Bid Retractions

[timesgoneby2018]

How can someone have 152 bid retractions and still bid on my item. Have settings at don't allow if 2 bid retractions in 12 month. Scratching head 

 

[itsjustasprain]

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@95fzr wrote:

This is why I don't even bother with reserves anymore.  Someone always just false bids to figure out the reserve then retracts.

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Very true. They can do that to uncover the lead bidders hidden high bid as well.

I cannot think of any reason to use a Reserve now. This is partly because of the ridiculous high fee Ebay charges for setting a Reserve (I assume they are trying to discourage sellers from using it anymore) but mostly because you can just set the opening price to be the minimum you would like to get for it.

Years ago your listing fee was partly affected by your opening price so it could be cheaper to open at 99 cents and then set a Reserve at something higher before you would actually have to sell it. The listing fee (if there even is one) is no longer billed according to the opening price.

[janet9988]

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@soh.maryl wrote:

I dunno, isn't pointing out to a seller that his bidder has a lot of bid retractions considered auction interference?  

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I asked a seller to cancel my own bid once when I saw another bidder retract their own bid.

I told the seller why I no longer trusted the auction. They understood.

[mam98031]

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@itsjustasprain wrote:

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@12345jamesstamps wrote:

I saw a bidder  with 1543 retractions in a year...I was bidding on an auction and looked into the bidder who had a higher bid than me and saw this. It is allowed and don't know why.

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You should point that out to the seller - that he is not likely to actually get paid by that bidder if he wins. Maybe the seller will cancel the (future) deadbeat bidder and you can take the lead. 😁

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@itsjustasprain 

Bid retractions are not the same thing as not paying for an item purchased.  Bid retractions happen while the auction is still active, so paying is not an issue at that point.

Also notifying the seller that you see something you perceive to be wrong about the buyer is transaction interference and it could cause you trouble with Ebay.  Likely not worth the risk, just report the buyer.

[mam98031]

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@95fzr wrote:

This is why I don't even bother with reserves anymore.  Someone always just false bids to figure out the reserve then retracts.

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That likely isn't a loss for you.  Your fees are less and most buyers dislike reserve priced listings and won't even bid.

[clemowbooks]

I'm not sure it is abusing the system.

A customer thinks "oh that looks cool" and bids. Then later  with time to consider, retracts their bid.

No problem for the seller, who doesn't have to deal with a Non-Paying winner or a disgruntled buyer who opens a Not As Described dispute.

A bid retraction is like putting the box of Count Chocula back on the supermarket shelf. It would be best if the customer put it back on the same shelf, or at least handed it to the cashier before they scan it, but that's life.

The problem with retractions is that they make the Seller look like they are part of a shill operation, where the shill bidder pushes the price as high as possible then retracts leaving the underbidder paying their maximum instead of the "plus one increment" they should be charged.

But that doesn't affect the honest seller, who only has to deal with a feeling of disappointment that they didn't get the high price they thought for a moment they would.

If it really annoys you, you can Block any future bids from the retracting bidder. They weren't going to pay for this one anyway.

The new (and in my opinion stupid) Autopay option has no effect on retractions.

[mam98031]

I believe it is abuse, but you do whatever is right for you.  

Bid retractions are often harmful to sellers, not always, but often enough that buyers should take the process more seriously and having over 100 retractions is simply extremely excessive.

I personally don't think it makes a seller look like they have shill bids.  Retractions happen, if buyers don't understand that it happens without a seller's consent, that I guess could be an issue.  But normally it is not a sign of Shill bidding.

[itsjustasprain]

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@mam98031 wrote:

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@itsjustasprain wrote:

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@12345jamesstamps wrote:

I saw a bidder  with 1543 retractions in a year...I was bidding on an auction and looked into the bidder who had a higher bid than me and saw this. It is allowed and don't know why.

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You should point that out to the seller - that he is not likely to actually get paid by that bidder if he wins. Maybe the seller will cancel the (future) deadbeat bidder and you can take the lead. 😁

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@itsjustasprain 

Bid retractions are not the same thing as not paying for an item purchased.  Bid retractions happen while the auction is still active, so paying is not an issue at that point.

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I am not referring to payment here. I am pointing that he is likely a deadbeat BIDDER at this point. This is information that is already publicly available except that it is FAR easier for us rival bidders to see it than it is for the seller to go and dig it up. 

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@mam98031 wrote:
Also notifying the seller that you see something you perceive to be wrong about the buyer is transaction interference and it could cause you trouble with Ebay.

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There is no transaction to interfere with as the auction is still in progress. Pointing this out to the seller is hardly auction interference as - again - this is info already visible to him if he does some digging. To us other bidders it is trivial to find in the 30-day history accessible by clicking on the disguised bidder ID. The seller (for some reason) cannot see that same 30-day history unless he logs out and then views his bid history as an outside user.

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@mam98031 wrote:
Likely not worth the risk, just report the buyer.

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There is no buyer at this point in the auction. The bidder ID is disguised to all but the seller (so no one else could report him anyway) and there is nothing to report him for at this moment.

[itsjustasprain]

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@clemowbooks wrote:

The problem with retractions is that they make the Seller look like they are part of a shill operation, where the shill bidder pushes the price as high as possible then retracts leaving the underbidder paying their maximum instead of the "plus one increment" they should be charged.

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No - if the lead bidder retracts before the auction is over then the price drops down to the 'plus one increment' over the now second-place bidder as you described.

The way that scammers take advantage of this is by bid shielding: two scam accounts bid against each to artificially raise the price sky-high so that no one else wants to bid anymore. Then near the end of the auction one of the two accounts retracts their bid. This causes the auction price to collapse - dropping to 'plus one increment' over the bidder now in 2nd place or even down to the opening price if there were no other bidders in the auction. (There are some time limits as to when you can retract a bid near the end of the auction but that is the general idea.)

Where this CAN stick a legitimate bidder with a full-bid price instead of a plus-one-increment price is if the auction winner cancels after the auction ends. The seller can send a Second Chance Offer to the bidder who ended in second place (or any other bidder he chooses) but that bidder has to pay his full bid price if he wants the item. He cannot pay only the previous price plus one increment as if the canceled winning bidder was never there.

[dirk12955]

When I see bid retractions,   I figure

 there's a strong possibility of shilling and/or shielding.    

Anything out of the ordinary.........

[itsjustasprain]

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@dirk12955 wrote:

When I see bid retractions,   I figure

 there's a strong possibility of shilling and/or shielding.    

Anything out of the ordinary.........

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I know - yes indeed. My practice is to stay out of an auction until the final seconds. By that time anything weird that is going to happen during the auction has already happened - so if it looks all legitimate then I slam in my one and only bid in the final seconds and let the chips fall where they may. I won one such auction about 15 minutes ago. 😁

[adkhighker]

Serial bid retractors, the ones who do it all the time, should be banned or suspended by eBay.  The fact that eBay allows the serial retractors to retract bids to their heart's content for the purpose of finding out exactly how much the high bidder's proxy bid  is set for is disgusting and immoral.  All too often it does give the false perception that something fishy is going on with the seller unfortunately.   Bid retractors have driven me nuts over the years, and there is no reason for eBay to continue enabling the serial retractors to operate.   At the very least, eBay should only allow a handful  of bid retractions per year per bidder.

(This is not my selling ID.)