On eBay Bid Retractions
Filed Under Industry News & Analysis
eBay recently notified me that a user had retracted a bid they placed on one of my auction-style listings. The justification provided was that “the bidder was unable to contact the seller”.
According to eBay, there are only three valid reasons a bidder can retract a bid:
You accidentally entered the wrong bid amount due to a typographical error.
The item’s description changed significantly after you entered your last bid.
You can’t reach the seller by telephone or email.
Incredibly, eBay validated the bidder’s claim that I was unreachable, and processed/approved the bid retraction. Considering that all contact between eBay users must (initially) be processed through eBay’s system, I find it hard to believe that eBay couldn’t/wouldn’t cross-check this claim through their records. If they had, they would have easily concluded that the bidder never attempted contact me.
Instead of expending so many hours of their programmers time and efforts making it more complicated to sell on eBay successfully, how about getting someone to write a simple script that will validate “could not contact seller” bid retraction request. It just might make selling a little easier on eBay.
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