Ebay help

[DawnM]

UPDATE: I started a resolution ticket that asked the seller to cancel the bidding on her end. That was almost 5 days ago. There has been NO response. Now what do I do to make sure I can list again and not get charged?????

I am really irritated. It is one thing to go back on paying, it is another thing to not even respond and leave me hanging without the possibility of delisting and the possibility of getting charged in the process.

Does anyone know how long EBAY keeps this ticket open before I can just claim an unpaid bidder????

Original Post:

I had an auction end today. I wasn't home when it ended so I am a bit confused as to what happened.

Apparently two people placed several bids and it went back and forth, until one of them was winning the auction (or won, I am confused.) Anyway, the top bidder retracted his bid and it defaulted to the 2nd person.

The 2nd person is upset and says the other person outbid him and he shouldn't have to pay that amount since the other person was winning.

Now, first of all, 2nd person DID bid that amount, I can see that he did. However, I can also understand thinking you didn't win and walking away and being surprised that you actually did win.

So, what do I do? I can try to get him to go ahead and pay but if he refuses, then do I open a non-payment ticket with ebay?

Dawn

 

[ashley0139]

I've never used Ebay so I may be missing something, but what's the point of bidding if you can just retract your bid? Seems like people could needlessly up the prices on things they don't even want just for fun and then retract it. That doesn't make sense to me.

 

[DawnM]

I don't know.

I have been a member a long time, but I am a casual user.

 

[horseshowmom]

I had an auction end today. I wasn't home when it ended so I am a bit confused as to what happened.

Apparently two people placed several bids and it went back and forth, until one of them was winning the auction (or won, I am confused.) Anyway, the top bidder retracted his bid and it defaulted to the 2nd person.

The 2nd person is upset and says the other person outbid him and he shouldn't have to pay that amount since the other person was winning.

Now, first of all, 2nd person DID bid that amount, I can see that he did. However, I can also understand thinking you didn't win and walking away and being surprised that you actually did win.

So, what do I do? I can try to get him to go ahead and pay but if he refuses, then do I open a non-payment ticket with ebay?

Dawn

I've never used Ebay so I may be missing something, but what's the point of bidding if you can just retract your bid? Seems like people could needlessly up the prices on things they don't even want just for fun and then retract it. That doesn't make sense to me.

This happened to me one time, and Ashley hit the nail on the head. I strongly suspected that shill bidding was going on, and I was the victim. I was willing to pay the price I bid (and I did), but I was surprised to find out that somebody could do that (bid it up and then retract their bid). If they could retract their bid, why couldn't the other person?

OP, I understand where you're coming from, but I'm sure that your buyer is thinking the same thing I did (even though it's not true in your case).

 

[lauti]

You can either wait two days and file an unpaid item claim or, if you don't think he will pay and don't want the fight, file a cancellation request if you think he will accept. Then you can relist.

 

[lauti]

This happened to me one time, and Ashley hit the nail on the head. I strongly suspected that shill bidding was going on, and I was the victim. I was willing to pay the price I bid (and I did), but I was surprised to find out that somebody could do that (bid it up and then retract their bid). If they could retract their bid, why couldn't the other person?

OP, I understand where you're coming from, but I'm sure that your buyer is thinking the same thing I did (even though it's not true in your case).

Shill bidding is more when the person who is selling the item bids it up with a other ID or has someone do it for them. Doesn't sound like the OP did that.

 

[seashoreCM]

The second bidder should not have been unhappy.

The second bidder voluntarily made what was ultimately the winning bid.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

Shill bidding is more when the person who is selling the item bids it up with a other ID or has someone do it for them. Doesn't sound like the OP did that.

Auctions can also be shilled using bid retractions. The shill keeps bidding to try and increase the proxy bids from other bidders. If they bid too high and become the high bidder, they just retract their bid. This is why, on the very rare occasions I use eBay, I only snipe bid or bid on buy it now auctions.

OP, hold the winning bidder to their high bid. Start the non-paying bidder process as soon as possible if they refuse to pay. FYI, you cannot retract a bid after an auction ends; the retraction must have happened before that.

 

[supersnoop]

Shill bidding is more when the person who is selling the item bids it up with a other ID or has someone do it for them. Doesn't sound like the OP did that.

From the buyers perspective, that's probably what it looks like happened, even if it didn't.

I was under the impression that you could not retract a bid in the last 24 hours of the auction. Even then, there has to be a good reason for the retraction, like they entered $4,500 instead of $45. There should be a record of the retraction.

 

[richmond282]

You can either wait two days and file an unpaid item claim or, if you don't think he will pay and don't want the fight, file a cancellation request if you think he will accept. Then you can relist.

This is correct. Either agree to cancel or report it as unpaid.

 

[Taylor'sMom]

If the 2nd bidder thinks he/she was outbid then purchases the same item elsewhere (won a different ebay auction, etc.) then that could be why they dont want to pay. They don't want to purchase the same itme 2x.
Just a possible explanation.

