posted on July 30, 2001 10:12:49 PM
It's about time.
Fresh of the Announcements Board:
***New Bid Retraction Rules***
Within the current bidding system at eBay, it is possible to retract a bid under exceptional circumstances (as indicated in section 4 of the User Agreement) at any time while a listing is active. Unfortunately, some users have abused this by retracting late in the listing's duration to manipulate the listing - this practice is called bid shielding. Use of the bid retraction feature in this manner hurts both sellers and legitimate bidders; therefore, we are changing the bid retraction policy.
In order to address this issue we will add the following special retraction rules:
**If you place a bid before the final 12 hours of the listing you may only retract that bid under exceptional circumstances, and you must retract the bid before the last 12 hours of the listing. You will not be allowed to retract a bid placed prior to the final 12 hours of the listing during the last 12 hours of the listing.
**If you place a bid during the last 12 hours of a listing you will be allowed to retract the bid for exceptional circumstances, but only if you do so within one hour of placing the bid.
Note that you may still retract a bid anytime before the last 12 hours if you have an exceptional reason for doing so -- for example the seller materially changes the item's description. Please refer to the Bid Retractions page for further information on this policy.
To ensure that the buyer and seller experiences are equitable, sellers will not be able to add to their item's description during the last 12 hours of the listing. Sellers will be unable to revise or add to their description within the last 12 hours if there are existing bids on the item; the seller will need to cancel bids and end the listing early instead.
We hope these changes will help to provide a better trading experience for all eBay bidders and sellers.
posted on July 30, 2001 10:19:47 PM
Hmmm, leaves many questions unanswered.
1. What are the "exceptional" circumstances?
2. Even IF the "exceptional" circumstances are supposedly "exceptional", who's going to review the situation & tell a bidder their retraction isn't "exceptional"?
I suspect if the bid retraction system stays automated (and I can't see ebay spending the bucks to make it otherwise), then the retracting bidder will just click on any likely excuse to get out of it.
The time limitation will be of some help. But it won't stop any "shielding" from happening w/in the last hour of an auction.
posted on July 30, 2001 10:27:06 PM
Its kind of like the excuses you get from non-payers, the old someone in my family died. I am sure that would be an exceptional excuse, is eBay gonna check the obits? I don't think so, I don't see how eBay could possibly police the excuses.
posted on July 30, 2001 10:30:08 PM
From the user agreemant:
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Bids are not retractable except in exceptional circumstances such as when the seller materially changes the item's description after you bid, a clear typographical error is made, or you cannot authenticate the seller's identity.
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Looks like no more "I bid $50 when I ment to bid $5"
But I figure it will still be as easy as clicking the mouse.
But if you have good contact info, don't change your description, and watch the typo's you may can get ebay to do something about it.
posted on July 30, 2001 10:35:03 PMa clear typographical error is made
Wonder if that includes the "Ooops, I bid $50 instead of $5?
or you cannot authenticate the seller's identity
Good Lord! I can see this one now. People emailing you and if you don't respond immediately, using that as a excuse that they weren't comfortable bidding.
But I agree, Microbes..it's a big step in the right direction. However, I trust ebay will manage to still put 2 left feet forward before it's all said & done.
posted on July 30, 2001 10:40:05 PM
It's OK to retract a bid if...
You accidentally enter a wrong bid amount. For instance, you bid $99.50 instead of $9.95.(If this occurs you will need to quickly re-enter the correct bid amount).
The description of an item you have bid on has changed significantly.
You cannot reach the seller. This means that you have tried calling the seller and his or her phone number doesn't work, or you have tried emailing a message to the seller and it comes back undeliverable.
It's NOT OK to retract a bid if...
You change your mind about the item.
You decide you can't really afford it.
You bid a little higher than you promised yourself you'd go.
So anyone that changes their mind about an item, or decides they really can't afford it, or bids a little higher than they promised themselves they would go, simply has to say they tried emailing a message to the seller and it came back undeliverable.
posted on July 30, 2001 11:04:58 PMa clear typographical error is made
Wonder if that includes the "Ooops, I bid $50 instead of $5?
When I first read this, I was thinking along the lines of a typo in the listing (oh, could I get my self in trouble with my fat fingers), but that would BE a typographical error. (and if it really is an honest mistake, I don't have a problem with it. But these type of retractions should be followed with a re-bid of the correct amount.)
posted on July 30, 2001 11:44:11 PM
"eBay also needs to address cancelations of auctions by sellers."
It's already been addressed by ebay as well as possibly could be considering the circumstances of practicality.
Also, a seller could be cheated out of large sums of money by scams that a few buyers pull. Buyers on the otherhand have no money at stake when an auction is pulled.
