eBay

debera0163 · ‎08-30-2023

I recently experienced 2 buyers who are also sellers that falsified bid retractions on a recent auction. The inital retraction bidder had emailed me twice with a buy it now offer well below my auction starting price. So I removed the options for buyers. She retracted a bid saying it was a mistake "wrong amount". Okay.....but it caused another bidder to become high bidder who emailed me saying "she could not afford the item". WHAT???? Then she retracted her bid, which was falsified. And the intial buyer did the same driving now the price of my item, but she retracted 3 times! I reported them both to ebay and was advised to "block" them, which I thought I did. But the one who retracted 3 times bid again, driving the item price up and then down to bottom out again. I contacted Ebay who assisted with making sure I had blocked this buyer correctly. My question is this???? I have 37+ watchers and other bidders on a rare, expensive item to sale. Do they see these retractions and will that affect my auction? What are your recommendations?

mam98031 · ‎08-30-2023

You are assuming they were trying to manipulate the auction. Clearly your auction has recovered nicely. I don't see how you were harmed.

Certainly annoyed as I would have been annoyed by those buyers, but you haven't been harmed as far as I can see.

Keep hoping, typically bids that have multiple bidders early on really start going up close to the end. That was always my preferred way to bid. Besides it is FUN! Or at least I found it fun. LOL

mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999

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debera0163 · ‎08-30-2023

Also wanted to mention that I reported the buyer who repeatedly falsifyied her bids!

mam98031 · ‎08-30-2023

The reason the buyers retracted their bids do not show, but the fact they retracted do.

If you go into your listing. Click on the number of bid. Look at the next page closely. You will see them referenced at the top and then further down you will see the retractions.

It is unlikely it will have any negative effect on your listing. I see you currently have 7 more bids, that is WONDERFUL.

Watchers are NOT bidders. It is always reassuring to see all those watchers but they often do not turn into bidders.

Just make sure you blocked those buyers. Relax and put it out of your mind and just pay attention to current bids and messages.

mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999

debera0163 · ‎08-30-2023

Thanks for your reply to help me ease my mind! They retracted their bids because they claim "they put in the wrong amount". I think the worse offender was trying to manipulate my auction. I've been concerned because my item bid price has been high, like now.....but lowered several times because of their falsified retractions. I have reported them and ebay has been helpful.

Thank you.

a_c_green · ‎08-30-2023

@debera0163 wrote:
Do they see these retractions and will that affect my auction? What are your recommendations?

@debera0163 : They do see the retractions if viewing the Bid History page for that auction, yes. However, anyone who clicks on the disguised bidder IDs for those withdrawals will be able to see their record, and in the case of your (480) bidder, it's atrocious: 68 bid retractions in the past 12 months, 5 in this month alone. Weld their ID into your Blocked Buyer List (which I understand you have done now) and forget about them.

The other bid retraction, from your (185) bidder, is the only one they've made in the past year, so I would attribute that to Bidder Remorse. I doubt they'll be back again, but whether to add them to your BBL is your choice.

We can see their 30-day bidding records by clicking on their disguised IDs. You can see the same thing by logging out first (as the seller, you get a different view of the Bid History page with no disguised IDs), or you can view their feedback page and click on their Feedback as a Buyer tab (on a desktop or laptop), where their Bid Retractions count will be shown on the right side of the page.

mam98031 · ‎08-30-2023

You are assuming they were trying to manipulate the auction. Clearly your auction has recovered nicely. I don't see how you were harmed.

Certainly annoyed as I would have been annoyed by those buyers, but you haven't been harmed as far as I can see.

Keep hoping, typically bids that have multiple bidders early on really start going up close to the end. That was always my preferred way to bid. Besides it is FUN! Or at least I found it fun. LOL

mam98031 • Volunteer Community Member • Buyer/Seller since 1999

slippinjimmy · ‎08-30-2023

Your current high bidder placed their bid AFTER these retractions and the original bids so apparently it didn't bother them. With 4 days remaining it's likely there are others who are interested that don't intend to bid at all until the last couple of hours.

If you think the two bidders that retracted (really just the one with 480 feedback) could be a problem at the end go ahead and block them. They are bidding on a number of items and make a habit of retracting, my guess is that they have mental health issues (that is not a comment on their niceness or honesty).

Your current high bidder looks like gold (or a hijacked account) I can't see as much detail as you can but the account has been around, they haven't bought anything recently and your doll is the only thing they are bidding on.

collectfest · ‎08-30-2023

To answer your question, yes people absolutely can see that there are bid retractions, I am looking now and there are 5.

As to can it affect your auction, I can say for myself, it absolutely can affect your offering. As a buyer, I would for sure wonder what's up.

It would not be the only thing I look at but it FOR SURE would cause me pause especially 5 of them. On items with several bids I always research bid history to look at bidder profiles.

I believe, with 3 days left on the listing, as long as there are no more shenanigans, I think all will be well.

fashunu4eeuh · ‎08-30-2023

@debera0163 wrote:
Thanks for your reply to help me ease my mind! They retracted their bids because they claim "they put in the wrong amount". I think the worse offender was trying to manipulate my auction. I've been concerned because my item bid price has been high, like now.....but lowered several times because of their falsified retractions. I have reported them and ebay has been helpful.

Thank you.

eBay gives bidders two reasons to retract—1) they put in wrong amount, or 2) seller altered the description substantially. Sadly, some buyers will abuse the retraction privilege because they changed their minds or are bidding on multiple similar listings (neither of which is a valid reason in eBay’s policy to retract). But still, it happens. So it may not be that someone is trying specifically to interfere with your auction. Instead it is just another regular day in the eBay neighborhood.

From another perspective, to be honest, i think i’d rather have my potential buyer retract a bid now, rather than become a non-paying winner later or worse, open a bogus Not As Described case because they long since changed their minds about the item. Some determined unhappy buyers will find a way to get around the rules when there is a now-unwanted item.

(Doesn’t make it right for them to abandon the auction, of course, or falsely state the retraction reason, which becomes a huge time waster for sellers. But it may somewhat explain why a bidder would resort to such a practice.)

a_c_green · ‎08-30-2023

@collectfest wrote:
It would not be the only thing I look at but it FOR SURE would cause me pause especially 5 of them. On items with several bids I always research bid history to look at bidder profiles.

Well, yes, but it should be noted that four of them are from the same doofus, and his bidder profile is horrendous in terms of retractions; they're all over the place. Me, as a prospective bidder, I don't think I would be too concerned about that particular set of retractions.

I agree that it's always a good idea to look at the bid history and bidder profiles, especially if I'm planning to snipe an auction at the end, and I can sometimes see a rival's bidding habits that way (e.g. always bids in increments of $10, never adds a penny or two to his bid amount, etc.)