eBay question

[ksoehrlein]

Sorry for not adding this to the "monster" thread, but I need help pretty quickly. I had someone ask a question, and I'd like to respond quickly but I don't know what to say.

Here's the question:
Q: I was wandering if you could take me off of this item. I will not be able to pay for this if I win it and should not have bid on it. I understand if I get bad feedback from you. Sorry for the inconvience. I appreciate your help.

It sounds innocent enough, but the odd thing is that this guy has bid on my item 4 separate times! I'm worried that it would look suspicious (shill bidding and all).

What would you seasoned eBayers do?

 

[tinaluis]

Tell him to just retract his bid, that way there is no "suspicion" of shill bidding cast on you.

 

[swilshire]

He may not be able to retract his bid if you are close to the end of the auction and/or it has been a while since he bid. There are definitely limits.

Sheila

 

[Donna]

Make sure you block him from future auctions. What does his feedback look like? just curious.

 

[ksoehrlein]

Originally posted by Donna
Make sure you block him from future auctions. What does his feedback look like? just curious.

Thanks for the tip. I did block him. His feedback rating was either 5 or 6, all positives, but with no recent purchases at all. He's been a member for 3 years and purchased one item every 6 months or so. I hope it is not inappropriate to share this, but I thought you might appreciate the irony: his user name is "XXXXX the Buyer." I kept mistyping his name as "XXXXX the BIDDER" -- talk about a Freudian slip! I was thinking about unblocking him from future auctions, however, because it seems possible that it was an innocent mistake. I just didn't want him messing up this particular auction again.

I asked eBay for advice so that my concerns about it being interpreted as shill bidding would be documented. They suggested cancelling the auction, which meant first cancelling the other bids. Ironically, there was no appropriate reason code when I went to cancel the auction, but when I cancelled the bids I wrote, "High bidder (who bid 4 times) requested I cancel his bids -- WILL RELIST." When I relisted, I wrote a small paragraph at the top explaining what had happened and that I cancelled the auction rather than just cancelling his bids in order to make it fair to the other people who had bid based on his amounts.

Now let's hope my honesty pays. It's got a couple of bids on it now, but nowhere near where it had been when I cancelled with only a day and a half left on the auction. Oh well, 6 more days to go and nowhere for the bids to go but up! I e-mailed one bidder who had asked a question about the item to let her know I relisted and she is now the high bidder. She is a brand-new eBayer and really appreciated that I told her about what had happened.

One more question: The number of Watchers on my new auction is only 3. It had been 10. Is there any way to let the others know that I relisted, or will they just get the impression that I cancelled the auction when they pull it up in their Watched Items?