posted on April 10, 2000 07:20:36 PM new
Here's one to watch for. A bidder with an e-mail address in the same locality as the seller, applied two succesive bids via eBay proxy within 13mins of the auction close, apparently to 'feel' for my bid limit. The first fell short, but when the second passed my limit, it was retracted with the excuse (accepted by eBay): "Bid on the wrong watch...got the item numbers confused". The bid history indicates this bidder was the only bidder competing with me prior to the auction close.
Notwithstanding that eBay rules in relation to bid retractions state: "If you do retract a bid you will be eliminating all bids you have placed in that auction", eBay failed to eliminate all the bids from this bidder, leaving the first round of proxy bids extant, and pushing up my final bid price.
When the seller was advised of these facts (readily confirmed by accessing the bid history and e-mail addresses), and advised that I was prepared to pay the price reached before the dud bidder's intervention, the reaction was to advise that he now could sell to this dud-and-should-have-been-disqualified-by-eBay one!
EBay response was to "warn" the dud bidder. No response at all to their failure to apply THEIR rules!
Perhaps needless to relate, I have let this 'deal' go.
