Bid retractions

iieee

Well, this is a new one on me! I got an email today saying that a bid on one of my items had been retracted - checked it out and the bid was retracted as soon as it was made, with the bidder stating 'entered wrong bid amount', however they didn't enter any other bids after this.

As there is only one bidder on the item currently, it occurred to me that this person might have placed a high bid and retracted it purely to find out what the other person has entered as their max bid. So I checked their feedback, and sure enough they have retracted 27!!!! bids in the last 6 months.

Obviously it makes no difference to me, but I feel a bit bad for anyone else that might get outbid this way, and it seems like an abuse of the option to retract bids... I was just wondering if I should report this person for their behaviour? What does everyone think?

frivolous_fay

I would report it as they are clearly a prolific offender! 27!

Moglex

It's an indication of how cr*p fleabay are that they don't police this kind of thing themselves.

Had it not been for the bidder's history, however, there is a perfectly innocent explanation:

Item is currently standing at £x.

Bidder is prepared to pay £x+10.

Mistypes bid as £x+100.

Legitimately retracts bid but notices that previous bidder is prepared to go up to £x+20, so does not make a new bid.

frivolous_fay

Moglex wrote:

It's an indication of how cr*p fleabay are that they don't police this kind of thing themselves.

Had it not been for the bidder's history, however, there is a perfectly innocent explanation:

Item is currently standing at £x.

Bidder is prepared to pay £x+10.

Mistypes bid as £x+100.

Legitimately retracts bid but notices that previous bidder is prepared to go up to £x+20, so does not make a new bid.

Fair enough, but I think ebay would still view that as an invalid retraction as it was not immediately followed by a corrected bid. (even though it would have been pointless to bid)

Moglex

frivolous_fay wrote:

Fair enough, but I think ebay would still view that as an invalid retraction as it was not immediately followed by a corrected bid. (even though it would have been pointless to bid)

Ebay don't seem to care, if they'll let some joker build up a history like the one mentioned above.

And whilst you are technically correct, I doubt that the majority of ebayers would see it that way.

If ebay wanted to enforce a rule as you suggest, they could allow you to correct an invalid bid rtaher than revoke it.

Why give people the opportuinity to do the wrong thing when the software can force them to do the correct one?

iieee

Thanks for the replies!

I used to use yahoo auctions a long time back, and if you wanted to retract a bid there, you had to email the seller and ask them to do it. Letting people retract their own bids automatically seems a bit like asking for trouble!

I agree it could be a genuine mistake, and this person does bid on a lot of items every week.... BUT unless they have severe arthritis, I can't see how they could make that many mistakes!!!! I've never had to retract a bid in 5 years!

Anyway, I've reported to ebay so it's up to them how (and if :rolleyes:) they want to deal with it. It'll be interested to see if this person does show up in the last 5 minutes and make a bid.... actually I'm going to go nosey through the items they won and see if any of those show up with earlier retracted bids.

iieee

Oh, and btw: I have 11 people watching this auction (closes tomorrow night) so I'd be surprised if their smart*ss tactics actually get them anywhere.