 

[ellone]

I was under the impression that you could not retract a bid in the last 24 hours of the auction. Even then, there has to be a good reason for the retraction, like they entered $4,500 instead of $45. There should be a record of the retraction.

You can retract in the last 24 hours if you retract the bid within an hour of placing it. And you can pick the 'entered wrong bid amount' option reason for the retraction even if that's not the case.

 

[DawnM]

Item sold for $175 or so. Other bidders shows a bid of $181 and retracted.

From the buyers perspective, that's probably what it looks like happened, even if it didn't.

I was under the impression that you could not retract a bid in the last 24 hours of the auction. Even then, there has to be a good reason for the retraction, like they entered $4,500 instead of $45. There should be a record of the retraction.

 

[tzeitel]

The way Ebay does the bid retraction is they take away the last bid the person placed - not all of their bids on the item.

The second bidder might be upset about possibly paying more than they would have if the first bidder had not bid at all. Then again other bidders might have been scared off your item once they saw 2 people in a bidding war. Basically the winner might ask you to lower the price saying it is not fair or that they already bought the item somewhere else.

If they bought it elsewhere I would consider cancelling the transaction. If they want it for less money I would just relist the item and take my chances of other bidders.

 

[DawnM]

I emailed the winner yesterday afternoon asking if they would still like the item. I haven't heard back.

If they are polite and tell me they no longer want the item due to getting it elsewhere, or even just being upset about how it played out, I will cancel it and realist.

However, if they ignore me completely and let the 2 days pass without contacting me, I will mark as unpaid and open a dispute.

Dawn

 

[timmac]

I emailed the winner yesterday afternoon asking if they would still like the item. I haven't heard back.

If they are polite and tell me they no longer want the item due to getting it elsewhere, or even just being upset about how it played out, I will cancel it and realist.

However, if they ignore me completely and let the 2 days pass without contacting me, I will mark as unpaid and open a dispute.

Just want to say that this sounds like a very reasonable way to handle it. On retractions in general, as a PP pointed out, one can always say "typed wrong amount" as the reason... it's happened to me a time or two (as the seller).

Though the second place person *did* legitimately bid on the item, and in theory is still contractually obligated to buy it, I don't think it's a very fair position to end up in these cases. In spite of the fine print warnings about possibly still winning after an outbid, I think that's a crummy way to have to do things. I am not a lawyer, but I suspect that if such a case were ever to come to court (not that it would), the "reasonable person" argument would stand a pretty good chance. That is to say, upon being outbid, a reasonable person can logically conclude they are not buying the item and potentially seek out purchase elsewhere or otherwise discontinue their interest in the auction.

As an anecdote, I once was bidding on something-- a computer for what it matters-- where the seller claimed in their auction that they were hoping to sell for about $900, but no reserve or anything else. Ultimately, I had bid $450, but was outbid not long before the end. I got an email from the seller a few hours later saying that the winning bidder backed down, and because of that, even though he really wanted $900, he'd be willing to sell it to me for $800. He got pretty cantankerous when I pointed out that the winning bid was about $600 and mine was only $450, and that it sounded to me like he shill bid on it since it didn't go how he wanted. For reasons unknown--though I could take a guess-- his account was suspended not long after.

As a final thought, I sort of wonder if the whole bid retration system should be eliminated entirely. On one hand, I can see where in legitimate cases of a misunderstanding about the details or condition of the item, or a clearly legitimate typo, it saves both parties a lot of time and trouble of cancelling the sale after the fact. On the other hand though, it's trivially easy for someone to simply change their mind, test for the high bidder's proxy, or otherwise try to game the system in ways that are otherwise not permitted. In my experience, I'd say the latter outnumbers the former by at least 10-to-1.

 

[DawnM]

She did email me back, but all she said was "I don't know if I want it or not."

I have asked that she let me know for sure by tomorrow.

I think 48 hours is reasonable.

 

[horseshowmom]

She did email me back, but all she said was "I don't know if I want it or not."

I have asked that she let me know for sure by tomorrow.

I think 48 hours is reasonable.

I think you're being more than reasonable. They should have answered your question one way or the other.

 

[DawnM]

I am looking at the bid retraction again. It was only 20 min. before the end of the auction.

Is there no recourse for someone who does this?

This most likely is not a Christmas gift for anyone, but doing this the week before Christmas is not cool at all.

 

[starry_solo]

What is the amount of the 2nd place person's bid? Was it the max that they bid? Or was it back down to the minimum amount?

It's been a long time since I've retracted a bid, but I thought that if someone bids an auction up and then retracts once they become the highest bidder, all bids placed by that person are cancelled and it goes back to the lowest amount before that person bid.

For convenience sake, we will call the bid retracter Bidder #1 and the one who won Bidder #2.

Did Bidder #1 place one bid? Or did Bidder #1 incrementally increase the bid to try to make Bidder #2 pay the highest price possible? That may be what causes concern.