Ebay - "It's not a bug, it's a feature"

[watervole]

Those who saw my earlier posting about the effect of bid retractions on ebay   (if you bid £10, maximum bid £20 and someone else bids £25 and then drops out, YOUR BID IS INCREASED TO £20 even if there are no other bids on the item)

I queried ebay about this.  Their first reply was a standard one that didn't even bother to read my email (just bunged back a standard answer on how to bid).  Their second reply was clearly more concerned that I had cancelled my bid in protest at their mechanics rather than any concern that people bidding for valuable items could be duped in this way.

However, it did also list when you are allowed to cancel a bid, so read carefully if you are worried about this particular problem. 

Hello Judith,

Thank you for writing back to us. I understand that you have cancelled 
your bid on item number 150251313515.

I have checked our records and can see that you have cancelled your bid 
on the item as your maximum bid automatically appears when the higher 
bidder cancelled their bid on the item. I would like to inform that as 
the highest bidder retracted their bid amount of £1.50, your maximum bid
amount of £1.30 will automatically appear. 

Furthermore, please note that when you place a bid or use "Buy It Now", 
you enter a binding contract to buy the item at the bid price. Always 
check your bid carefully before confirming it with your password.

We understand that mistakes and other problems can happen, so there are 
some cases where you may cancel a bid:

- You made a clear error in your bid amount. In this case, you must 
place another bid with the correct amount after cancelling your bid. 
- The seller significantly changed the description of the item after you
bid. 
- You can't contact the seller.

Remember that these are exceptional circumstances. Invalid bid 
retractions breach eBay policy.

Be aware that the number of times you've retracted a bid is displayed in
your Feedback Profile, under "Feedback as a buyer". Sellers may not want
you to bid on their items if you have a high number of recent bid 
retractions. 

Time restrictions on retracting bids: 

- Up to 12 hours before the end of the listing: You can cancel all bids 
on the item.
- During the last 12 hours of the listing: You can cancel your most 
recent bid if you placed it within the last hour. If you want to cancel 
a bid you placed more than an hour ago, you need to ask the seller to 
cancel your bid.

For more information on retracting bids, copy this link into a new 
browser window:

 http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/buy/questions/retract-bid.html

I trust that this information is helpful. If you have further questions,
please do not hesitate to contact us again.

Kind regards,

Susanne Greene
eBay Customer Support 
____________________

The whole world can talk for free! Find out more at www.skype.com
____________________



Original Message Follows:
-------------------------

Thank you so much for a standard reply that shows you haven't even READ 
my original problem!  Your reply doesn't even MENTION the effect of 
cancelled bids on the bidding system.

The item number was 150251313515

Judith


eBay United Kingdom Customer Support wrote:

> Hello, 
> 
> Thank you for your email. I understand your concern regarding the bid 
> you've placed to a listing.
> 
> Please understand that while we're always happy to help you, we'll 

need 

> further information from you to look into this matter properly. Please

> reply with the listing number of the item in question. 
> 
> Furthermore, I've provided you the information below about how proxy 
> bidding works:
> 
> 1. When you place a bid, you enter the maximum amount you'd be willing

> to pay for the item. Your maximum amount is kept confidential from 

other

> bidders and the seller.
> 2. The eBay system compares your bid to those of the other bidders.
> 3. The system places bids on your behalf, using only as much of your 

bid

> as is necessary to maintain your high bid position (or to meet the 
> reserve price). The system will bid up to your maximum amount. 
> 4. If another bidder has a higher maximum, you'll be outbid. BUT, if 

no 

> other bidder has a higher maximum, you win the item. And you could pay

> significantly less than your maximum price. 
> 
> This means that you don't have to keep coming back to re-bid every 

time 

> another bid is placed.
> 
> An example of proxy bidding in action:
> - A listing starts at £1.00. I come along and submit a bid of £100.00.

> As there are no other bids yet (mine is the first), the bid is on me 

for

> £1.00. 
> 
> - Now you come along and see that the current bid is £1.00 and you 
> decide to bid £5.00. You enter the bid and then you get an immediate 
> outbid notice. Why? Because the proxy system has my £100.00 maximum 

bid 

> to execute while keeping the bid at the lowest possible amount. 
> 
> - Once you see an outbid notice, and the bid goes up to £5.50, with me

> as the high bidder. You rebid £10.00 and the same thing happens. I am 
> still the high bidder at £10.50 and will remain so until you or 

someone 

> else bids more than my initial maximum bid. 
> 
> - Now, say you bid £150.00. The bid then falls to you at £101.00, as 

you

> have passed my maximum bid. I'm now the one who's been outbid. 
> 
> More information:
> Please visit our bidding tutorial at:
> 
>  http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/buy/proxy-bidding.html
> 
> For more information about bid increments please visit the following 
> page:
> 
>  http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/buy/bid-increments.html
> 
> I hope this information answers your question. If you have further 
> questions, don't hesitate to contact us again.
> 	
> Kind regards,
> 
> Mary Dunne
> eBay Customer Support 
> ____________________
> 
> The whole world can talk for free! Find out more at www.skype.com
> ____________________
> 
> Original Message Follows:
> -------------------------
> 
> Additional Information
> Question Text
> I bid 99p for an item with a max bid of £1.30
> Someone else bid £1.50
> The higher bidder dropped out.
> My bid was increased (without any input from me) from 99p to £1.30 - 
> even though there was now nobody bidding more than 99p against me.
> So I cancelled my bid as well.
>  

-- 

Comments

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

Yet another reason to put in a low bid initially and come back and bid again in the last few mins of the auction.

