eBay Bid Retractions

Some sellers will not accept bids from people without history's so that accounts for some.

I would stay away from any auction that had multiple retractions. It is shady and I wouldn't do business with a seller who has those.

I've noticed this a lot too with the pipes I follow. On two pipes the pipes sold but were relisted the following week. Very strange. I've also seen low or no volume bidders dramatically upping the price then dropping out.

There's been some really aggressive bidding by overly enthusiastic, unknowledgeable, and clearly clueless people. It seems to be on the increase.

On certain sellers I see bid retractions all the time. They are well known no reserve guys and I know for a fact they are using shills and they also allow the people who actually own the pipe, too jack up the bid and if for some reason the owner wins, they just re list it and pay the seller the re listing fees. It is no sweat off the balls of the seller to re list if the client is paying the tab. I never bid on anything where there are bid retractions, even if the price is good, I will not give my money to scum.

I got nipped at the last second on a pipestud auction last Sunday afternoon. At one point the price fell backwards which confused me at first. It was caused by a retraction by a guy who was $50 out in front of us. I was disappointed.

Over the years I have had few problems with bid retraction abuse, which actually is more often due to unscrupulous buyers. They want to see what the highest bid is on a particular pipe. They then retract the bid and usually list the reason for the retraction as being for "Entered wrong bid amount." Then, they are never heard from again despite the following Bid Retraction rules by eBay -
http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/invalid-bid-retraction.html
Unscrupulous sellers will abuse the bid retraction eBay policy by having someone bid very high on a particular pipe early in an auction and then, after a lot of bids have been placed, will have their "shill" retract his bid. This artificially raises the price of the pipe he is selling.
Sellers are notified every time a bid is retracted on one of their auctions. I always go to the item to see who retracted a bid. I then go to that individual's bid retraction history. If the person has 1 or 2 bid retractions in a year's time then I figure it is a legitimate retraction. If the individual has 100 retractions in a year, I report the person to eBay and put that individual on my blocked bidder list. Fortunately, this happens only once or twice a year.
And, it is easy to find out from your PC or any other device an eBay member's bid retraction history. Just click on that individual's feedback profile, and then click "Feedback as a Buyer." To the right above the feedbacks you will see the feedback history. I have cut/pasted below from an actual member's profile to show you what I am talking about -
Recent Feedback ratings (last 12 months)

1 month 6 months 12 months

Positive feedback rating Positive 1 1 1

Neutral feedback rating Neutral 0 0 0

Negative feedback rating Negative 0 0 0

Detailed seller ratings (last 12 months)

This information will be available when this member receives at least 10 detailed seller ratings.
Feedback as a seller Feedback as a buyer All Feedback Feedback left for others
1 Feedback Received Bid retractions (last 12 months): 0
I hope this info helps!

Yes. In the auction mentioned above, I did not show my hand until 3 minutes to go. That was still too early. Lesson learned. In the old days of dial-up connections you had to be careful of a glitch when trying to place a late bid. But now the inter-webs are so fast you can do a 3 second thing. That is how I lost.

Do you know why in the example that I linked above, the bid retractions I observed when the auction ended, are now no longer listed/visible?

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No sir. I don't have an answer for that one. Sorry.
Pipestud

There's been some really aggressive bidding by overly enthusiastic, unknowledgeable, and clearly clueless people.

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Hmm, how did you know I was the bidder?
Seriously, these tips will save me some time and aggravation. My take-away is hold off bidding until the last few seconds. I like the cigar bid systems with some of the big online systems much better. I wond a few of those and got some really excellent deals.

I'm sure there is some questionable stuff going on at times with ebay, but as a person whos has sold alot on it. My "Bid Block List" is ever growing. On many occasions I have had people win a pipe and then not pay for it. Last time I sold, A guy won auction and then insisted that I change my shipping price and send in a padded envelope. I cancelled the deal and had to relist. This kinda things happen all the time, so if you see items relisted, don't assume that something shady is going on. It might have been just a deal gone bad!

Why don't I just put my unwanted pipes on here???? I would love too! But for some reason I can rarely get a stinkin picture to upload here. And also I have had members here screw me on ebay (SAD) but over there I can atleast have some protection, without slamming their name around.. Cause thats just bad form!

Steve, I did not realize bidders were doing that, thanks for posting that.
I also want to tell everyone that my previous post had nothing to do with Pipestud aka Steve. He is the most reputable seller I have ever come across on ebay and his reputation is above reproach. He would never allow a consignee to play games and he would never use shills. He is a guy who is as honorable as they come.

To me this appears to be driven more by the buyers and not the sellers

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The catch here bernie2, is when the seller is using a different account and acting as the buyer. If you see a bunch of bid retractions on an auction it should be another red flag to you as the buyer. Similar red flags should be thrown up if you see fuzzy photos, unclear descriptions, prior feedback issues, warnings about sellers on this forum etc.
An educated buyer is more likely to NOT be ripped off. Some people stay away from any auction with any red flag, others ask more questions of the seller and proceed only when the questions are answered correctly and still others may proceed carefree and easy. Only you can decide which camp you want to make your home in.

I was watching 3 pipes from a guy I had purchased a nice pipe at a reasonable price last month. He has a good number of Mastro de Pajas lately in used but great condition higher end pipes. I checked in on them they still had 3-5 days left. Bang they were gone. Thought it was my phone or the software I was using. Finally looked him up on line and he has nothing???? Usually has any number of pipes.

I thought maybe it was because they were not getting a lot of attention. But I never bid until the last minute a majority of the time. Surely that was not it. Maybe he just decided he started them out too low? Go figure.

I have noticed lately people going in and just pounding the price on day 1 and 2. It generally looks to me like new folks that do not get bidding strategy. I know sometimes a more experienced buyer just taps in when it is down around 5 or 6 bucks. But lately these guys are jumping it way out of the park the first 2 days. When that happens I just refocus on other interest, but it bugs me anyway.

But that is what auctions are all about, sellers are looking to get as much as possible. Buyers are looking for bargain. There in lies the game. Unscrupulous buyers or sellers need to be hung up by the mousing digits :evil: