How do I retract a bid on Ebay?

[earlywynnfan]

Originally Posted by D. Bergin

To try to be clear from my standpoint in as few words as possible.

I don't even see it as a shilling issue for the most part. To me it's a perception of shilling that is damaging, along with a strategic interference in auctions that more often then not, drive prices down, rather then up.

Shilling and bid retractions in the Ebay world, is a much different animal then those same concerns in the auction house world, IMO.

An auction house has one on one control of every aspect of their bidding experience. You decide whether they are trustworthy or not, based on their individual reputations.

Then I see broad statements about Ebay.........and "Ebay" is not trustworthy. I stay away from "Ebay", because of this experience and that experience with nameless bidder, seller, buyer, consignments house, etc......

It should be broken down into all the individual sellers on Ebay on a case by case basis, but a lot of collectors don't want to be hassled with that, so we all get painted with the same brush........and as a result business suffers.

The company Ebay itself is responsible for much of this. In their pursuit of buyers and bids, along with the illusion of now anonymous bidding, they have encouraged this behavior, when at one time it was penalized. Essentially telling bidders they can retract or cancel a transaction any time they want.

It's now up to individual sellers to police this behavior, but even those who do, are affected tremendously by those who don't. Whether it's to continue misguided shilling practices, or it's triggering the desperation train of thought that "any bid is a good bid"........if I let this guy f*#k with this auction, he might spend more money on my next auction.

It becomes just as maddening as my shoddy attempt to make my point in "as few words as possible".

I agree, I should have said perception of shilling, too. I had one buyer retract a bid for me earlier this year, (oops, last year!) and I got a little panicky. I watched him a while, and he never retracted it again, surely a harmless typo. But I almost wanted to send an email to the high bidder letting him know nothing evil was going on.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by earlywynnfan

I agree, I should have said perception of shilling, too. I had one buyer retract a bid for me earlier this year, (oops, last year!) and I got a little panicky. I watched him a while, and he never retracted it again, surely a harmless typo. But I almost wanted to send an email to the high bidder letting him know nothing evil was going on.

As a seller I am always concerned about perception of shilling.

I don't run straight auctions often, but when I do, and I see any bidder who could be perceived as a shiller, I send him a message asking for a response. If I get a halfway reasonable response I proceed as normal, but if I get ignored I remove all of his bids and add a message to the auction.

Only once have I done this and had the bidder complain that I removed his bids. He explained and I allowed him to continue bidding.

[pgellis]

Didn't want to start a new thread on this topic.

Check out this bidder's habits:

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d...Buyer_ViewLink

I was (am) the high bidder all week, then this person outbids me by less than a couple bucks the other day, then this morning (just more than 12 hours left in the bidding) retracts his bid. It's funny how it was retracted just before the required 12 hour limit.

I am not accusing the seller of anything shady (he does have perfect feedback).

But why would someone retract just before the 12 hour deadline?

How can eBay allow someone that has 216 retractions in the last 6 months to continue to bid? I wanted to cancel my bid out of frustration, but feel bad doing it for "no good reason".

Can anyone find someone with more than 216 retractions in the last 6 months?

[Buythatcard]

If someone retracts a bid early in the auction and then corrects his bid and resubmits it I have no problem with that. But if someone retracts a bid and then does not bid again, I will block them.

If there are multiple retractions by the same bidder, then I will go the next step and call eBay. Last week, I had a situation where a bidder retracted 6 bids on 6 different items and did not place another bid. This brought down the price of each one of the items. I called eBay to complain about the bidder.

Here is what they told me. First thing to do is block the bidder. In cases where the bidder retracted their bid in the final hours or if they retracted multiple bids, I should call eBay like I did. I was told that even if I didn't call, eBay keeps track of all retractions. If a bidder has multiple retractions, then eBay would restrict their bidding. So, by reading a previous post I see there was a bidder who had 216 retractions. But don't worry, eBay is restricting their bidding. Yeah right.

[UnVme7]

An example of why I don't understand when people bid early on an auction.

The only reason I see is if you are trying to make the BIN disappear. Other than that you are only bidding against yourself.

Not picking on anyone in particular, but I just don't get it in general.

[Runscott]

NM...

[1952boyntoncollector]

[QUOTE=pgellis;1500901]Didn't want to start a new thread on this topic.



But why would someone retract just before the 12 hour deadline?



I can answer that one, some people put in the wrong bid but don't want to be known as a retractor, so they wait to see as long as possible if their bid beaten so that way they don't have to retract it.....of course i know you are assuming the bad side of things..but it could also be what i stated.

[pgellis]

[QUOTE=1952boyntoncollector;1501015]

Originally Posted by pgellis

Didn't want to start a new thread on this topic.



But why would someone retract just before the 12 hour deadline?



I can answer that one, some people put in the wrong bid but don't want to be known as a retractor, so they wait to see as long as possible if their bid beaten so that way they don't have to retract it.....of course i know you are assuming the bad side of things..but it could also be what i stated.

The reserve was $29.95. I place a bid for $30.01. This bidder placed a bid of $31.00. How can that be a wrong bid?
And oh yeah, he has two more bid retractions since I posted this today. Up to 218 bid retractions in the past 6 months...a little more than 1 bid retractions per day over that period.
It's not a mistake, but can't figure out what he's doing or why? And how does eBay allow this?

[1952boyntoncollector]

[QUOTE=pgellis;1501061]

Originally Posted by 1952boyntoncollector

The reserve was $29.95. I place a bid for $30.01. This bidder placed a bid of $31.00. How can that be a wrong bid?
And oh yeah, he has two more bid retractions since I posted this today. Up to 218 bid retractions in the past 6 months...a little more than 1 bid retractions per day over that period.
It's not a mistake, but can't figure out what he's doing or why? And how does eBay allow this?

yeah that sounds bad...did card sell at 30.01?

[pgellis]

It's at the opening bid of $29.95 with about 3 hours to go.

This is the only item that this seller has active, so I don't think he has anything to do with it. But why would someone continually retract bids? Can't be drunk eBaying can it?