Retracting a bid

Question

I want to retract a bid because it was the wrong item,but the seller says he doesn't know how to retract the bid that I need to do it. When I selected retract a bid,it just tells me to contact the seller.

woodland_gnome · Answer

That is not a valid reason to retract a bid under eBay rules. You may contact the seller and beg him/her to cancel your bid before the auction ends, but s/he is under no obligation to do so nor to acknowledge the request, and neither not responding nor responding that it's OK with him/her is among the valid reasons.

When the seller chooses not to cancel (or claims ignorance of how to do it) and you don't have a valid reason (you don't) to retract, you honor your promise to follow eBay's rules and hope you are outbid. If you win you can try again with the seller; there is a way for a buyer to initiate a Transaction Cancellation case within the first hour after the transaction (end of auction--Purchase History: More actions: Ask to cancel order) https://www.ebay.com/help/buying/buyers-can-cancel-order/buyers-can-cancel-order?id=4004&st=12&pos=1&query=How%20buyers%20can%20cancel%20an%20order&intent=buyer%20cancel&docId=HELP1019#section1 and the seller has 3 days to reject it (if you haven't paid the cancellation goes through if the 3 days goes by without the seller taking action). Other than that you can try the seller again to see if s/he will do a Transaction Cancellation at your request (again, s/he is under no duty to do so or respond and can choose to file the Unpaid Item Dispute after 4 days instead), or pay, or take a UID strike, or hope s/he dithers around for a month until it's too late for him/her to open a UID.