First time seller; confused by bids disappearing and not showing up in history

[apackofmonkeys]

Hi all, I've bought a number of things from ebay before and always had it drilled into me that if I'm bidding on something, it's a rock-solid commitment to buy the item should I win the auction.

I'm selling something via auction for the first time for a minimum of $35, and the day I put it up I got an initial bid for the minimum amount.  A few days later someone bid $36 higher.  Then yesterday I check and there are 6 bids total, and the highest was $42.  This morning I look at the high bid is back down to $36 with a total of 2 bids?  I look at the bid history and see the original two bids, and only one "cancelled" bid, for $41 (NOT $42).

Firstly, I didn't realize you could back out of bids which was disappointing, but secondly and more importantly, there are three bids completely missing from the bid history, with only one of the four appearing in the cancelled bid list, and the amount doesn't even match with the previous high bid.  The high bid is completely missing from any list.

What's going on?  Can someone explain to a selling newbie why bids can disappear and not even appear in the cancelled bid list?

[csbbct]

Here's a possible scenario:

Bidder 1 - bids $35

Bidder 2 - bids $50, but you only see $36 as it would make their bid $1 over the highest bid of $35

Bidder 3 - bids $37, bumping bidder 2's bid to $38

Bidder 3 - tries again with a $39 bid, bumping bidder 2 to $40

Bidder 3 - tries again with a $41 bid, bumping bidder 2 to $42

Now bidder 3 cancels all their bids, returning bidder 2's bid to $36, the way it looked before bidder 3 came in.

I'm only seeing five bids in this scenario and I'm not sure if bidder 3 made only one $41 bid and the multiple bids you saw was only eBay's process of bumping up bids, but it could have gone something like that.

[nobody*s_perfect · Accepted solution]

The high bid showing in an auction will be shown as just one bid increment above the second-highest bid.  So the bidder who showed as $42 is still there, showing as $36.  His actual proxy bid might be exactly $42 or it could actually be much higher.  You won't  know until somebody bids against him.

When a bid is retracted, eBay removes all of the bids that have been placed by that bidder, but the bid history only shows the highest bid. So apparently your $41 bidder had also placed 3 other lower bids, and then retracted.

When a bidder starts the process of retracting a bid, they are shown the short list of 3 valid reasons to retract.  This list is sometimes referred to as the "Pick a lie" list, because eBay does nothing to enforce it.

[csbbct]

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@apackofmonkeys wrote:

Firstly, I didn't realize you could back out of bids which was disappointing

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I think, technically, they are not supposed to retract bids without entering a corrected bid, but I've had some scenarios where they do it successfully.  I think what they do is retract the bid, then maybe close their browser before they enter the corrected amount.

Here are eBay's rules on retracting bids:

You can retract a bid if:

• The seller significantly changed the description of the item
• You accidentally bid the wrong amount. For example, you meant to bid $20, not $200. In this case, enter the price you intended to bid as soon as you've retracted the incorrect bid
• You can't reach the seller. For example, you sent the seller an email and it comes back undeliverable, or you tried calling the seller and the phone number doesn't work

[apackofmonkeys]

Thanks everyone for the explanations.  You were all helpful.  I'm disappointed, but I guess I had a huge amount of naivete to shatter about selling on ebay 😛

Thanks again!