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Abuse of the bid retraction policy
So twice in one day now, I have had budders who retracted their bids but gave false reasons for doing so. The first claimed I had changed the item description (which I definitely had NOT), the second claimed they entered the wrong amount (but did NOT re-enter the correct amount) instead clearly just using that as an excuse for backing out of their bid commitment. Ebay admits that these are policy violations, but yet there seems to be no way to officially report them and no punishment for these bidders for their actions. Yes, I have blocked them from bidding with me ever again, but that is little comfort to me when it costs me a sale. Is Ebay just allowing policy violations on a selective basis now or what?
mr_lincoln
Mentor8 months agoHi @stapuftman84
I have been advocating for eBay to enforce their own policy on bid retraction abuse for quite some time but thus far no joy. On a Buyer's Feedback history if you click the FB they received as a Buyer then look over on the right you will see the number of Bid retractions they have made in the last 12 months. I have seen HUNDREDS on some Buying accounts. These are people who know they can get away with it and to your point eBay has NOTHING IN PLACE FOR SELLERS TO REPORT BID RETRACTION ABUSE.
I sell a lot Auction style and I have been tempted to End an auction and Sell to the highest bidder if they have a lot of bid retractions. I almost did this past week when a newer Buyer (4 month old account) with a (2) Feedback score had already accrued 2 Bid retractions. Maybe those were legit and they complied with the TWO reasons eBay allows for retraction ... but the item had a number of other Watchers and eventually bid up in price so holding off on that one was wise in my view.
stapuftman84
OP8 months agoSo I tried checking to find out how many bid retractions these people have showing on their accounts, but it doesn't show me anything at all. Almost like it's blocked or something. Their feedback pages don't show up like other members pages do with all of that information.
mr_lincoln
Mentor8 months ago@stapuftman84
eBay has made changes on how newer and older account Feedback history is accessed. You may have to scroll down and click the link at the bottom of the page before the older FB page format shows up. Even here we run into issues with not being able to see items some Sellers have for sale or their Sold items in the last 90 days.
stapuftman84
OP8 months agoI found it. One of these two people had 168 retractions! That's ridiculous. Seeing as ebay refuses to enforce this rule, I am just making it my own policy to block anyone who I have issues with. Seems that's all I can do. Maybe they should start calling this site "Mebay" since it's up to me to enforce the rules. LOL!
mr_lincoln
Mentor8 months ago@stapuftman84
I had one with over 500 retractions, this one has 112 and glad you found it, I had prepped this screen shot for you just in case.
I have messaged Buyers explaining their abuse of the Bid retraction system after they retracted a bid if they were a regular offender and then add them to my Blocked list right after sending the message. The messages are professional and quoting eBay Policy. Whenever a Buyer asks me to cancel their bid(s) I don't hesitate, I cancel their bid. When they do that I do NOT block them but appreciate them asking.
I gave eBay some extremely simple ways to address this issue, just like we have a default setting of 2 for Unpaid items and we can raise that amount, Sellers could have a similar block for Bid retractions.
Or another approach is to have it a Buyer fixed setting like Sellers have for sending Feedback revision forms. Sellers can send 5 per year ... so Buyers would be allowed a number of retractions annually.
I would rather have it as either a Seller setting or Buyer limit to take eBay out of the loop for policing the bad practice, as it is, they have a policy in place that they don't enforce so even if they add a means to Report Buyers who abuse the retraction process there is no guarantee eBay will take action against those Buyers ... history tells me they would not do anything about it.