If a seller makes it a habit to cancel listings the fees will eat him up. It's a self correcting solution.
posted on July 31, 2001 12:42:41 AM
I suppose some buyers could argue that it is
unfair to legitimate buyers when a seller
cancels bids and/or ends a listing early.
Personally, I agree with quickdraw for the above-stated reasons. I have only cancelled
auctions for typographical errors with one
recent exception:
I was running an auction on an item that had
5-6 bids. The ending price was not great, but not bad. I would've been happy to sell the item. However, within 30 minutes
of the auctions close, I had to bidders
cancel their 1-2 day-old bids. This obviously drove the price down and I was worried about the integrity of the auction,
so I pulled it. I cancelled all bids except for the first bid of 0.01 because I ran out of time. However, I emailed that person
and she was more than understanding.
I agree, though, if a bidder retracts a bid
because of a typographical error, they should rebid the correct amount. Ofentimes, they don't even rebid.
posted on July 31, 2001 04:48:49 AMHowever, within 30 minutes of the auctions close, I had to bidders cancel their 1-2 day-old bids. This obviously drove the price down and I was worried about the integrity of the auction, so I pulled it
I don't think that this can happen with the new policy.
I can understand buyer frustration when an auction is pulled, but it doesn't reach the same unethical standard as pulling a bid late in the auction. And
Putting to many restrictions on pulling auctions wouldn't be a good thing. I've submited duplicate auctions (like the double posts you see once in a while on this message board). An obvious error, and the only thing to do is kill the duplicate auction. I try to kill these very fast, and normally kill them before anyone but me even sees them.
Killing an auction late in the game is another story. A seller should have a darn good reason to do it. But like Quickdraw says, any seller that does it very much will get eat up in fees.
Stopping the bid retractions late in the auction will probably cut down on sellers killing auctions late in the game. The situation diesteldorf describes happens more often than you might think. I've had several "last day" retractions. Everytime it happens I am tempted to kill the auction.
posted on July 31, 2001 06:21:09 AM
And...if these bidders fail to retract their bids on time - we're going to end up with more dead-beats, since they are not going to pay for the item they didn't want to keep their bids on in the first place!!
Just more of a waste of time for us sellers, basically!
posted on July 31, 2001 10:12:18 AM
the thing I don't like is that a seller can't
add to the auction during the last 12 hours
whenever I get a e-mail asking a question I will not only answer the questioner but will also add the answer to the item descreption and since a lot of bidding goes on during the last 12 hours I often add descreption and evan pictures during this time.
posted on July 31, 2001 10:46:19 AM
"But like Quickdraw says, any seller that does it (cancel auctions) very much will get eat up in fees."
Well, if they are cancelling auctions because bids are far below what they are expecting, i'm not so sure that paying the listing fee is going to be much of a deterrent. If I have an item that started at $9, normally sells for $50,and I'm afraid will end up at more like $25, the "threat" of paying an extra 30 cents to relist it doesn't really bother me much.
"And...if these bidders fail to retract their bids on time - we're going to end up with more dead-beats, since they are not going to pay for the item they didn't want to keep their bids on in the first place!!"
Well, it depends on whether they end up as high bidder or not. There may be an increase in deadbeats, but then again, maybe some other items will end up at a higher ending price due to legitimate bidders having their final bids increased by non-retractable bids, so not sure whether the net of this effect is good or bad. In any case, eliminating bid shielding for sure is a benefit to sellers...
posted on July 31, 2001 10:54:34 AM
maybe you are.
Bid shielding may or may not be that prevelant (its really hard to tell sometimes if its happened or not, as you can tell by the discussion on boards like this), but if you do get hit, it can really hurt.
I'm a very low volume seller, but I had a bid retraction on one of my more expensive items...it ran for days with this high bid, got cancelled on the last day, final bid price was much lower than expected. I had a reserve, so it didn't hurt me directly (and I think this was more of a case of inept/crummy bidder rather than organized bid shielding), but I was kinda ticked at the last-minute cancellation - how many other potential bidders passed by my item since it had already been bid up to a "fair market" price?
And I should be more precise and note that this doesn't technically eliminate bid shielding, since that can still happen, it just makes it less effective by requiring it to happen earlier...
[ edited by captainkirk on Jul 31, 2001 10:56 AM ]
posted on July 31, 2001 07:45:19 PM
Someone on another board pointed out that you could still cancel an earlier bid during the last 12 hours if you first raised your bid, then cancelled it within the hour.
posted on July 31, 2001 08:31:52 PM
If kudzurose is correct (and AFAIK no one really knows if a last-minute retraction will still retract all of that user's bids), then the crooks who know the loophole will still be able to bid shield; only the people who make honest mistakes (or have bid on an auction where the seller adds material new info) will be hurt.
