Suspicious seller

[dnooge3]

A seller, had an item that I bid on. I bid in error and retracted my bid. I attempted to re-bid but the seller froze my bid and blocked me from bidding or even setting a max bid amount. I sent the seller several messages asking what I needed to do to continue bidding, only to be ignored. I contacted eBay Customer Support, but they only side with the seller, not the buyer. The seller has a history of creating sales post, then not answering questions, blocking bidders, setting a price and then refusing to sell. eBay will not enforce their own policies. 

[kensgiftshop]

Sellers are not required to answer any messages and they can block any buyer for any reason.

There was no need to contact CS as they wouldn't do anything.

[mr_lincoln]

Hi @dnooge3 

How do you know that Seller has a, " ...  history of creating sales post, then not answering questions, blocking bidders, setting a price and then refusing to sell.  ..."

Occasionally Buyers retract bids on my auctions.  I check their Feedback history to see how many bid retractions they have in the last 12 months ... if it is a lot I block them, if not (like your account) I would not block them.

[mudshark61369]

@dnooge3,

When you retract a bid, it shows up on the auction bid history, and many bidders mistakenly consider that to be the actions of a shill working for the seller. If it has happened to the seller before, they may have added you to their blocked buyer list (BBL),  which usually involves automatically blocking communications from the people on the BBL. 

You retracted your bid right in the middle of the auction, if you wanted to raise your bid, all you had to do was bid again, you do not have to retract an earlier one.  You may want to read the info in the link below about bidding on auctions. Click on the buttons in the article about automatic bidding, and tips on winning auctions.

https://www.ebay.com/help/buying/bidding/bidding?id=4003

[lacemaker3]

Sellers can block buyers for any reason, including when they appear to be trying to interfere with the auction results. Or for no reason, if the seller is uncomfortable with the bidder.

You didn't tell the whole story. You left out the fact that your first bid was very high, intended to find out what the current high bidder's max bid was. Once you knew how much they had bid, you made an invalid bid retraction, because you didn't make a mistake in the price, you bid that high deliberately. Then you placed 7 more bids, starting $100 more than the current high bid, and then increasing your max bid by several hundred dollars each time.

This bid pattern is intended to appear intimidating, to make it look as though the bidder is so determined that there is no use for anyone else to even try to bid. It's an attempt to get a high-value item for something less than it is really worth. It can also make other bidders suspicious of the auction.

The seller has only sold one item before, so it's not true that they have any pattern of wrong doing.  And blocking a bidder in this situation is reasonable.

[dnooge3]

Wrong. He froze my bid. I tried to retract and submit a max. I attempted several times to communicate with him and find out how to rectify and proceed. He froze my bid and blocked me from making further bids. If a seller is true and not trying to scam, he will correspond via eBay mail. He wouldn't because he knows eBay reads the mails. Now I see where he removed the item because he did not get a high enough bid. He did not have a reserve. In my book he's a scammer or con man.

[dnooge3]

And now he has removed the item because he did not get a high enough bid. He had no reserve. He's a scammer or con man.

[dnooge3]

That's why it's so easy for con men like him to operate.

[12345jamesstamps]

Buyers who retract bids might get blocked by the seller. I have done it. Sellers have rights as well.

Buyers who ask questions might get blocked by the seller. Seller might think buyer might be a bit of drama to deal with. "I sent the seller several messages"....yelp....that probably did it.

Buyers have rights but sellers also have rights.

That negative feedback you gave to a seller might hurt you also....sometimes it's best not to do a negative feedback where all sellers can read it.

[khetzel]

I regard bidders who bid, retract, and expect to continue bidding as scammers or con men.

[lacemaker3 · Accepted solution]

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@dnooge3 wrote:

And now he has removed the item because he did not get a high enough bid. He had no reserve. He's a scammer or con man.

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No, the seller did not remove the item. It's not possible for sellers to do that. eBay removed it.

In this case, an almost 20 year old user account, which had never sold anything and had no activity in the last 6 months, listed and sold two items as auctions in the last few days. The first one, a mower, sold for under $200. The other one was an excavator, which attracted a lot of bidders, and your interest as well.

The excavator auction ended this morning, with a lot of last-minute bidding that took the price to $32.2K, which is reasonable based on the asking prices for similar vehicles.

Now, both listings have been removed, and the feedback as well. This is a classic example of a hijacked account. The user you are trying to call-out was a victim here, much more than you were.

You were trying to bid on a scam auction on a hijacked account, and you're complaining that you were blocked after you made an invalid bid retraction and then placed another 7 bids before you were blocked.

You should probably be thankful.

[mr_lincoln]

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@dnooge3 wrote:

And now he has removed the item because he did not get a high enough bid. He had no reserve. He's a scammer or con man.

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@dnooge3 

Or inexperienced on how to determine an acceptable starting bid on an Auction.  eBay will often suggest 99 cents.  The proper way is to determine the lowest price to make profit on a one bid auction sale.   More bids would mean more profit.

[lacemaker3]

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@mr_lincoln wrote:

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@dnooge3 wrote:

And now he has removed the item because he did not get a high enough bid. He had no reserve. He's a scammer or con man.

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@dnooge3 

Or inexperienced on how to determine an acceptable starting bid on an Auction.  eBay will often suggest 99 cents.  The proper way is to determine the lowest price to make profit on a one bid auction sale.   More bids would mean more profit.

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@mr_lincoln,

No, that's not what happened. The seller's account was hijacked, and the scam listings were removed. As they should have been.

[mr_lincoln]

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@lacemaker3 wrote:

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@mr_lincoln wrote:

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@dnooge3 wrote:

And now he has removed the item because he did not get a high enough bid. He had no reserve. He's a scammer or con man.

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@dnooge3 

Or inexperienced on how to determine an acceptable starting bid on an Auction.  eBay will often suggest 99 cents.  The proper way is to determine the lowest price to make profit on a one bid auction sale.   More bids would mean more profit.

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@mr_lincoln,

No, that's not what happened. The seller's account was hijacked, and the scam listings were removed. As they should have been.

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@lacemaker3   Awesome ... looking back over the thread from my earlier post you did some nice detective work. 

[doc-holmes]

How does a seller freeze a bid?