ebay issue/suggestions on handling
 

I have an item listed on ebay that had 1 bid up until today, when another bidder bid up the previous bidder until they took the lead (going in increments of $5), and then retracted their bid to slightly under the previous bidder. Any suggestions on how to handle this? Should i cancel all of the bids from the bidder who retracted? Can i even do that on ebay? I do not want any potential bidder/winner to think I was shilling. Any thoughts/suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thank you!

first things first, ban the retractor.

The auction at this point has been compromised. Ban the retractor, and notify the legitimate bidder that you are cancelling the auction because of the retractions and that you will be relisting the item and invite him to bid on it when it is relisted.

Lee

Yeah, right now it's going to look to everyone that you are shilling, so do whatever it takes to cancel the bids, end your auction and relist the item at some point (if you want to). There's a good chance that anything else is only going to negatively impact your reputation, and it's just not worth it. Good luck!

Scotty and I had the same thing happen on eBay. 2 bidders went nuts on a Dodgers Fritos card and bid the item up to $1,000. I thought it was a $750 to $800 item. Then they proceeded to retract their bids until it was back to $249. We decided to cancel the bids, the auction and block both bidders. We eventually relisted it and sold it in our expected range.

The funny thing is that the bidder who bid it up is a member here and was annoyed with us for canceling the auction. He didn't think he did anything wrong by bidding it up and retracting his bids....his quote "it is done all the time". I checked the other day and he has something like 18 bid retractions in the last 12 months. I won't out the member because it doesn't look like he very active here, but if you ever have any Dodgers Frito cards available...contact me.

Jeff

Thank you to all who chimed in! I ended up cancelling the auction, blocked the retracting bidder, and relisted (notified the original bidder of the situation).

Did you get charged an ebay final value fee?

I sure hope not, but honestly do not know. I cancelled the auction several days short of the final and used "error in listing" and repost.