posted on March 27, 2001 05:50:20 PM
For the last day and a half the high bid on my auction has been $505. A few minutes before the end of auction the high bidder retracted their bid. That left the highest bid at $395. And that's where the auction ended. The same item closed last night at $530 and the previous night at $505.
posted on March 27, 2001 06:11:11 PM
I guess there is really no way to know for sure, but it sure sounds like a case of "bid shielding" doesn't it????
I am sorry this happened to you. Maybe you could pull the contact info on the bid retractor and the high bidder and see if they are from the same area????
posted on March 27, 2001 07:00:46 PM
Could possibly be bid shielding. A similar thing happened to me one minute before the auction closed. Afterward I pulled the contact info for all three top bidders (including retactors)and it turned out that they all had variations of the same name (Robert, Bob and Bobby) and while they did not all list the same address, two had similar street addresses and all three were in the same state. I sent all the details to safeharbor and they were all NARU'd the next day.
If it happened to me again and I had smarter bid shielders (which would mean I couldn't prove it) I would notify the high bidder and cancel everything. I would accept the inevitable negative but I wouldn't be out a couple of hundred dollars.
