Auction Fraud & Bid Loss for non-payment

Question

Bidding separate auctions for knives, found I was deemed low bidder on three auctions only after the low bidders withdrew. I was bid up. This is a fraud by someone, a joke-ster, or likely the Seller.

Refusal to pay, no ability to advise eBay, resulted in my current inability to bid other items. eBay must stop allowing low bidders withdraw and to bump other offers to win the auction. eBay needs a better written communication process.

woodland_gnome · Answer

The winner and price are determined from the active bids (i.e. not cancelled or retracted before the end) at the end of the auction. Until then any bid could win, even if it has been outbid (if the higher bid is cancelled or retracted; exception: if there is a Reserve Price that remains "Reserve not met" AFTER you place your bid that bid CANNOT win the auction no matter what anyone else does). eBay does warn on your My eBay: Bids/Offers: Bids that this can happen if at least one of the bids is showing outbid, but could do a better job of warning people in the onscreen immediate outbid notice and/or any email outbid notice.

If cancellations/retractions put you back as high bidder when the auction ends, you are the winner (unless your bid was "Reserve not met" after you placed it) and are obligated to pay, so don't go looking for a replacement item unless you are willing and able to pay for both.

Once the auction ends without you as the winner (if you are watching the countdown give a hard refresh after a few seconds to what appears to be a final result before relying on the results--a last second but still timely bid might not have been processed and the new results available to all servers for a few seconds) then you owe no more obligation to that auction. The seller might send you a Second Chance Offer if the winner backs out (and you have not opted out of receiveing such SCOs in your My eBay: Account: Communication Preferences) but you are under no legal or moral obligation to accept it.