Bid retraction - eBay is NOT user friendly

[joel.gill]

Hi guys I'm new here,

I have been after a copy of Tomb Raider on PS4, and I saw a copy for $42, so I bid $43 and I thought they said that it said I was overbid, so I tried to find another copy. I bid for that, and then found out I was actually the highest bidder for both. I tried to retract my newest bid, but I couldn't until going through loops to find where "retract" is. The options for why were either: entered wrong amount, description rapidly changed or can't contact bidder. I then tried to contact the bidder, but eBay brought up stupid options, and didn't allow me to actually contact the person. So I went back to the retract the item and chose "couldn't contact the seller". Why is eBay this difficult to use?

[gkam2]

You tried to "contact the bidder", surely you were the bidder?

[davewil1964]

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@joel.gill wrote:

Hi guys I'm new here,

I have been after a copy of Tomb Raider on PS4, and I saw a copy for $42, so I bid $43 and I thought they said that it said I was overbid, so I tried to find another copy. I bid for that, and then found out I was actually the highest bidder for both. I tried to retract my newest bid, but I couldn't until going through loops to find where "retract" is. The options for why were either: entered wrong amount, description rapidly changed or can't contact bidder. I then tried to contact the bidder, but eBay brought up stupid options, and didn't allow me to actually contact the person. So I went back to the retract the item and chose "couldn't contact the seller". Why is eBay this difficult to use?

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Because they expect people to know the rules?

Unless you want 2 of an item, don't bid on 2 auctions. You overbid somebody on one of those items and now the person who thought they were out of the running is winning, but may have, just like you, bid on another one. Especially if they don't monitor their 'My Buying' page.

[digital*ghost]

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@joel.gill wrote:

Why is eBay this difficult to use?

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There are some things that can take a bit of getting used to, but bid retractions aren't something that can be done willy-nilly. The reasons provided for a bid retraction are the circumstances in which it's acceptable to retract a bid - and most people won't be overly empathetic that you found this difficult. Bid retractions interfere with the seller's auction and affect other bidders, too - sometimes quite dramatically. If it's done without good reason, it can be considered auction interference and your activity reported - I'm not trying to use scare tactics, BTW, overall the consequences to you will probably not be significant, but the affect of a retraction to other people involved in the auction can be, so please consider your bids etc more carefully. 

Just FYI. when you go to contact a seller, quite often you will arrive at a list of topics, some of which have pre-written answers provided by the seller. You can continue on to send a message to the seller by selecting the topic that most closely resembles the reason for contact, then down the bottom - where it asks you if your question was answered - select "No, I want to contact the seller", or similar, and you will be able to send them a direct message.

[jama5t4r]

I can say I am happy with how Ebay has things now.

The reason I say this is if people could retract bids at the last minute without jumping through some hoops or meeting guidelines then some people may flood bid on a number of the same items and then at the last minute retract the bids when they get what they want ruining other peoples chance to make an informed bid using the last bid as a gauge of how much the item is expected to sell for.

[phorum_junkie*]

Buyers cannot retract bids in the last 12 hours of a listing unless there is less than an hour since they made the bid.

When you go to bid there is a clear warning that even though you may be outbid you can still end up winning the winner so it is pretty obvious you should not bid on another the same unless you are prepared to pay for both.

How much more user friendly do you want ebay to be? They have clearly told you the score and if you choose to ignore their advice what more should they do?

Cancelling bids is never something that should be done lightly or often as your number of bid retreactions shows on your feedback profile and a seller who you have messed around may see thar you have done it a few times and put in a complaint to ebay, people have had their bidding rights curtailed pr even suspended all togwther for as few as 4 withdrawals in six months.