And, BTW, this new policy creates a whole new opportunity for seller abuse. From now own, I'll be adding new information to my auctions exactly twelve hours and one minute before they end. Nothing major, just "By the way, when I guaranteed that this is an authentic Tiffany vase, I meant that it was made last month by Tiffany Chang, a 7-year-old girl who earns 9 cents a day in a Chinese sweatshop, and I have the letters of condemnation from Amnesty International to prove it." and "Shipping & handling will be $2000.00." And no one will be able to retract their bid because I changed the listing.
(Yes, I'm kidding. But don't be surprised if someone tries this for real.)
posted on July 31, 2001 08:39:42 PM
I think I would have prefered a policy under which a retraction (or series of retractions) in the final 12 hours of an auction would result in an automatic 24-hour extension of the auction, if the retracted bid had been in place for 12 hours or longer and the retraction(s) caused a significant drop (more than 10% and greater than $5.00, for instance)in the current high bid.
This would make bid shielding ineffectual, since there would always be at least a 12 hour window for new bids.
Of course, if eBay did this, people would ask why they can't do the same thing for outages.
posted on July 31, 2001 08:46:33 PM
Cancelled bids that are not bid shielding should be accepted graciouly by sellers.
If the cancellation is not due to bid shielding, then it is to the seller's best interests to just let it go-- who wants to sell something to a buyer that they really don't want ?
A buyer that is somehow "forced" to go through with the bid is a buyer that I don't want. It is asking for trouble, first getting paid, and seconf getting neg FB -- all time consuming, ineffective and inefficient.
It would be easier to just re-list than to go through the troubles of forcing a deal.
eBay should just make a TOS that states when a bid is cancelled, the seller has the right not to honor any or all remaining bids. An email could be sent to all bidders stating the policy when a bid is cancelled.
posted on July 31, 2001 10:59:56 PM
I just had a seller, who had taken my $$ and promised shipment, sell the item I won the bid on out from under me. It went for a low price and I suspect he figured he could say, "hey, that was shipped by accident, sorry, here's your money back". Can I get safeharbor to look into this? It seems like things like this would be ripe for abuse.
posted on August 1, 2001 05:32:44 AM
As usual, EBay is protecting Bidders again and not the Sellers. I don't see that they did anything to prevent bid retractors, other than to make it more difficult for Sellers to keep their information current.
They still have not addressed the fact that a bid retractor can use ANY MADE UP excuse they want and post it publicly for anyone to see, and the Seller STILL cannot reply to their lame made up excuse. The Seller's auction is basically over at that point, as the Buyer has now made it appear there is something wrong with the item, rather than admit they did not want to buy it anymore.
I just don't believe in bid retractions at all. I once bid on an item in the last few minutes and accidentally put the wrong item number in the search box and bid. I was trying to get the item at the last minute and made a legitimate mistake. However, I still had time to retract my bid, but I did not, as the only excuse I could have used was "bidder was stupid" and that was not the seller's fault. I paid for the item I really didn't need (a Mercedes keychain) and took the hit.
I have been at auctions where people bid on items they didn't look at during the preview, just because they "thought" it was something it wasn't. After the auction, or prior to the auction ending, they would not go up to the auctioneer and say "I made a mistake and I want to retract my bid". They would just take it home and tell themselves never to bid again at auction without knowing what they are bidding on.
Bid retractions are some bidders way of bookmarking auctions they are watching until they get a better deal somewhere else. They are inherently unfair to the Seller and to the resulting underbidder.
posted on August 1, 2001 05:54:01 AMA buyer that is somehow "forced" to go through with the bid is a buyer that I don't want.
I understand what you're saying, but nobody forces someone to bid. What ever happened to being responsable for your own actions? A bid retraction a couple of days before the auction ends isn't likley to affect the final price, but one made once an item is on the "ending today" list is.
posted on August 1, 2001 06:15:58 AM
As long as the retraction system remains automated (and I cannot BEGIN to think of the nightmare it would be if it were made a "SafeHarbor has to retract your bid" system), then there are always going to be bogus excuses.
Perhaps ebay will continue to enhance this policy w/a "3 retractions and you are out" policy similar to NPBs.
Anyone can make a mistake bidding once, or even twice...but chronic retractions are a sign of either a thrill bidder, a bid shielder, someone's who's potentially messing w/your auctions, or someone who might not be playing with a full deck.
posted on August 1, 2001 08:08:44 AM
The seller had only one up in this auction and apparently sold it out from under me without contacting me. In fact, I was told by the seller that they'd be shipping it when my MO arrived. It looks suspiciously like they put it up for auction again in an attempt to get more bidders and a higher bid than they did with me. I've had stuff I won on a low bid not arrive, and then the seller, a little too cheerily, was giving me a refund.There are ways to play the game, apparently.
