What is the policy on cheating buyers who retract their high bid, then bid lower and buy the item?

[bee1956nut]

There is a buyer who lurks around the Thai jewellery stores. 

She/he likes to make huge bids on items, thern once he/she has seen how high the other bidders have goneor are prepared to go, she retracts her high bid, he/she goes back and places a lower bid.

ie she places 380 bid on an item, then watches how high the other bids go, then she retracts her high bid and goes back and bids lower.

I thought if you retracted a bid on an item, that you were not supposed to bid again, unless it was a mistyped amount, in which case you must bid again immediately. She rebids days later.

Is what she is doing agaisnt policy? The sellers lose out too!

[imastawka]

Then call ebay and have the item numbers ready

Here's their policy on retracting bids -

Some Examples

Steve is bidding on a new car with a reserve price. He bids on the car but finds that his bid has not met the seller’s reserve price. In order to uncover the reserve, he bids more than he is willing to pay to discover the reserve price and then retracts his bid.

Mary is bidding on a rare collectible. She bids on the item and with each bid discovers that someone with a higher proxy bid wins the item. Frustrated with bidding, she purposefully bids more than she would ever be willing to pay to uncover the winning buyer’s proxy bid and then retracts her bid afterwards.

Sarah wants an MP3 player. She places bids on many identical MP3s and then retracts bids on all listings except the one she thinks she’ll win as the final 12 hours approach.

http://pages.ebay.com.au/help/policies/invalid-bid-retraction.html

If you had simply given item numbers in the first place it would've helped

[imastawka]

I forgot to add this c &p - I think it's excessive retractions for this particular bidder

	30-Day Summary Total bids: 3683 Items bid on: 906 Bid activity (%) with this seller: 26% Bid retractions: 564 Bid retractions (6 months): 582

[collect247]

The problem is that the bidder can simply choose the entered wrong amount excuse and rebid a lower bid as per ebays

policy,once ebay puts into place better reasons for retracting a bid then this sort of thing will keep on happening without 

any repercussion.

[imastawka]

564 times in 30 days???        That's an average of 18 times or so a day!

Hopefully ebay should see through that

[kopenhagen5]

No doubt it's a shill account.

They want to see how high a buyer will go, even entice them to go higher then bids one close to the top and if anyone bids over they are happy and if not, they just send a SCO.

The Asian are very clever at getting money from Westerners alway have been.

[thecatspjs]

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@imastawka wrote:

Instead of being polite and helpful, Dave implied that I was a cheater too, and said that I am just griping because i was beaten on a few auctions because I din't bid high enough.

Nope, I didn't get that from Dave's answer.

In fact I agreed with his post.

If his way of helping is to disparage a person for asking a question, well i find THAT offensive

Didn't pick up on any disparagement either.

As I said, if you don't like his answers, then ignore them and choose the answers

you like.   Most people do that when they come here asking for help

It would be a strange world if we all agreed

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says more bout you than others that you don't pick up on this stuff

I agree - disparaging new posters seeking advice is just off ...

[thecatspjs]

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@*mobile63* wrote:

"How do you know what their high bid was? You can't see it. Nor can the seller, who would have more of a beef than a voyeur"

When a buyer retracts a bid or when a seller cancels a bid, the highest amount is shown in the retraction even if ithe bidding hasn't reached that amount yet.

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Gold

lol facts .....

[chameleon54]

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@springyzone wrote:

Out of 1116 they have retracted 521 times.

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That is shocking. Truly staggering.

If they are buying a lot though, I can't work out why they are doing so many retractions.

I can understand it if they retract and leave someone else to carry the can of a higher price, that's shill bidding.

But if they want the items, then exposing the top bids of other buyers is useful, but not totally so as sometimes buyers change their mind and go a bit higher or else someone else comes along and bids at the last moment.

Whatever is driving them, it should be stopped. Ebay should have acted on that account long ago. It is ridiculous for anyone to have 521 retractions. No excuse for that.

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I suspect it is only against ebay policy for a seller to shill bid up thier own items. I havnt seen anything in ebays policies that prevent an unrelated party from shill bidding. ( please correct me if I,m wrong )

The OP indicated this buyer may be buying for a shop. One reason they may be acting this way is to push prices up. This could assist them if they resell on ebay. It could also help to drain the oppositions pockets, leaving them less able to bid on other items.

521 bid retractions is just totally out of control.

[chameleon54]

I just checked ebays shill bidding policies. All of the coments relating to shill bidding are in relation to sellers shill bidding. Unrelated parties are not mentioned at all in relation to shill bidding. The only comment of relevence is " shill bidding is prohibited on ebay" but the definition of shill bidding given is when the sellers or one of thier relatives, friends or associates, often with inside knowledge bid on the item on behalf of the seller

I,m not saying what this buyer is doing is OK. just clarifying the meaning of shill bidding.

[springyzone]

I'm sure you are right.

I would think that usually if someone makes a habit of beating up a price then retracting they could well be a friend or relative of the seller, so i guess in that case it would be a shill bid.

If they don't know the seller at all, then you're right, I should not have called it a shill bid. Very strange behaviour though, to retract hundreds of bids. It can still have the effect of pushing up the price higher than it would otherwise have been or of exposing the current top bid amount.

I understand bidders make mistakes so retractions have to be allowed, but when someone makes hundreds of them, I think they are abusing the system. And maybe ebay should flag them or send a warning or do something.