Bidder wants to cancel bid! Help please!

Hi,

I am selling a pair of shoes on ebay, and they only have about an hour or so to go. I have just received a message from the highest bidder saying she wants to cancel her bid, as she doesn't want to "pay £15 for Primark shoes" and she claims that she entered the wrong amount.

To be honest, I don't want to cancel the bid - I feel like ebay gives you a chance to confirm your bid at the time and she should have thought about it before bidding!

Any advice would be gratefully received as I really have no idea what the best thing to do is in this situation. :cool:

Comments

  • force_ten
    force_ten Posts: 1,931 Forumite
    Eighth Anniversary 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    I would let her cancel the bid, if you let the auction run and she wins chances are she wont pay and that will mean you have to file a non paying bidder case to claim your fees back and then will have to sell your item again

    if the bidder is baulking now chances are she will not pay at auction end
  • lucy_lemon
    lucy_lemon Posts: 276 Forumite
    Thanks for your advice. In the end, I decided to let the auction run without cancelling the bid. I decided I'd rather let her get a non paying buyer strike because I was so annoyed!
  • theonlywayisup
    theonlywayisup Posts: 16,032 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    lucy_lemon wrote: »
    Thanks for your advice. In the end, I decided to let the auction run without cancelling the bid. I decided I'd rather let her get a non paying buyer strike because I was so annoyed!

    Did she win then?
  • This_Year
    This_Year Posts: 1,344 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker Photogenic
    What will you do if she now pays? Send them and risk INR, or send them and they arrived "damaged" etc...

    Buyer may leave negative feedback out of spite that you wouldn't cancel.

    Hopefully the buyer won't pay and you can then forget it after the NPB case has been closed, but I would be watching my feedback and DSRs like a hawk.

    Block the buyer now in case they decide to mess with any other auctions you're running.

    Good luck!
  • mrcol1000
    mrcol1000 Posts: 4,795 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts
    Never force a buyer to pay for goods they do not want. The best result you can hope for is they do not pay. If they do pay then the goods will get lost in the post and they will get a refund.

    Send them tracked and they will not be as described and you will have to refund. Forcing them to buy an item is a little victory at first and then a bed headache.

    Personally if they have won I would offer them the chance to do a mutual cancellation, then block them and relist.
  • soolin
    soolin Posts: 73,940 Ambassador
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Photogenic Name Dropper
    edited 11 May 2014 at 5:13PM
    Whilst I completely agree that a buyer being forced to pay for something they don't want can turn out to be an issue, it does annoy me.

    Last month I had a bid on one of my private items, about 5 days later and with less than 6 hours to go the buyer sent the 'I don't want this after all so please cancel my bid . She sent a second message less than an hour later with several exclamation marks. The problem was I was at work and did not see the messages until auction had ended.

    Luckily she was outbid but to expect sellers to be poised over their keyboard is just daft and if she had won I would have been seriously irritated to have had to risk a mutual and may well have gone for a NPB .

    I have also blocked her of course. Although in a similar situation last year where I did manage to pull the bid the buyer then emailed me when item was relisted asking why I was blocking her bids as 'she had been looking for this item for ages'.
    I’m a Forum Ambassador and I support the Forum Team on the eBay, Auctions, Car Boot & Jumble Sales, Boost Your Income, Praise, Vents & Warnings, Overseas Holidays & Travel Planning , UK Holidays, Days Out & Entertainments boards. If you need any help on these boards, do let me know.. Please note that Ambassadors are not moderators. Any posts you spot in breach of the Forum Rules should be reported via the report button, or by emailing forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com.All views are my own and not the official line of MoneySavingExpert.
  • cattie
    cattie Posts: 8,841 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Reminds me of a bidder I had last weekend, she messaged me with about 25 mins to go before end of auction to say she wanted to cancel her bid as she thought £2 for p&p was too expensive!

    Apart from the fact p&p is always clearly displayed in my blurb as well as by ebay's postage details, so they could see exactly how much the p&p was before bidding. This was quite a heavy item & £2.01 was what it cost me to send.

    Anyway I decided to ignore her & hoped that she would win just to give me the satisfaction of putting her down as a NPB, even if she gave me bad feedback, but (lucky for her) she was outbid. She obviously went straight onto my blocked bidder list.
    The bigger the bargain, the better I feel.

    I should mention that there's only one of me, don't confuse me with others of the same name.
  • techspec
    techspec Posts: 4,464 Forumite
    I thought bids couldn't be removed that late.

    Anyway - i always ignore and let them do it themselves.

    Besides - they often don't win - but help bump the price up :D
  • lijaloo
    lijaloo Posts: 265 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture Combo Breaker
    I sold my car this afternoon. The winning bidder put their bid in on Saturday. This evening I received an email saying sorry, can you relist as I bought a car nearer home and they had hoped they would have been outbid. Responded thanking them that I now have ebay fees to pay and as they are clearly experience ebayers (their feedback number is much higher than mine) they could have contacted me earlier to remove the bid. Their response was it has happened to them loads of time and they try not to do it to others. Really feel like leaving it for the automated non payment to kick in.
  • paul2louise
    paul2louise Posts: 2,529 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Just reading this thread for a bit of advice. A buyer bid late last night and sent me a message at 5am this morning asking to remove the bid. I just read message and realised that she has been outbid. So does that mean I can relax and leave it. I am not sure how to remove bids anyways and my listing has only a few hours left.
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