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How to report an eBay user for an invalid bid retraction
eBay’s bid retraction policy states that a user can retract a bid if they accidentally entered the wrong amount, but they must then enter another bid for the correct amount right away. A user has retracted a bid on one of my items but has failed to enter another bid for the ‘correct’ amount, so I suspect they just gave that reason because they had in fact changed their mind. How do I report this user? When clicking the ‘Report Buyer’ button and giving the username of the person it says there are no transactions for this Buyer on any of my items - presumably because they are no longer considered a ‘Buyer’ of mine because they have retracted the bid! Under the item title it also shows no ‘Buyer’ matches for that item. I notice that this user has a history of bid retractions and so I want to report this as an abuse of policy - is there a way of doing this other than via the ‘Report Buyer’ button? I tried the chat facility but it was giving me irrelevant information and not providing an answer to my question. What I also don’t understand is why eBay allows a user to retract a bid without having to enter the ‘correct’ amount at the same time, i.e. you can only retract the first bid when you’ve offered up an alternative bid? Many thanks for any advice.
jckl1957
·10 months agoYou can't report them.
You can (should) put the person on your blocked bidders list so they can't come back and annoy you again.
There is not any way for Ebay to enforce their own rule that states bidders should enter the price they meant to bid after they retracted a bid.
Even if there was, then the auction might end and you would have a non-paying bidder to deal with.
Some people seem to retract a lot of bids - it's irritating, but apart from blocking them, there is not anything you can do.
janew174
OP10 months agoThanks for your reply, I’ll definitely block them. Just feeling frustrated that people can flout the rules so easily and without facing any consequences. Makes me wonder why eBay even have this policy if they have no way of enforcing it. Can’t see why entering an alternative bid isn’t mandatory and built into the bid retraction process if someone has ‘accidentally entered the wrong amount’ - might make people a bit less impulsive if they can’t retract a bid so easily. As you say though, they’d probably just not pay anyway, although I think they at least run the risk of losing privileges if they make a habit of non-payment, which is better than nothing!
Many thanks👍🏻
red_magpie
Mentor10 months agoYou can still report invalid retractions, but unhelpfully eBay doesn't even mention this in its guidance on bid retraction. You can find the link here:
https://www.ebay.com/help/selling/resolving-buyer-issues/report-issue-buyer?id=4084&st=3&pos=2&query=Report%20an%20issue%20with%20a%20buyer&intent=report%20problem%20with%20buyer&lucenceai=lucenceai&docId=HELP1263
If the buyer has made multiple bid retractions I would hope that eBay takes this seriously. Bid retractions can be used in a number of ways to influence auctions, sometimes even leaving buyers to accuse the entitely innocent sellers of manulating the bidding themselves, using another ID.
janew174
OP10 months agoHi, thanks for your message. Unfortunately when using the Report Buyer button on that page and putting in the person’s username it says: “We couldn’t find any transactions”. I think it must be because the person is no longer linked to my item as they retracted the bid. Same sort of thing if I search using the item details. The agent I spoke to gave me a link to a different report form so I’ve submitted that. eBay have emailed me with a reference ID and have said “We’re looking into it now. We’ll let you know once we’ve reviewed it and provide you with details of any decision that we make”, so I guess I’ll just have to see if I receive an update from them! Many thanks.
tressygirl
Mentor10 months agoI found this interesting information, but as with any eBay action if it is made, you would not be notified.
@janew174
janew174
OP10 months agoHi, just a bit of an update. I spoke to an eBay agent about it and they told me to submit a report through a link they gave me, and said they will also submit an internal report to the risk management team, so I’ll see what the outcome of that is. Many thanks.
papso22
Mentor10 months agoEven if they do that, which I doubt, they won't tell you the outcome.
janew174
OP10 months agoOh dear, well at least I feel like I’ve tried anyway 🙂