posted on July 9, 2001 12:12:22 PM new
I had an auction with a bid retraction.
The comment was "unable to contact seller". I had *NOT* received any contact from the bidder at all.
A second bid was then retracted because this bidder expressed concern about the first retraction.
I had e-mailed both bidders, but didn't receive any response from eithger.
My auction took a nosedive with those 2 cancellations - fortunately it bounced back in the end.
I did complain to eBay, but got a form letter back which said they could not disclose what action was taken to a 3rd party. (I bet they did NOTHING!)
I don't mind the retraction, but the comment hurt my auction and was a lie.
posted on July 9, 2001 12:16:21 PM new
you said it bounced back in the end.....how exactly was your auction hurt???? sounds to me like it was more your feelings that were hurt..maybe they did try and email you but it never arrived....thats very possible especially with the free email accts
posted on July 9, 2001 12:22:31 PM new
lesliepear,
I think many people will agree that the bid retraction process has many flaws. It is far too easy to back out of a "binding" bid on eBay. However... to give the bidders some credit... it is possible that they never received your e-mails. Occassionally my e-mails don't go through to certain accounts unless I use an alternate e-mail address to send the message. Different e-mail servers reject certain addresses due to suspicious attachments, faulty addresses, special characters in the senders e-mail address, etc... So... don't get too upset about it... things like this happen, and sometimes there really just isn't anyone to blame.
posted on July 9, 2001 12:32:06 PM new
And not to defend bid retractions in ANY WAY (I hate them too!)
But as a small time bidder (110 auctions won in the last 6 months)... I have ONLY looked at bid history about 2 times before placing a bid. The feedback of the seller, and item picture/description is much more important to me than any bid history.
And as a seller (1600+ auctions in 4 years) I only look at bid history on a few select items.. OR if I know that something has changed (bid gone down). Otherwise I never go to the bid history page.
posted on July 9, 2001 03:06:19 PM newleslie - Don't let some of these folks make you feel like your opinion here is insignificant. I understand how you feel and your concerns ARE valid. I once had a bid retraction that indicated that the bidder was not able to verify authentication. That totally came out of left field and the hallmark was clearly photographed on the auction and was very clear and obvious. This person never contacted me and was, obviously, making that up. I think it hurt the auction because anybody buying a high ticket item that has more brains than money WILL look at things like bid retractions. I even emailed them and asked why they told that lie and, YOU GUESSED IT!...Never got a response.
posted on July 9, 2001 03:12:29 PM new
Grrr... I had the same thing happen a few months ago. I was selling an item that would ship for about $20 in the US. An intern'l bidder bid first, THEN asked about shipping. Well, due to the length of it, the shipping would have been about $158.00!
He retracts bid for the following reason: "Shipping is five times the starting bid." Nice, butthead. I added an explanation to the auction but it was an unsuccessful auction. I lost my option to relist for free if it sells the second time - a bid retracted is a bid nonetheless. Lovely experience on the whole.
posted on July 9, 2001 03:12:40 PM new
What was the timing of the 2 retractions and the winning bid? Are you sure it wasn't a single person using several aliases to buy it at a cheaper price? (bid shielding)
The fact that neither retractor replied to your message raises red flags for me... If the retractions were near the end of the auction, I'd ask eBay to look again into the bids placed by ALL parties.
