eBay

tinkerbellgirl72 · ‎11-01-2019

I am bidding on a product and there was another person who started bidding after me. Then I started bidding more after she/he got up to $28, I stopped and figured I couldn't go past that, plus the shipping is like $5. So anyways it turns out the person bidding against me has dropped out and now I'm the higher bidder. I didn't know someone could just up and cancel their bidding? How does that work? I feel like they made me bid more so that I could get stuck with it. I'm not sure if I'm seeing things clearly here, but I just wanted to get advice. Am I being scammed? There was no explanation on why the other person dropped out from the bidding in the email I received. This is odd! I don't know if I should drop out, even though I want the product. Can someone give me advice on what to do? If I were to cancel my bid, could I actually do this? I'm the only bidder right now. Please Help! Thanks in advance!

vickysdad1976 · ‎11-01-2019

It's call bid retracting and it is frowned upon in Ebay but legal nonetheless. Buyers ( sometimes at the request of the seller ) bid against others to see how high their bid amount is and how high the other bidders are willing to go, then retract their bid, now the seller and the other buyers know how high your bid is. In your case, the other bidder could have been doing this or they could have just found it elsewhere at a lower price, there is no way to tell for sure without investigating further. Anyway, the item is only worth what you are willing to pay for it, don't go above what you feel comfortable with and you will be fine.

tinkerbellgirl72 · ‎11-01-2019

Can I retract/cancel my bid too? I'm on the fence on this one. I'm not totally sure if I want to proceed since I realized I also need to pay for taxes. I don't know how much the tax is going to be.

thanks!

hurryagain · ‎11-01-2019

@tinkerbellgirl72 wrote:
Can I retract/cancel my bid too? I'm on the fence on this one. I'm not totally sure if I want to proceed since I realized I also need to pay for taxes. I don't know how much the tax is going to be.

thanks!

@tinkerbellgirl72

Your taxes will be whatever YOUR state charges for sales tax. It is not the seller's state that the tax goes to...it's the buyer's state.

When I buy something here, MY state gets the sales tax that I pay.

So whatever percentage your state charges, that is what you will be charged.