Cancelling my bid after I've won an auction

pinkshoes

It's a clear case of shill bidding.

Phone Ebay and report them, and send a request to the seller to cancel.

porto_bello

pinkshoes wrote: »

It's a clear case of shill bidding.

Phone Ebay and report them, and send a request to the seller to cancel.

To be honest, I've found eBay extremely uncooperative, even with clear cases of shill bidding. The approach essentially seems to be to pacify the victim of shill bidding, agree how terrible it is, assure tham how seriously eBay takes shill bidding... and then inform the buyer that they can do nothing except direct the buyer to make a payment.

So is it better to do it the other way around?
By this I mean to approach the seller, stating that you watched the retracted bid, followed by a replacement bid just beneath your revealed maximum and following advice from both eBay and forum users, request a mutual cancellation.

The seller may agree to a mutual, since they obviously won't want their activities analysed, and try again for a less observant victim. On the other hand, they may refuse.

If they refuse, you can then contact eBay, noting the shill bidding activity and add that the seller abjectly refuses to issue a mutual cancellation.

Given that a buyer would normally entitled to a mutual, maybe this would actually help the buyer in getting eBay to cancel the entire transaction (since the dodgy seller has already refused)?

pulliptears

I've mentioned this before on here, but last year OH won a car item at £30. He'd bid and only after he had won did I look at the auction. (Probably my fault, shouldn't let him near eBay without supervision!)

It transpired he had been shilled, and obviously shilled by 2 other accounts and subsequently he should have won the item for £11 not the £30 he did win for (His max bid was £30 and a few pence).

I contacted seller helpfully providing a link to the court case over eBay shilling which was coincidentally in the same area as OH's seller:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10510086

I told him that I refused to deal with shill bidders and I expected a full refund in my paypal account within the next 24 hours.

Funnily enough a grovelling apology arrived along with the refund and he told me how he had to bid things up because they weren't selling for what he needed or what they were worth. He also begged me not to report him.

Of course I did and he was NARU days later along with his other 2 accounts.

porto_bello

Berislav_Zlokovic wrote: »

Next time, use a sniper

I have a similarly low opinion of shill bidders, but don't you think shooting them might be a bit over the top?

...Oh, I don't know though, it would certainly solve the problem!

Tina_Arena101

Not wishing to sound paranoid but it *could* have been the sellers friend trying to bid up the price of the item to the maximum amount you were willing to spend?

soolin

Tina_Arena101 wrote: »

Not wishing to sound paranoid but it *could* have been the sellers friend trying to bid up the price of the item to the maximum amount you were willing to spend?

That is what a shill bid is as per the rest of this thread.

pulliptears

Tina_Arena101 wrote: »

Not wishing to sound paranoid but it *could* have been the sellers friend trying to bid up the price of the item to the maximum amount you were willing to spend?

That is exactly what shill bidding is. It matters not a jot who is bidding up the auction, just that someone is inflating the cost artificially.

brokenant

Well after deciphering several messages (i really hate text speak) containing some abuse and threats I eventually get a request through eBay that the seller wants to cancel the transaction. Job done eventually. Thanks.

centretap

brokenant wrote: »

Well after deciphering several messages (i really hate text speak) containing some abuse and threats I eventually get a request through eBay that the seller wants to cancel the transaction. Job done eventually. Thanks.

Yay! Now let it go through and when it has let ebay have all the evidence. They will probably turn a blind eye, but if they don't and do do something about this seller you may well have saved someone else grief.

RainbowDrops

Don't forget to add the seller to your blocked bidders list.