Cancelled bids

Flyonthewall

Hi

I've been watching this auction for a popular game. I thought it a bit odd that it had no bids at just 99p start, but auctions are sometimes missed or bid on near the end. However, with just a little while to go it got a couple of bids.

Thought nothing of it until I looked again and saw the bid was only at 1, which has now also been cancelled.

Looking at the bidding the seller has cancelled loads of bids today.

The odd thing is one bid said over £60 - even if the seller didn't have the game you could go to a shop and easily get one for that price (almost two, probably could get two buying online).

It can't be because of new buyers as a lot of the bidders have well over 50 feedback. One buyer has bid 4 times, all cancelled and has still just bid again which seems daft too, although the seller has yet to cancel the most recent bids.

If it's for a certain person why not do a planned BIN or something? Doing it this way wouldn't make sense, would it?

Am I missing something or is this really odd? I can't think of any reason why a seller would continue to cancel bids and not end the listing.

Edit: The latest bids have now been cancelled too.

Should also add that it's not a new ebayer/seller and they have 100% positive feedback.

earthstorm

some buyers will bid on several of the same item, in the hope they will win 1 of them, if they do win one they just cancel all the rest.

Flyonthewall

earthstorm wrote: »

some buyers will bid on several of the same item, in the hope they will win 1 of them, if they do win one they just cancel all the rest.

I think you misunderstood.

The seller cancelled all bids, not the buyers.

Some buyers also bid several times on that same item despite the seller cancelling.

One buyer bid 20 times! And each time the seller cancelled their bids. That was over about 40 minutes. In the very end he did get a bid in but was outbid.

I'm guessing the seller couldn't cancel the final bids in time and the game actually went for quite a low price considering. Had the seller let it run properly I reckon they'd have got an extra £10+.

Why did the seller cancel all bids though?

yazzine

May not be seller doing it but the blocks put in place working?
I have an item I am very keen to sell but was miffed why it would not sell when all the lesser items where selling.
When putting a new person the block buyer list noticed 15 bids placed almost each time I have listed item with one being very persistant bidder who has bidded the majority of times it has been listed.

soolin

yazzine wrote: »

May not be seller doing it but the blocks put in place working?
I have an item I am very keen to sell but was miffed why it would not sell when all the lesser items where selling.
When putting a new person the block buyer list noticed 15 bids placed almost each time I have listed item with one being very persistant bidder who has bidded the majority of times it has been listed.

If a person is blocked from bidding by buyer blocks then no bid is recorded. In this case OP has clearly seen bids on the item and they show as cancelled, so it is being done manually.

astrata

I have had a few occasions in the past few months where a bidder has contacted me saying they want to cancel a bid - mostly American buyers mostly as they misunderstood e.g although the word 'book' is in the title and mentioned a few times in the listing they thought it was a DVD!!

I politely reply to advise them to retract their bid - there seems to be a reluctance to do this - I think retracted bids are recorded againt the butyers account, so I often end up cancelling a bid.

So, what I am trying to say is that although a seller may cancel a bid it may be because the bidder has requested it.

Although, I may be wrong I thought once you cancel a bid the buyer is not allowed to bid again on that item?

soolin

astrata wrote: »

I have had a few occasions in the past few months where a bidder has contacted me saying they want to cancel a bid - mostly American buyers mostly as they misunderstood e.g although the word 'book' is in the title and mentioned a few times in the listing they thought it was a DVD!!

I politely reply to advise them to retract their bid - there seems to be a reluctance to do this - I think retracted bids are recorded againt the butyers account, so I often end up cancelling a bid.

So, what I am trying to say is that although a seller may cancel a bid it may be because the bidder has requested it.

Although, I may be wrong I thought once you cancel a bid the buyer is not allowed to bid again on that item?

Nope buyers can keep bidding unless blocked by the seller.

Flyonthewall

It seems unlikely that so many buyers would keep asking for bids to be cancelled, especially multiple times. It was very clear what the item was. Plus it was a PS3 game so would work on any console even a US one.

Seems silly that so many rebid though.

Assuming it was the seller cancelling them, which I'm sure it was, why would they do that?

soolin

The only time I have seen anything like this was a thread on here many moons ago. basically the seller had wanted X for his goods and had not set a reserve, and being a little challenged in the intelligence area everytime he saw a bid he removed it as it wasn't high enough to meet his invisible reserve.

Flyonthewall

The seller has sold plenty of other things though and the bids quite quickly went rather high because it was a popular game so I can't imagine it was anything like that.

Those that bid hadn't bid on any of the sellers other items either.