 1 retraction ( for a 30 day period) last Thursday but now its Sunday & he/ she has 4 more retractions. Something not right there. Either a useless bidder changing their mind all the time or it shill bidding.

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It's a buyer that's using the bidding process incorrectly by bidding higher than the high bid and then

retracting.

The seller should be the one reporting them as they look like they use a shill bidder but it's what I call a rogue

buyer,(someone that treats eBay and sellers as a joke by retracting their bids late).

That impacts on the seller,other bidders and eBay

As stated if a listing ends in less than 12 hours the bidder can retract that bid as long as they do so within one

hour of putting it on,(so they've changed the policy from only the seller being able to cancel in the last

12 hours).

So a shill bidder can now put on a bid within the last hour and then retract it with seconds to go before

the listing ends,(so eBay have once again made it easier for shill bidders),

[springyzone]

I'd be furious too as I have had something similar happen to me in the past. Only in my case, the bid retraction was a good day or so after the bid. I think the person was waiting for me to come online and bid again & when it didn't look like I was going to, they withdrew their leading bid, citing 'wrong amount'.

Like you, I believe all their bids should have been cancelled or, more to the point, I think if someone wants to cancel a bid for 'wrong amount' they should only be able to do so if they re-enter with the correct amount, and that amount would need to be higher than the last person's bid.

What i resented when it happened to me was that the other bidder got off scot free whereas if I had refused to pay up etc, I am the one who would have got the strike against my name etc.

I know people say oh well, you were willing to pay that amount, but it's not right if it is done by deception.

[buggerit234]

Totally agree springy, also you would think there would be some limit to how many bid retractions you can make , like more than 1 a month should send an alert off to eBay. But as it's been said they make money from a percentage of the final price including postage , so u can't blame eBay to allow this type of bidding. Then they wonder why snipe bidding goes on do much .
I hardly sell anything via eBay , made 2 small sales recently , about $27 total including postage , cost me just under $22 for postage , then minus $2.70 eBay fees , not sure on PayPal fees , should have checked the items in the bin instead of listing them on eBay.

[performance_parts_clearance_centre]

Just an anecdotal thing, but I've noticed that bid retractions / cancellations have skyrocketed - I've had more on my personal account in the last 12 months than in the previous ten years combined.

Mostly from relatively new buyers - zero to ten feedback, etc. Not shill bidding in any of my cases, just "change of mind".

Had two from a buyer last week (on different items); she messaged me and asked. Shes's a Kylie Minogue fan, and was bidding on some of my TV Week lisitngs based on articles; she'd also bought a few packages of Kylie clippings from someone else, had just received them, and realised that some of the articles in the packages were in the TV Weeks she was bidding on, and that she didn't need the magazines any more. 

As hers were the only bids on the items, and she'd bought half-a-dozen items from me the previous fortnight (and still had bids on four other items), I was OK with it.

[lyndal1838]

That is easy to believe.

You only need to read the boards to see that there are regular requests for information on how to cancel bids/sales....some are for legitimate reasons others just straight out change of mind or buyers who have bought more than one of the same item.

[*tippy*toes*]

I can count on one hand the amount of bid retractions I've had on my listings. I'd rather they retract because they've changed their mind than not pay, or have it sent and then claim not as described to get the return postage refunded to them.

[springyzone]

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@performance_parts_clearance_centre wrote:

Just an anecdotal thing, but I've noticed that bid retractions / cancellations have skyrocketed - I've had more on my personal account in the last 12 months than in the previous ten years combined.

Mostly from relatively new buyers - zero to ten feedback, etc. Not shill bidding in any of my cases, just "change of mind".

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I think it can depend on the reason for a bid retraction. Some for mere change of mind i think are annoying to everyone. When it is shill bidding, it goes beyond annoying to the next level-deception.

But I had never done a retraction in my life till recently, when I put in two within days.

Both were because of what i would call mistakes or confusion in the ads.

The first one had a postage cost included. It was a long carpet roll/rug and postage was about $10.50. On the other side of town. I bid, but later on rereading the ad I got the feeling they were expecting pick up. So I retracted the bid and messaged them to tell them why & to warn them about what the ad was saying. They actually thanked me and quickly changed it to pick up only.

The second ad had one location listed in the ad but that wasn't where they wanted pick up, from memory.

I did feel bad retracting bids, it's not something I would ever aim to do, I guess it just goes to show ads also need to be very clear so there are no surprises for buyers. Important details need to be near the top or in a bigger font or whatever.

[ca04]

In a live auction when this hapens the biding goes back to where the defaulting bider started to bid and proceeds from there.

I have  had this hapen more than a few times and only once did I have to argue with the auctioneer to go back.

[springyzone]

That would be fair, retract all that person's bids back to where the defaulter started to bid.

It would not necessarily badly affect an auction if there had been several other bidders, it would only take one person out of the equation.

But if it was a shill bidder or insincere bidder against only one other person, it would make it fairer.