Pretty much as subject. I was winning an auction at £31. New bidder kept bidding until he defeated my maximum bid (£36) and then withdrew his bid. Other bidders had backed out.
Only £5 so no biggy.
What action, if any, should I take?
Another Dave
Contact the seller and see if he will accept your bid? ISTR that the sellers have access to a method of doing that anyway if they so wish to. Otherwise are you just not an observer , it will be down to the seller to chase the higher bid and /or re list the item depending on the outcome of that. Could be they had someone bidding to drive the price up on their behalf. , Schill bidding, and you backed off quicker than anticipated. E bay may take an interest if a seller was found to have such a pattern regularly .
G.Harman
Speak to Ebay. Their systems have possibly allowed you to be scammed. The other bidder may have been another account of the seller's or belonged to a friend of the seller.
When that happens, you should get it at the lowest figure you bid before he topped it. Which may not be your maximum bid.
But of course you can't *force* the seller to comply.
Simple answer. Don't bid on one of those auctions.
In message , at 14:49:19 on Sat, 24 Jun
2017, "Dave Plowman (News)" remarked:
If the seller uses the "second chance" option, won't that happen automatically?
Bidding up is standard practice on anything they just ask a friend to hide their part in it. If you are happy with the price quibble, if you don't wan t it tell them to f*ck off.
refuse to pay for the item and point out why ...shill bidding aranged by the seller ....
Yes it should.
I couldn't find an appropriate way to register this with eBay so I had a chat with an obsequious AI robot called Bernilda. It promised to refer to a higher authority, commended me for reporting the issue and told me "for reasons of privacy" they wouldn't let me know what happens.
I still think I got a bargain so for £5 I'll let matters rest although I'll be looking at auction sniper.
Another Dave
But is the 'second chance' priced at the amount you bid before the winning bidder entered the auction, or the maximum price the shill bidder got you up to before his bid won? I should know the answer, but I don't remember. If the latter, then you should refuse to accept this and offer the lower, former price. This then becomes a private negotiation rather than a 'second chance offer'. Whether the seller accepts this is a possible way of illuminating whether he was implicated in the fraud, though not of course conclusive.
About a week or two back I pulled my card from ebay's payola scamsite PayPa l. It means if i want to get anything from an online shop I will have to do it as an individual but at least there is someone human at the bank to clo se up on me.
I don't really know what their definition of human is but it all stinks of corruption and fiddled paperwork.
You have a choice. Either pay the extra £5 or do what I have done is to simply offer just the £31 as per highest bid.
On this occasions I considered it a scam and didn't hear anything more from the seller, nor did they re-enter the item.
It depends on if you want the item.
I had thought to pay via PayPal and then after receiving the item request a refund on the basis eBay made a mistake, and the winning buyer and all his bids were withdrawn, not just the final one.
I don't understand. I thought bidders were not allowed to withdraw. You say other bidders had backed out - do you mean they had stopped increasing their bids? I take it the seller told you the high bidder had retracted? If so, why didn't you refuse to pay and let the seller start again?
In message , at 22:20:37 on Sat, 24 Jun
2017, Dave W remarked:There are some circumstances where bidders are allowed to retract.
I had an item on sale earlier this month where a bidder with 1000+ feedback retraced after ten minutes:
Retracted: ?56.00 Explanation: Entered wrong amount
The item then sold automatically the next day to the under-bidder for ?29.
If one becomes the highest bidder because the over-bidder retracts, I would be *very* surprised if eBay failed to notify you.
Retracting a bid is not the same as failing to pay, of course. At which point the under-bidder can be sent a "second chance" notification if the seller desires.
Under certain circumstances you are allowed to withdraw. However you shouldn't make a habit of it - this bidder has withdrawn 40 (!) bids in the last 6 months.
eBay (not the seller) emailed me saying I'd won because the previous high bidder had retracted. This aroused my suspicions, hence my looking at the bidding history.
When I say the other (honest) bidders had backed out I meant, as you say, that they had stopped bidding.
Meanwhile the plot thickens. The seller has messaged me (after I complained to eBay) saying that he made a mistake and that the Intel CPU is a actually a better model than the one I thought I was bidding on. Since it still fits my mother board I've accepted this.
Another Dave
In message , at 09:51:52 on Sun, 25 Jun
2017, Another Dave remarked:
Look at the history and see if there's a third bidder, which could mean this is what happened:
You bid 31. #3 bids you up to 36, with an offer of 35, then doesn't bid anymore. The 'villain' bids that up to 36+ but then withdraws. Your bid of 35 is still valid and the winning amount.
Think it rather depends when that bid is retracted. Some time before the auction ends - no problem. After it ends is suspicious.
There were 5 bidders (other than me) before I arrived on the scene so I've no reason to suspect anything amiss at £31. The suspect bidder then arrived on the scene and remained the only other bidder. As I say he has form when it comes to retracting bids, whereas none of the other bidders have. It could still, of course, be a total conspiracy of all the bidders but I think the simple explanation is the one to go for.
I think I shall use gixen (a free sniping tool) in future.
Another Dave
In message , at 11:38:49 on Sun, 25 Jun
2017, "Dave Plowman (News)" remarked:
Is there even a concept of retracting a bid *after* the auction has finished?
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.