eBay question
 

I was following the sale of a car (not a Porsche) and noticed one day that the current bid had dropped significantly. When I clicked on "bid history", it showed that all previous bids had been cancelled. In the column titled, "Action/Explanation", all it gave for the explanation was title of the listing--no reason.

Two questions:

Does this mean that the seller (title of the listing) cancelled the bids?

If it does, what would be the reason as the bids came from several different bidders?

There was nothing in the listing to indicate a bidder needed to contact the seller before bidding and the cancelled bidders all had many transactions.

BTW, the listing looks a bit suspicious to me in that the description is very general and only four pictures are listed. It may be a stolen ID listing and the bidders cancelled after some email communication(?) but I don't know how that would be indicated in the bid history.

Seller could have canceled the bids or the bidders could have pulled out due to conversations with the seller. Seller should have placed some sort of explanation. I think the seller can do this up to 12 or 24 hours before auction end if memory serves.

Mark

Thanks, Mark.

There is a second column, "Date of Bid/Retraction" which lists the bid amount and the date it was withdrawn. Each listing uses the term "cancelled". Does that give any hint as to who pulled the plug? To me, "cancelled" implies the seller acted whereas "retracted" implies the buyer acted but I don't know if eBay just uses the term "cancelled" for all actions.

not sure, I my knowledge was tapped with my first response. :)

sellers will often cancel bids based on the bidder having negative buying feedback.

Contact the seller.

My guess is someone came to look at it, he sold it outside of ebay, and cancelled the bids to save the ebay commission.

Happens often.

I understand all the answers given but in this case, he cancelled over twenty bidders and the car is still listed with a new set of bidders (not a re-listing--a continuation of the original.) I just don't understand what is gained by doing this.:confused:

Here's a link. Check out the bid history but hurry, there's only a bit over one day left.http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/1967-VW-Bus-Camper-/200773490484?pt=US_Cars_Trucks&hash=item2ebf085734