are ebay bids legally binding?

They say they are, but who would it bee down to, to enforce it?

I think the Police would have better things to do than chase up bidders who don't pay!

It's a strange one this, yes they are legally binding, but as far as I know it hasn't been tested in court. In fact it very rarely gets tested in bricks & mortar auction rooms.
The main problem is that if someone doesn't pay, then the probable rason is they haven't got the money so taking them to court is pointless. The usual route is to resell the item and sue for the shortfall (if there is any) this has happened and is usually found in favour of the auctioneer.

If it was legally binding in theory you could sue each non payer for breach of contract- sounds good although a little costly!!

You can only retract your bid under certain circumstances:

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/buy/questions/retract-bid.html

heskpesk wrote: »

If it was legally binding in theory you could sue each non payer for breach of contract- sounds good although a little costly!!

In theory you can sue anyone for anything, its winning that's the hard bit, there's all those lawyers and judges getting in the way.

There's the odd case every so often of someone suing a big company and winning as the company had mislaid the summons or something similar.

Is eBay really an auction?

MARTY_J wrote:

Under the Sale of Goods Act, a bidder at an auction may retract his or her bid at any time before it finishes.

Yet, you're not allowed to do this on eBay.

Surely if it were really an auction, it would have to comply with the law regarding auctions?

Its a lot easier to withdraw your bid on Ebay than in an auction room. The whole law concerning sales and auctions both on and offline is a very grey area and probably needs a complete overhaul. Most auction rooms have as part of their terms that the auction is "Not a consumer sale", from a law passed in the 19th century and covers 'sold as seen', 'buyer beware' etc. There are quite a number of laws relating to auctions, and a few can be considered contradictory. If anyone had withdrawn bids during an auction I was running (unless it was a genuine error) I would ignore all their future bids, a lot of salerooms I know would have them removed.

Having said that, not being a consumer sale has not stopped auction houses being prosecuted by Trading Standards!

Auctions on Ebay are covered by some of the laws relating to non online auctions, the major difference is that an item needs to be able to be viewed before an online auction can be considered to be on a par with an offline one. Again it is only "in theory", but if you offer a viewing day for items on Ebay then you can be covered more by law.

A lot of the time, 'the law' uses common sense, so whether a bid was binding would depend on the circumstances and why the person couldn't or wouldn't follow their bid with a payment.

Offline auctions tend to take deposits and non paying bidders forfeit their deposit, so it cuts out the need to go to court.