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Seller keeps canceling my bids
I wanted to buy some usb cables. Bidding for 10 cables started at 99 cents, free shipping. It didn't attract any other bids, so right before bidding ended, my bid was canceled. Seller has more of these listings. I bid again, starting at 99 cents. A few days later, again close to auction end, no other bids and seller canceled my bid. This is looking like abuse of the auction format but obviously its condoned. Has anyone else seen this?
2 comments
woodland_gnome
·2 years agoA seller can cancel any bidder's bid(s--one cancellation removes all bids by that bidder on that auction) at any time before the auction ends, and may do so for just about any reason, the verboten reasons having to do with schemes to evade eBay fees, such as:
It is specifically against the rules for a seller to cancel all bids and end the auction early without a winner IF it is because s/he deliberately set the Starting Price lower than s/he was willing to sell for, and it hasn't reached that high. This is considered fee avoidance because eBay charges a substantial fee for sellers to have a Reserve Price so they aren't promising to sell as low as their Starting Price.
But there are legitimate reasons why a seller would have to do so, and a few years ago eBay got tired of having to divine the subjective intent of a seller who took that action, so it adopted some procedures that make it less attractive to do so with that intention: it can only be done before the countdown reaches 12 hours AND it charges a fee (the FVF% for that seller in that category times the highest cancelled bid) when s/he does so (with the first such fee per calendar year waived to allow for the very occasional legitimate reason for doing so).
If the seller is cancelling your bid just before the end and not ending early (again, once there has ever been a bid s/he cannot end early without a winner later than 12 hours before the scheduled end) s/he is taking the risk that someone else (or you) will bid just before the end in which case the price would be lower than it would have been if s/he had not cancelled your bid.
dogcatcher
OP2 years agoThanks for that detailed information. Now it makes sense. I wasn't keeping an eye on the auction so my bid may have been canceled outside of the 12-hour window. I did not receive a "your bid is winning" email, so it didn't get that close. I did look back at one of the 2 auctions and saw that there were 3 bidders total, with their bids all canceled by seller at the same time, with all bids too low to even cover shipping. My guess is that its "fee avoidance". Didn't ruin my day but I'll probably bid again for one of these items by the seller and keep track of the original Auction Ends time and the time when it gets canceled, if that's the way it goes.