[alex-holden.livejournal.com]

Why even bother with the initial bid? Bidding early attracts interest from other buyers and tends to increase the final price. Just place a snipe bid at the last moment.

[kremmen.livejournal.com]

For items that low, I often find (and am) the opposite. I'll bid if nobody else has, but I'm not going to start a bidding war. I'll wait until I see one what has no bids at all. Maybe nobody else will bother, especially if there are others available.

[gaspodia.livejournal.com]

It also opens up the bidding process to abuse; if seller has a bid on their item that they think is too low, they could ask a friend to bid a much higher amount and then cancel the bid, raising the original bidder's bid by default.

Not a sensible policy!

[watervole.livejournal.com]

That was my thought entirely. It was the main reason I wrote to them, but they didn't seem to appreciate this.

[julesjones]

I am extremely cynical, and think that they understand this very well -- they do, after all, get a percentage of the final selling price.

[johncoxon.livejournal.com]

Their terms and conditions list the circumstances in which a bid can be retracted - if those circumstances are not met, just log a complaint with eBay and it'll be sorted. Easy. There is no problem here - if someone cancelled a bid in an auction I had participated in, I would just report them to eBay unless the description had substantially changed or their subsequent bid was not placed.

Also, if your bid was lowered, and this was listed (which it would be, in the auction's log of bids), people would know how much your bid had been. Therefore, they could place bids below what your bid was to reinflate it, so even if eBay reset it to the lower value, this wouldn't stop an underhand seller (and even if it wasn't displayed in the log the seller would get an e-mail notifying them of the bid, so they'd still know) from inflating the price. It'd just mean they had to click the mouse button twice.

But also, no-one should ever actually bid on eBay. Sniping all the way! Cheaper, easier, quicker, less hassle, and removes the probability that anything untoward could happen totally and completely.

[twinfair.livejournal.com]

Does it say in their terms and conditions that it does this? I would have thought they were on dodgy legal grounds here but as with all eBay quirks like this, no one is every prepared to push them all the way. It is interesting that they ignored your query and turned the tables on you. Actually, I would have thought that the "all bids are binding" statement is rubbish as you can withdraw a bid IF THE SELLER AGREES under any circumstances. I did because I didn't understand the mechanics of a multiple item sale and pushed the price up unnecessarily high (FYI if there are two items for sale and only one bid, and you put in a high maximum bid, both bidders get pushed up to one of the maximum bids straight away even though they are not competing with each other). It doesn't make any sense at all.

I would reply to them and try to get a reasoning for this stupid situation. Though knowing them I doubt you will get far.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

My shoulder's too sore and I'm too low on mental energy right now to push it. I was able to retract the bid (and as it happens, I got the same item for slightly less from another seller).

I felt honour-bound to go with the more expensive item (as I hadn't noticed the other item originally), but once ebay artificially inflated my bid, I felt I could drop out without compromising my conscience.

[philbradley.livejournal.com]

Let's be clear about this. eBay is in business to make money for itself, and quite frankly it doesn't care that much how it does it. They're not interested in sorting anything out unless it's in their immediate profitable interests to do so. All of the rules are skewed in their favour and they've never taken any action on any of the things that I've ever complained about. The new 'feature' of not allowing sellers to do anything other than leave positive feedback on buyers is another example of this. They are a dreadful organization, but really the only game in town, which is unfortunate.

Sniping is all well and good, but there are times when an auction ends late in the night, or at a time of day when you can't be around, so putting in a bid seems to make perfect sense to me.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

The new 'feature' of not allowing sellers to do anything other than leave positive feedback on buyers is another example of this.

There's a very good reason for that, and I agree with it.

The very first item I ever bid for, I left negative feedback as the seller was a total scammer, adding a £20 insurance charge (For an item valued at £25 on a 'buy now'). As I left negative feedback for him, he did so for me in retaliation and then tried to blackmail me into mutually withdrawing feedback (which I refused to do).

(If sellers gave feedback first, it would be fine, but it's just tit for tat as they always wait for the buyer to do theirs first)

[philbradley.livejournal.com]

However... I recently sold an item, and made it clear in the listing that I would only ship in the UK, and the P&P reflected this. The item was purchased by someone in France who is expecting me to ship it to France and is not willing to pay the extra P&P. He's also opened up a complaint in PayPal as well, which I can do something about.

Because of this new feature I can either give him positive feedback, which I'm obviously not prepared to do, or leave none at all. He meanwhile is perfectly free to ruin my 100% feedback rating, while being in the wrong.

I fail to see how this is a good system.

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing this information with us, it is very useful!

[elfinessy.livejournal.com]

I very rarely enter into bidding now a days, I use the buy-it-now. I was bidding on a magazine a couple of weeks back that reached £30. When I checked listings, it was £1.80 in a later auction with buy-it-now still on, so I dropped out of the bidding war and bought it for £28 less. It's too tempting at the end of a bidding war, so I stay away now.