# Phantom Bids on EBay?



## Wheeled Relics (Mar 9, 2015)

http://m.ebay.com/itm/371272890536?nav=WATCHING_ACTIVE

Watching this auction on eBay, I witnessed a bidding war 30minutes before auction end where the bids went up to 1600$... 2 minutes before the auction end, the bids somehow disappeared back to where it first started (300ish) ... auction ended just over 600. Can someone explain how this is possible, is it possible to retract bids after they are made without seller approval? Multiple witnesses saw this, and we're curious. It seems suspicious at best, and at worst purposeful manipulation of an auction.


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## Obi-Wan Schwinnobi (Mar 9, 2015)

I didn't think you could retract a bid after a certain time limit?!... 12hrs or something?


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## Obi-Wan Schwinnobi (Mar 9, 2015)

You don't need sellers approval to retract a bid... but I thought only up to a certain time.


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## abe lugo (Mar 9, 2015)

maybe bid were placed, but the seller cancels bids from certain bidders, dropping the bids down to the last highest bidder?
Its been a while since I have sold on ebay but I thought you can cancel bids from suspicious bidders. So if your in cahoots perse, then...


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## GTs58 (Mar 9, 2015)

I'm thinking if you make a bid, even at the end of the action, you can retract that bid _right away_. Not the same as bidding a day or so early and then retracting your bid a day or so later. Looks like he may have been a bidder from another country?  

 Member Id: s***o 
 Cancelled: US $44,100.00
 Bid:         Mar-09-15 19:24:21 PDT
Cancelled: Mar-09-15 20:03:33 PDT


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## UncleFester (Mar 10, 2015)

I too was watching that great TOC wheelset way strange?


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## detroitbike (Mar 10, 2015)

this is an easy way to see how high someone has bid when they've bid multiple times.
 Place an absurdly high bid (ie. 44,100.00) and you can see in what increments that C***C  had bid and how high he had bid up to.
  If you want to see a reserve just bid super high (1,000,000) and then quickly retract because you made a mistake (wink, wink).


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## vincev (Mar 10, 2015)

I know you used to make high bids to see a reserve then retract.


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## GTs58 (Mar 10, 2015)

In this particular case I think the bidder that retracted his super high bid made a huge error for some reason. His minimal ebay history is clean.

30-Day Summary 
Total bids: 0 
Items bid on: 0 
Bid activity (%) with this seller: 0%  Help 
Bid retractions: 0 
*Bid retractions (6 months 0 *

*Here's the skinny on retracting bids. *

Time restrictions for retracting a bid

Auction ending time

Retraction allowed?

Result


Listing ends in more than 12 hours

Yes



When you retract the bid, we remove all bids you placed on the item. If you are correcting a bidding error, you must bid again.


Listing ends in less than 12 hours

*Yes, but only if you retract the bid within one hour of placing it*

When you retract the bid, we remove only your most recent bid. Bids you placed prior to the last 12 hours of the listing are not removed.



 It sure isn't fun on ebay these days. It was a hoot when you knew who was bidding against you and what everyone was paying for there hobbies.


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## zappa2000 (Mar 14, 2015)

If someone retracts a bid, all bids made after that are automatically cancelled by Ebay. That's probably how several bids disappeared all of a sudden.
I'm not sure there actually is a time limit on retracting bids - I could be wrong.


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## Wheeled Relics (Mar 14, 2015)

vincev said:


> I know you used to make high bids to see a reserve then retract.




Shady


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## klunk! (Mar 19, 2015)

That was my auction.  I canceled the guys bid because he put in a bid of $44000 or something ridiculous, he was not in the 48 US and sent me a dozen emails saying "My bid a mistake, it was a mistake".  It screwed up my auction to say the least.  There was no reserve, no shill bidding and really nothing sketchy.  The dude was a rookie and total jacka$$.  Sorry for those that wanted to bid and saw them at the $1600 mark.  I try to keep an eye on my auctions and weed out the zero feedback bidders and the like, I usually cancel/block bidders like this.  I didn't catch it until a few minutes left in the sale.  I knew he was going to win them if I didn't kill his bids, I needed money right then and didn't want to relist, so took my chances that someone else would bid.  If no one else put in a bid, The eventual high bidder would have picked up a killer set of wheels for just over $300.


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## catfish (Mar 20, 2015)

Looks like this is what happened.......




detroitbike said:


> this is an easy way to see how high someone has bid when they've bid multiple times.
> Place an absurdly high bid (ie. 44,100.00) and you can see in what increments that C***C  had bid and how high he had bid up to.
> If you want to see a reserve just bid super high (1,000,000) and then quickly retract because you made a mistake (wink, wink).


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## pedal_junky (Mar 25, 2015)

I got to experience the Phantom bid first hand this morning. Been watching the item for a few days, checked on it this morning and it still had zero bids. So a few minutes before the listing ended, I placed my bid, and added a little cushion just in case. Then I started thinking about this thread. I went back in and and increased my bid by $15, waited till 2 seconds left, placed my second increase I won. Checked the bidding, and sure nuff, I was outbid on my original price by, you guessed it, $1.  Counter measures in play.


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