Thread: Bid retraction, is it common?

Originally Posted by Jeltz

Well I did say in the OP that I'd already reported him.

To be fair its just an annoyance one of 2 today, the local supermarket has stopped stocking my favourite tea so I have to find another supplier, but on the plus side a nice lady gave me a £10 token she wasn't going to use so I bought a bottle of whisky at less than half the price I would have.

Oops, after seeing the £ sign I retract my last comment

A description cannot be altered as soon as an auction item receives a bid. After that, the seller can add notes under the description, but that is the only change which can be made. It is obvious that the bidder had a change of heart, or probably actually read the description (after bidding) and found something he did not like. Or he found something he liked better! He has probably been blocked from several sellers if this is a recurring trait. He only hurts himself by his actions, whether intentional or not.

I have had one buyer retract a bid on Ebay for no reason and also a seller end an item early after I bid on it, because he sold it offline to someone else. Ebay is just about making themselves money and acting like they care about their customers but they really don't. Just the nature of online auctions...

Lets not judge TOO harshly here. Most of what has been said here is all truth, and we can agree on it. BUT...

BUT.. I myself have retracted a bid once. I swear, it was an honest mistake!

Or do you think I should be liable for a bid of 181 dollars on an 18 dollar item?

Well you would've only had to pay $181 if some loser with nothing better to do then bidding $2 or $3 dollars at a time just to see what your max bid was.

I retracted a bid once as I had a slip of the finger. As you retract bids, they ask to check a box, IIRC. There is a box for, a mistake in bidding. That would have been an appropriate box for the OP's bidder to check. It is apparent that the retractor was unaware that listings cannot be changed after a bid is submitted. He tried to put his bidding mistake's responsibility upon the seller by not checking the box, but stating that the seller had revised the listing after the bid was placed! This is (from my experience) not possible. This would indicate that the bidder could possibly be bald-faced and trys to make other folks responsible for his mistakes on a regular basis. That is... If I understand the OP correctly, that is. I, personally feel that his bid retraction rate is excessive. Ebay should have looked at the timeline and noticed.
The final outcome is good. If the buyer is super proud, yet stupid, he would buy it and make ebay give him all money back with shipping! Just to absolve himself! Seller(OP) is pissed and makes waves! Things get ugly! Buyer feedback gets ugly! Not worth it! Stranger things have happened! Besides. who wants to sell something to someone who decides he does not want it, but is bound by contract? Litigation is always bound to follow! A good plan is to look at the bidder's history of bid retractions after he retracts on on an item you have listed. If he has more than a few in the past year, he can be blocked from bidding on your items. JMHO

My advise would be to just block him from bidding on future items that you offer for sale. When you do this you don't have to give him a reason, all he receives when he bids is a pop up saying that you choose not to sell to him.
I once questioned a seller as he was selling a razor saying that it was made in a specific year. The razor was undated and it was know that there was no way to date it specifically to one year of manufacture. When i asked He answered me that he 'just knew and had been selling them that way for years'. And blocked me from buying from him as I dared to question him. As there's a million more of them out there... Who lost?

Originally Posted by ReardenSteel

Well you would've only had to pay $181 if some loser with nothing better to do then bidding $2 or $3 dollars at a time just to see what your max bid was.

I actually KNOW some people who DO that, and that includes sellers with shill accounts!

This is just the other side of the coin. How many sellers list an item and if they don't like the way an auction is going they just cancel it. That's probably more common than bid retraction.

Most likely. More than once I have had an auction pulled out from under me. I have even had the seller write me to tell me he pulled it because he refused to let his item sell so cheap. I have lost money selling, and have often wished I had the chutzpah to yank my auction. Sadly (for me anyway) I have this little nagging problem called "professional code of ethics" which makes it impossible.