posted on July 27, 2002 08:49:32 PM
Hello and Thanks in Advance.
I had an item up for bids that I started at 9.99. Today on the last day, I got the first bid for 9.99 but, apparently the person bidding inadverdently put in a proxy bid of 999.99, she immediately emailed me and told me what she did.
This bidder has only purchased 3 other items in the past and all from the same buyer so, she isn't an experienced ebay buyer.
I wrote her back and told her to retract her bid but, by this time the bid was up to $31.00 and she was only willing to bid up to 9.99
The second bidder bid 3x's and her final bid was $30.00.
If I send a personal offer then she will have to pay the $30.00 but, she should really only have to pay $10.49.
On the other hand, if there hadn't been what seemed to be a bidding war going on between these two, I may have gotten other bids that would have made the final bid higher than $10.49
I will not report this poor girl as a non-paying bidder as I understand her mistake and she was unable to figure out how to retract her bid.
Anyone understand my dilemma? If so, what do I do now?
Tammy
[ edited by tammy65 on Jul 27, 2002 08:51 PM ]
posted on July 27, 2002 11:23:02 PM
File for a FVF with Ebay. Select the option" auction voided by mutual agreement". I don't know if that is the exact wording, but it's similar. Ebay will contact both of you to confirm this. Clue her in ahead of time as to what you are going to do. There will be no black mark on her record, and you will get your fvf back. You will then be free to relist, do a quickie BIN auction, or do an off Ebay deal(not recommended!!)
The light at the end of the tunnel will turn out to be an oncoming train.
posted on July 28, 2002 05:36:00 AM
Hi Tammy65,
I am impressed with how understanding you are with the newbie bidder. It is easy to see how $999 bid was hit instead of $9.99
What would I do?
No one has ever accepted an offer in my experience; however, it wouldn't hurt to try before relisting.
posted on July 28, 2002 08:58:00 AM
This is what I have done. I have had auctions go off and then people would email me and ask to buy it. If I am on my computer and they are on theirs I relist the item with a BIN, but I also set the BIN higher than the bid that was on the auction that closed. Mutual agreed price. Then they go in any buy it. Since the relist is free the second time if you sell the product you aren't out any money and you have also collected for the BIN. Now they have to go into your sellers page to do that because when you launch an auction it doesn't get into the eBay system right away but it does go to your sellers page immediately.
posted on July 28, 2002 10:32:15 AM
When someone goofs up I just go in and cancel their bid and ask them to bid again. That way it doesn't show up as a bid retraction on their feedback page. Also if you put the burden on them to retract the bid they often don't have any idea how to do it, so it sits and only gets more complicated as you have found. I think if you told her to retract her bid and she didn't then she bought it.
posted on July 28, 2002 11:38:11 AM
Problem Resolved!
The second place bidder was so happy to get a chance to buy the item that she offered $30!
I went through all the steps to make it legal like....LOL
First bidder off the hook, Second bidder happy and I'm not out anything!
I would have cancelled the bid but, I didn't get on the internet until just a few minutes before the auction was over and she had sent the email several hours previous. At that point, I had no idea she didn't know how to retract. She just asked me what to do and I explained the process.
She really should have stuck around online until she figured it out but, she didn't and it was a mistake.
posted on July 28, 2002 12:31:11 PM
Dear airloom,
I'm not sure I follow you. I didn't try to cancel the bid after the auction closed nor did I instruct the bidder to retract her bid after the auction closed.
I wrote to her a few mins. before the auction closed.
She wrote to me several hours before hand but, I didn't read the email until much much later.
I probably didn't explain it very well but, as you said, no matter
posted on July 28, 2002 06:09:53 PM
Tammy,
Since you knew about it before the close of the auction, you could have cancelled the bid for her. You have that option right up to closing time. The bidder at that point is unable to cancel a bid within 12 hours of closing time. That may have been the problem. Anyway, I am glad things did work out in this case.
