EBay Bid retraction SPORTSCARD POLICY CHANGES
jeffv96masters
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ABOUT TIME EBAY
We’re updating our bid retraction policy for Sports Trading Cards, Non-Sports Trading Cards, and Collectible Card Games auctions. Starting June 30, 2021, buyers will no longer have the ability to retract bids on trading cards auctions without seller approval. Sellers’ decisions to accept or reject auction bid retraction requests will be final.
How the new auction bid retraction policy will work
Starting June 30, if you want to retract an auction bid, you will need to contact the seller via messaging on eBay and request a retraction. The seller, at their sole discretion, will be able to accept or decline your retraction request. If the seller does not accept your request, your bid can still win or lose the auction, and you will be required to make payment on any winning bid you submit. We also inform buyers on our "Bid Retraction Policy" page that "a bid is a binding contract."
As previously communicated, as of April 2021, if an item goes unpaid by the 5th calendar day, the seller may cancel the order due to non-payment. Regularly missing payments may impact your account. Check out our Unpaid Item Policy to learn more.
We appreciate your support and willingness to work with this new policy as we anticipate our trading cards policy update will make eBay a more trusted and fairer marketplace for all.
As always, thank you for buying on eBay.
The eBay Team
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Comments
GOOD !!!
I first thought , yes it's about time, then started to think about it more.
On the surface it may seem good but actually for bidders it may be the opposite...?
It means you can not look at bidders list for a trading card auction in progress and determine if shills are out there based on a bidders retractions that sometimes numbers in hundreds or thousands. Entities who's business models are partially based on shilling have or will quickly adapt very fast and come up with alternate methods.
I'm certain eBay performed a deep detailed analysis and determined this will actually net them more in fees due to it becoming more difficult for bidders to determine shilling. While they may publicly state yet again it's for "security" of their users eBay historically has made changes for only 2 reasons; Increasing Revenue or Federal (or locality based) Regulations
My guess this move on to other collectibles such as coins, comic books, etc.
It's the singer not the song - Peter Townshend (1972)
If you are seller, would you deny a request to retract a bid? I could see a disgruntled winner being more pain than it is worth. Think about how the return/refund policies seem to benefit buyers. It seems like it might set a seller up for additional shenanigans.
I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I'm not sure why this policy is specific to sports cards and not consistent across all items. I'm also not sure of its long term effect . . .
The move might decrease shilling for auction house listings like PWCC and similar, but not for private sellers. A private seller would still be able to shill bid and then approve retraction for that bid if he were in control of both accounts.
I do think something needs to be done about retracting bids and associated shilling but not sure this will accomplish that to any real degree.
It's the singer not the song - Peter Townshend (1972)
It's a good move, but eBay needs at least one other for this to be meaningful:
Ban repeat non-paying bidders. Maybe allow 1/year to be generous (pocket bidding or whatever).
Currently, stopping retractions will just cause more non-paying bidders. There is no consequence that I am aware of for those who repeatedly do not pay. eBay claims that those accounts could be closed, but it is rare in my experience.
This is a very good move on eBay's part, I strongly agree with "professerpuck" banning repeat non-paying bidder.
In any situation where the ID shilling and the ID selling are in league this change won't help . In cases of private auctions it's may very well be business as usual other than the small delay as bi-product of having to approve. I'm sure eBay has already crunched the numbers and found it to be beneficial (or at minimum non-bottom line impacting) to them.
It's the singer not the song - Peter Townshend (1972)
Seems good on the surface...but if the bidder is then "forced" to pay as winner, I can see them just returning the card as SNAD (significantly not as described) and there is no recourse but to accept the return.
Definitely a step in the right direction.
Ebay needs to:
1) disclose the best offer sell amounts
2) Tell the reader if an item was actually paid for (when sold the price goes to yellow and when paid for the price goes to green)
3) More than 3 bid retractions per month, your account is removed.
4) 2 or more non-payment, your account is removed.
I think this solves most of the problems.
I'm not sure there has ever been a way for accumulated unpaid item strikes to be viewed publicly. Seems the right thing to do would be for ebay's system to automatically generate a negative feedback on the buyer's record if they do receive an unpaid item strike.
You used to be able to see these amounts by going to the completed page, hitting Ctrl-U, and then on the page that opens, use Ctrl-F to locate "tax exclusive", but this method hasn't been working lately. Does anyone know an alternative that shows the amounts now, besides trying to find it on the PSA completed auction prices pages?
Doesn't change anything. It actually makes it easier for shill bidding as it keeps complete control of the shill bidding with the seller/shiller. If someone bids and wants to retract their bid and the seller does not allow then all the bidder has to do is not pay.
click on 'search eBay sales' at the top and go to town
https://130point.com/
you'll never be able to outrun a bad diet
My thoughts exactly.
5) suspend sellers who key word spam their item titles
6) ebay needs to stop serving up results that have nothing to do with my search terms
Yeah, I got caught in those traps a couple times and had to retract a bid. Ultimately my fault, but neither of these should happen
Exactly.
Which would you rather do:
It seems to me that cancelling the bid is the best option, as the others provide more headaches and delays.
Steve
Now......to fix the return policy.......
In fact, I could see that this is EBay's way of shedding having to deal with this crap. EBay can now say "We didn't choose to deny the retraction, YOU did....you deal with the complaints and the follow up BS."
Good point.
Which bring it back to:
eBay historically has made changes for only 2 reasons; Increasing Revenue or Federal (or locality based) Regulations
It's the singer not the song - Peter Townshend (1972)
Would this make it easier for ebay to see if the sellers are involved in the manipulation?
Working with each other? Maybe they can show how many accepted bid retractions the sellers accepted???!!!
I think this is extremely generous. I would say 3 per YEAR at most. Bid retractions should be exceedingly rare. I've been on Ebay for 2 decades, don't think I've ever had even one.
What percentage of shills are there where the seller isn't in on it?.........not many.
So basically window dressing.
I've had a scant few in 2 decades as a buyer. For accidentally adding an extra digit example 100.00 instead of 10.00. I then placed another bid a few seconds after retract. Only human and make mistakes.
It's the singer not the song - Peter Townshend (1972)
My thoughts exactly. Exactly, Exactly, This is all like fake news. Shilling/retractions basically always has the seller involved in some way so having the seller approve retractions is funny. The GOVT has obviously gotten wind of some consignors and has put some heat on EBAY and this was the response. Laughable to say the least. There are folks with hundreds of bid retractions. We should have a post with who has never had a bid retraction. I could start the post; but how many could follow?? I'm assuming not many??
with my watch list usually maxed out w items watching and not using a sniping service, i usually will enter a 50% value bid as soon as i see the item listed just to get the alerts and then will manually snipe at the end.
its almost on a daily basis that my 50% bid gets topped and then the email gets sent “that a bid retraction has occurred, i am now the new high bidder again”. with that said, bidding this way has taught me several things and to use those retractions against nefarious sellers to weed out (for the most part) the honest ones.
usually theres two different types. the one that will enter tons of bids to bid it up in $20 increments until they hit the high bid. and then you have your atomic bid that will throw in the $10k bid and then retract. then “player 3 enters the game” and then magically happens to place a bid just below my bid.
either way its pretty funny how they just cant wait to see what the high bid is even after the first hour on a 10 day auction.