Seller starts an item at £0.99.

First bid is £0.99, which quickly rises to £100, then £135.

Seller then cancels all bids, removes item from sale and IMMEDIATELY relists it at a £175 starting price.

Is he within his rights if he has already got bids?

Just so's I know before I refer him to ebay.

 

You can end an auction up and till 24 hours before the listing ends, so I suppose you could.

 

^^ As per ronjeramy. The fact he re-listed it immediately is irrelevant.

 

Yes alcazar, perfectly ok to do so. It`s maybe not morally right but it`s eBay right

 

I thought you couldn't do this if you had bids on the item?

 

Now you know differently

 

You cancel - just have to pay listing fees (if there was any).

 

There's a common policy with some ebay sellers where they put items up for sale with low starting bids and then cancel the sale before completion if they don't get a high enough price - nothing that we can do about it unfortunately other than leave negative feedback.

They tend to say that they "ran out of stock" etc. it's all a con.

Always check the feedback before bidding

 

How can you leave negative feedback for something you haven't been given the opportunity to win?

 

I'm sure someone told me you can pull an auction with only a few minutes left to run.

 

True - the case is when you have won the bidding but the seller withdraws the item saying he ran out of stock (where in reality he just doesn't want to sell it at that price) - you haven't paid anything so ebay doesn't want to know but you can leave negative feedback. It's quite common and can be seen by reading the negative feedback of some sellers.

Personally if I'm buying anything more expensive than £5 I read all the negative feedbacks for the last 6 months for the seller before I place any bids/buy nows.

 

Right ok, different situation then, and yes that's way worse than invoking the 24 hour rule which, although i don't fully agree with, i can partly understand especially with higher value items. Some people just lose their bottle rather than rely on the last 30 seconds where all the real price action takes place.

 

Had a dispute some years back where a seller placed an item as a "Buy now" for £1 rather than "Starting bid" at £1. Ebay weren't terribly helpful and I ended up doing a deal with the seller - a genuine mistake on his part but he wasn't prepared to stick to ebay rules and sell it at the £1 buy now price. I bought the item at a "reduced price" but not £1 though - nearly a win

 

Oh and dont forget the old `Also advertised elsewhere and buyer has right to cancel at anytime` blurb.

I`m not condoning this but the easiest way to end a transaction on ebay regardless of the time left on the auction, Is to get someone you know to bid and then end the listing by selling to the highest bidder and then put in a resolution to get any appropriate fees back, No i havn`t done it but i`ve been on Ebay since 1999 and tend to know my way around the place before anyone starts

 

Hi all,thats handy to know,theres one company on there that starts alot of stuff at 99p then always cancels when it doesnt reach no where near what it wants,every time ive bid on things from them its been cancelled,*******.so i wont even bother bidding when i see their name pop up.

 

and then there are the 'shill' bidders (fake bidders bidding up the item on behalf of the seller)

if u want to see it in action have a look at this link
http://www.ebay.co.uk/csc/discountgo...lete=1&_sop=15

a whole page of items 'bought' by the same two ebayers - one never bids when the other one does.

I reported them to Ebay - buy guess what? - Nada.........

 

on the subject . . . . . .

my bro was bidding on an item that had various bids on , so he put his maximum to £60. He watched the time ticking down to zero and the bidding was up to £36 when it ended. Happy days he thought , until the invoice was sent . . . . . . for £60 !

I reckon the last flurry of bids didnt register on his page , and someone bid up until £60 then bailed out , leaving him as the winning bidder , but at his maximum. Does that sound feasible ?

 

No, as I don't think bids can't be withdrawn within 24 hours of the end of an auction.
And if they were, then the highest bid would go back to just above the next highest bid, unless maybe the reserve has been met?

But he was prepared to pay up to £60, so he buys it for what he was happy to pay for it.

 

Look at the bidding history, Any bids placed after the time of his will put the price up.

 

I mean bailed out as in stopped bidding when it got to £60 , so as my bro had that as his max , he was there 1st.
I told him if he was happy to pay £60 he shouldnt have a problem , but he was just dissapointed when he seen it say the listing ended at £36 !

 

He can do that. But listing at 99p will have cost him nothing, starting at £175 there will be fees. Justice

 

If he looks at the item again, it will show the winning bid, if this says £36 then there is an issue. if £60, then all is good. next to the winning bid in brackets is the bid history. click on there and all the bids, including the times will be shown. lots of bids only happen in the last few minutes of an auction.

 

Tell me how this works. I'm saying you get sweet f a back.

 

So, for instance you've auctioned something but you know last minute it won't get what you want.

So get your wife to shill bid on her account (I don't do this)
1. It ups the auction value
2. but it could also mean you shoot yourself in the foot and she ends up winning it, and you have the fees to pay to eBay

So you wait a period of (I think) 7 days and then tell eBay the winning bidder (wife) hasn't paid, or has changed their mind and no longer wants the item they won.

Then you wait another week or so and I believe eBay automatically resolve the issue by cancelling it and you have no final value fees to pay.

Dependant on how you do it, your wife may get some kind of non-payment naught girl stamp, and a few of those might temporary disable her account (not sure), if you just state the winning bidder made a mistake or something I don't think this happens.

 

Right ok, i see what you mean now. Yes it would work exactly like that, but i doubt it's something you could keep repeating time after time, although given Ebay's appalling indifference to most dodgy things on their site, i wouldn't put any money on that, literally.

 

I think eBay lowered initial listing fees and raised the final value fee to kind of help stop it.

Previously if you had something you thought was worth £100 and you started the auction at £90, and it sold for £100 you got stung for two lots of % fees, so people would lower the start value to .99p to remove/reduce the initial start fee. And then if it didn't creep up like the seller expected they use shill bids.

I think now the initial fees are much lower for most selling items, but then the final auction fee % got raised.

Hope I'm making sense, I don't particularly like eBay anymore but it's a necessary evil for selling my old stuff.

 

Basically as above, Once the resolution has gone through the seller gets refunded all final value fees so the only cost is the initial outlay of the actual listing fee and if it was started at a very low price the fee is minimal, as the agreement cant be sorted between both parties the seller gets his/her fees and the buyer gets a clean break with no markers on the account, The markers are only for 'non paying bidders', Not sure if its still the same but it was 2 warnings and then the 3rd instance would result in a ban, hth.

Gaz.

 

I was bidding on a front and rear bumper for 1p that was bashed up. It was wrecked and not really sure why they were selling it as you couldnt do anything with it, however I noticed a metal protector trim attached to it worth £40 secondhand hence my interest.

The seller cancelled the bid 1 hour before the cut off and relisted it. He has done that 5 times now before I have lost interest. I reported him to ebay as I was told that my bids were "legally binding", initially they were sympathetic and said that they would investigate, nothing changed. I then received an email from ebay saying that they can do what they want and have the right to cancel the bids. I pointed out their policy about bids being legally binding and they never replied.

 

I know, it's bullsh!t isn't it?

ALL the protection seems to be for the seller, which is wrong way round, IMHO.

 

Did you know that sellers can't leave negative feedback for buyers? Fair?
I think you will find that more members of the public con the sellers than the other way round.

I sell full time on eBay, non-payers are a pain.
I've had every excuse under the sun from 'My cat walked accross the keyboard and bought the item' to 'I was pissed and don't really want the item'
Try selling full time on eBay and then tell me that all the protection is for the seller.
Luckily the majority of my sales go through without any hassle but it's frustrating when you get a non-payer.