Auction on Ebay red flag 1 1

[Ed Hanes]

so I sold a comic on ebay at auction but the winner retracted two bids..about two hours before he had bid 210 then retracted, then about 3 minutes remaining he bid 150 and retracted. He still ended up winning. Should I be concerned about this person?

[theCapraAegagrus]

On 8/15/2021 at 8:53 PM, Ed Hanes said:

so I sold a comic on ebay at auction but the winner retracted two bids..about two hours before he had bid 210 then retracted, then about 3 minutes remaining he bid 150 and retracted. He still ended up winning. Should I be concerned about this person?

What would be the concern? That s/he returns the item?

[Axelrod]

Is this a thing you can do on Ebay?  Overbid an item so no one else bids on it, and then - at the last minute - "retract" your bid and get it for a lot less? 

[theCapraAegagrus]

On 8/16/2021 at 8:35 AM, Axelrod said:

Is this a thing you can do on Ebay?  Overbid an item so no one else bids on it, and then - at the last minute - "retract" your bid and get it for a lot less? 

No. If you bid $250 and the 2nd-highest bidder is only at $100, the "highest bid" is only $105.

[Axelrod]

What I'm saying - and what I think the OP is suggesting - is that you bid $250 on the item and then no one else bids on it (because you overbid it).  Then, at the last minute, you "retract" the bid, and bid something way less.  

Or does that not happen because you can't actually bid more than the minimum.  If you bid more, Ebay only makes your bid the minimum amount necessary to win?  And it only raises your bid when someone out-bids your current.  

But if that was the case then seems like what the OP is describing couldn't happen?  

[ExNihilo]

On 8/16/2021 at 6:06 AM, Axelrod said:

What I'm saying - and what I think the OP is suggesting - is that you bid $250 on the item and then no one else bids on it (because you overbid it).  Then, at the last minute, you "retract" the bid, and bid something way less.  

Or does that not happen because you can't actually bid more than the minimum.  If you bid more, Ebay only makes your bid the minimum amount necessary to win?  And it only raises your bid when someone out-bids your current.  

But if that was the case then seems like what the OP is describing couldn't happen?  

The highest bid is always one increment above whatever the second highest bid is.  (I think the incremental amount changes depending on the current highest bid so it could be $1 or $5 or maybe more).  Anyways, for purposes of this, let's say it's $5.

Let's say OP posted a book at $10.  Someone comes in with a max bid of $250.  The current visible bid to everyone else is $10.  Let's say someone else comes in with a max bid of $50.  The current visible bid then appears as $55 ($5 more than the second highest bid).  If someone else jumps in with a bid of $100, then the current bid is $105 as it is still below the first bidders max bid.  At no point is anyone aware of the other persons max bid.  As such, there's nothing out of the ordinary for someone to reduce their hidden max bid as it has no bearing on the bid values of others.

I guess the question is, did the original bidder retract their bid completely?  Or were they able to simply reduce their bid?  I would think that if you're the high bidder, you wouldn't be able to retract a bid completely because that would screw up the psychology of the auction itself.

[theCapraAegagrus]

On 8/16/2021 at 9:06 AM, Axelrod said:

What I'm saying - and what I think the OP is suggesting - is that you bid $250 on the item and then no one else bids on it (because you overbid it).  Then, at the last minute, you "retract" the bid, and bid something way less.  

Or does that not happen because you can't actually bid more than the minimum.  If you bid more, Ebay only makes your bid the minimum amount necessary to win?  And it only raises your bid when someone out-bids your current.  

But if that was the case then seems like what the OP is describing couldn't happen?  

Let's pretend that an item's Minimum Bid is $100. If you bid $500, other bidders can only see 1 bid of $100. They cannot see a Maximum Bid until they've also bid the same amount. You can't scare people off with your maximum bid.

[Axelrod]

It's weird that the seller would get to see/know what the bidder's "Max" bid is though, as what the OP seems to be saying happened.  How would the OP know there was a bid of $250 that got retracted if there was no underbidder that pushed the bid to $250 to begin with?  

[theCapraAegagrus]

On 8/16/2021 at 9:39 AM, Axelrod said:

It's weird that the seller would get to see/know what the bidder's "Max" bid is though, as what the OP seems to be saying happened.  How would the OP know there was a bid of $250 that got retracted if there was no underbidder that pushed the bid to $250 to begin with?  

IIRC, sellers can see complete bidding history. I think that this is how they're able to shill effectively.

[JollyComics]

You can do nothing about it.  eBay gives the bidders all options.  I did that once when I realized the book was overgraded so it forced me to retract my highest bid.  I was glad that I did that.

[LowGradeBronze]

I'm not so sure you can retract a bid with only minutes on the auction left to run. The latest you can do it is something like an hour. After that, your bid sticks. The only real issue for the OP is if the guy doesn't pay. Even if he paid, I'd block him afterwards. 

If he was the only person bidding and his final bid was at or above the starting bid you could argue he has done nothing wrong, although it's hardly behaviour to be encouraged. 

Edited August 16, 2021 by LowGradeBronze

[Ed Hanes]

On 8/16/2021 at 8:44 AM, LowGradeBronze said:

I'm not so sure you can retract a bid with only minutes on the auction left to run. The latest you can do it is something like an hour. After that, your bid sticks. The only real issue for the OP is if the guy doesn't pay. Even if he paid, I'd block him afterwards. 

If he was the only person bidding and his final bid was at or above the starting bid you could argue he has done nothing wrong, although it's hardly behaviour to be encouraged. 

You are not supposed to be able to retract more than one bid 12 hours before the close of the auction...but supposedly,  Ebay is notorious for allowing more than one bid retraction to happen.  My concern was that it was indicative of another behavior, like , receiving the package and saying nothing was in the box. I am pretty certain this person was attempting to 'shill' , maybe a first timer,,but in this case, no one else bid against his high bid of 210..so he retracted and set another max proxy  bid of 150...but still he had no counter bids. so he retracted again..so he probably set another bid of 100 (I dont know his final max proxy bid). I just dont think the bidder knew what he was doing but was just testing it out. My concern is that when he gets the comic, he decides to pull another related con job (like saying the box is empty) because he's already the type that will shill to scare away bidders.

 

Edited August 16, 2021 by Ed Hanes

[ExNihilo]

On 8/16/2021 at 11:19 AM, Ed Hanes said:

You are not supposed to be able to retract more than one bid 12 hours before the close of the auction...but supposedly,  Ebay is notorious for allowing more than one bid retraction to happen.  My concern was that it was indicative of another behavior, like , receiving the package and saying nothing was in the box. I am pretty certain this person was attempting to 'shill' , maybe a first timer,,but in this case, no one else bid against his high bid of 210..so he retracted and set another max proxy  bid of 150...but still he had no counter bids. so he retracted again..so he probably set another bid of 100 (I dont know his final max proxy bid). I just dont think the bidder knew what he was doing but was just testing it out. My concern is that when he gets the comic, he decides to pull another related con job (like saying the box is empty) because he's already the type that will shill to scare away bidders.

 

Isn't shill bidding when the seller uses an alternate account to pump up the price?  Why would some stranger pump up the price of your book with no benefit to themselves?  I agree, any amount of retraction would strike me as suspicious unless there was some added information (ie the book wasn't of the quality they thought upon original inspection).

I guess the best you can do is film yourself packaging the book and dropping it off.  I do this with my high value books, a single shot of myself packaging the book at the post office and handing it off to the staff.  Dunno if it would actually be admissable in terms of insurance, but it couldn't hurt either.

[Ed Hanes]

On 8/16/2021 at 11:39 AM, ExNihilo said:

Isn't shill bidding when the seller uses an alternate account to pump up the price?  Why would some stranger pump up the price of your book with no benefit to themselves?  I agree, any amount of retraction would strike me as suspicious unless there was some added information (ie the book wasn't of the quality they thought upon original inspection).

I guess the best you can do is film yourself packaging the book and dropping it off.  I do this with my high value books, a single shot of myself packaging the book at the post office and handing it off to the staff.  Dunno if it would actually be admissable in terms of insurance, but it couldn't hurt either.

yes, I use the term loosely...I don't really know what they were trying to do...or if they knew what they were doing..I can see one bid retraction (for a typo) but two in the space of two hours for values that were 3 to four times the FMV of the book...not sure what was their intention

 

I know UPS will document contents and seal the box themselves so as to prevent this kind of thing...not sure USPS will do that

Edited August 16, 2021 by Ed Hanes

[Gaard]

Maybe he wanted to see how high the high-bidder's bid was? (Don't know, just spit-ballin')

[Ride the Tiger]

2 cancelled bids in the same auction by the same bidder is never a good thing. I don't run auctions anymore just because of the tom foolery that these auctions draw. BIN is the only way to go. 

[Mystafo]

On 8/17/2021 at 12:14 PM, Ride the Tiger said:

2 cancelled bids in the same auction by the same bidder is never a good thing. I don't run auctions anymore just because of the tom foolery that these auctions draw. BIN is the only way to go. 

Hot dang'd ol' tomfoolery I tell ya! 

[Bob Troub]

On 8/16/2021 at 8:35 AM, Axelrod said:

Is this a thing you can do on Ebay?  Overbid an item so no one else bids on it, and then - at the last minute - "retract" your bid and get it for a lot less? 

Your highest bid doesn't always show...if you bid 10.00...and my high bid is 25.00...the bid shows up as 11.00........

[Bob Troub]

On 8/16/2021 at 8:35 AM, Axelrod said:

Is this a thing you can do on Ebay?  Overbid an item so no one else bids on it, and then - at the last minute - "retract" your bid and get it for a lot less? 

No, it's not

[Bob Troub]

On 8/16/2021 at 9:06 AM, Axelrod said:

What I'm saying - and what I think the OP is suggesting - is that you bid $250 on the item and then no one else bids on it (because you overbid it).  Then, at the last minute, you "retract" the bid, and bid something way less.  

Or does that not happen because you can't actually bid more than the minimum.  If you bid more, Ebay only makes your bid the minimum amount necessary to win?  And it only raises your bid when someone out-bids your current.  

But if that was the case then seems like what the OP is describing couldn't happen?  

It couldn't happen