Bid retractions over the top?

[padi*0409]

Hi all, I just won an item from one of my regular sellers and happened to notice a bid retraction on it.

When I looked furthur into the bidder's activities I saw he/she had 157 retractions in 30 days and a staggering 822 in 6 months.

Is it just me or is that way over the top for retractions?????

[jensmanchester-australia]

You need to get the seller to report the buyer to ebay and say that it is auction interference.

With that number of retractions it is most likely that ebay will put a ban on the buyer bidding on auctions for a certain period of time and they will be given a formal warning. Ebay frown on this type of behaviour from buyers but they only become aware of it if sellers report the buyer.

[digital*ghost]

Via the listing, I'm seeing the same stats as you did - what's interesting is that it shows they retracted their $6.50 bid, but allowed their 3 other bids to remain, two below the retraction amount and an $8.00 bid (they were the underbidder). 

The most innocent explanation I can think of is that they are an extremely fickle bidder - they seem to generally bid very early on in the auctions, with most bids looking like they are placed in the first few hours, so it's feasible they make placeholder bids, then change their mind as they win or find other items, occasionally coming back to auctions they previously abandoned. Either way, if they do have 800+ retractions to their name, it should be investigated.

They are the sole bidder on the soonest ending item that seller has, but I didn't explore many current and completed listings, and that's the only one I could spot them on... 

[springyzone]

That really annoys me, to hear of a bidder getting away with that.

According to ebay rules (last time I read them, anyway), if you retracted a bid, claiming you made a mistake with tyhe price or whatever, you were supposed to re-bid quickly, rectifying that mistake.

It is just not fair to allow someone to retract bids willy nilly, especially days after having made the bid.

It's confusing for other bidders who have been outbid.

It's happened to me, where you have no idea you are winning or have won an auction, because you were outbid days earlier.

In my opinion some of these bidders who retract are just trying to find out what the top bid is.

If it is a case of fickle bidding, then they should be held responsible, because what they are doing is pushing up the price of the item and that isn't fair unless it is a genuine bid.

[muskawo]

I saw another buyer doing this once and so I also retracted and then messaged the seller to explain I thought someone was schill bidding to find out the highest bid. I couldnt see the name of the other buyer but the seller could and they blocked that person from bidding on their items again. The seller was very upset with it and I think in the end it actually made him/her trust ebay less, which is sad. I wish there was something more they could do to stop this kind of thing.

This kind of bidding is what leads everyone to snipe these days! 

[padi*0409]

Hi Digi, this thing gets stranger and stranger........................

I've had a few emails back from my seller, he's going to talk to eBay today about it - I've already put in a complaint about it.

Now here's where it gets odd, when he looked yesterday at his completed listings he could see several bids by her on his listings, but when he looked again after 12 hrs or so there were none (????????)

He also said he's only had a couple of bid retractions emailed to him, so where do all the retractions come from, because I couldn't see that many in the few of her completed purchases I opened.

The plot thickens as they say in the movies.

(continues scratching head, removing more of the few hairs left.....................)

[zenremix777]

Sometimes a high bid retration might mean shill bidding. Not sure though.

[amber-eyed-girl]

You've done what you can, hopefully the seller does what they can, and then it's up to eBay to do the right thing and investigate.

Have a Happy Christmas everyone 🙂

🎄

[padi*0409]

We'll see what happens over the next few days Amber..............

I'll keep you all posted,

Thanks for the input everyone,

Merry Xmas..........

[padi*0409]

Here's the latest update, my seller was on the phone to eBay a few hours ago..............

Their response was "That's quite odd that the bidder has so many retractions"............................

But thankfully they also said they would "look into it"...............

ROLMAO.........................(all hair gone now...............searches for a Toupee.................)

[amber-eyed-girl]

I think you've done good 🙂

try a sexy hat. Toupees aren't nice you know 😛