Some sellers cheating reserve-price fees by cancelling listings

[synetech]

Some sellers are cheating the reserve-price fee by setting the lowest starting price for auction listings, then cancelling it if it does not reach a high minimum before it ends. It says that the item was lost or broken, but then they turn around and relist it immediately which proves it was just fraud.

I am sick and tired of this, not because I care that they are bilking eBay out of the fee (I still hold a huge grudge for their greedy implementation of the GSP), but because it makes it pointless to bid on auction listings because they might end up getting cancelled.

Since they cancelled before the listing ended, they don't get a defect, so they are free to do it over and over again. Some sellers do this with pretty much all of their auction-style listings. It seems to be getting more and more common, especially with Chinese sellers.

I can't seem to find a way to report things like this to eBay, especially since you can't report items after the listing ends (plus, there is no option for this in the drop-downs in the report-item page anyway). Hopefully someone with clout can see this and tell someone who can do something.

(Then again, I've seen on multiple occasions that eBay does nothing to sellers who repeatedly break the rules, and even if they do, the sellers just create a new account. Maybe eBay needs to find a way to deal with the symptom; for example preventing sellers from cancelling listings more than x times in y period of time, or giving defects for cancelling even before the listing ends.)

[momcqueen]

Any seller doing that is none too bright and best avoided. Listing with a reserve costs top dollar in insertion fees and any item that ends before the reserve is met doesn't sell to anyone anyway.

[synetech]

But they are not paying the reserve fee; that's the point. They list without a reserve price and cancel if there are no bids high enough for their taste. Thus they don't have to sell it lower than they want, but avoid paying a fee to set a minimum price. eBay misses out on a fee, bidders get screwed out of a deal, and the seller gets off scott-free.

[reallynicestamps]

not because I care that they are bilking eBay out of the fee

They are not.

Reserve fees, like most of eBay's useless options, are not refundable if the item does not sell.

eBay needs to find a way to deal with the symptom

Like making the reserve fee unrefundable?

However,  Auctions are less than 15% of eBay transactions.

If you must bid in a auctions, because the item is one of a kind and may not be repeated for months if ever, bid once, bid your maximum, and bid late.

cancelling it if it does not reach a high minimum before it ends.

Most successful auctions bidders do bid late, either snaiping manually or electronically.

The auctioneer that ends auctions early, not only does not get the sale, not only pays the Reserve fee, but also misses the bidders who would pay his price.

And you know the auctioneer is dumb , because not only is he paying and paying and paying that Reserve fee but he hasn't realized that all Auctions are automatically Reserved.

No one can bid less than the opening bid.

Which is a Reserve in itself.

[reallynicestamps]

The examples you give all seem to be of mass produced ,easily available items.

These are usually sold as Fixed Price .

If you need a lot of them, make a Best Offer to the seller.

If your offer is reasonable, you can make a deal within a few hours instead of waiting  seven days for frustration.

[momcqueen]

If the seller is cancelling their auctions before they end? They’re not using auctions properly. That’s the function of Buy It Now: set the price to sell at that price.

My original advice stands.

If a seller isn’t using eBay properly, avoid using them. There are literally millions of sellers on eBay from which to choose. Avoid the ones who sell empty promises.

[synetech]

Like I said, they are NOT paying the fee for reserve-price. That's the whole issue. They are cancelling the auction because it has not reached a price that is high enough for them. That is exactly what the reserve-price function is for, but you have to pay a fee to use that. These sellers are getting around it by mimicking the function of a reserve-price without having to pay the fee to use it. In the process, they are frustrating buyers.

Using a different seller is not an option because you can't always tell which sellers are doing this. And as usual, feedback is worthless as a gauge of seller trustworthiness because most of the sellers engaging in this fraud have high stats because they keep getting away with it.

[ypdc_dennis]

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@synetech wrote:

But they are not paying the reserve fee; that's the point. They list without a reserve price and cancel if there are no bids high enough for their taste. Thus they don't have to sell it lower than they want, but avoid paying a fee to set a minimum price. eBay misses out on a fee, bidders get screwed out of a deal, and the seller gets off scott-free.

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If a listing is ended early the listing fees are NOT refunded.

For most categories the reserve fee is 4% of the reserve price. Minimum charge of $3 to a maximum of $100.

https://pages.ebay.ca/help/sell/fees.html#reserve

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[ypdc_dennis]

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@synetech wrote:
Like I said, they are NOT paying the fee for reserve-price. That's the whole issue. They are cancelling the auction because it has not reached a price that is high enough for them. That is exactly what the reserve-price function is for, but you have to pay a fee to use that. These sellers are getting around it by mimicking the function of a reserve-price without having to pay the fee to use it. In the process, they are frustrating buyers.

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Cancelling auctions on a regular basis does come with a price tag -- ebay will charge a FVF on the highest cancelled bid if less than 12 hours is left.

I would not buy from a seller who indulges in that sort of activity -- too great a chance they will cause the sale to fail in some other way even with a successful buyer.

[synetech]

> Cancelling auctions on a regular basis does come with a price tag -- ebay will charge a FVF on the highest cancelled bid if less than 12 hours is left.

Maybe they min-max their listings and cancel based on bidding rate (if there are not enough, high enough bids fast enough, they cancel sooner). Like I said, some do it frequently, so either as others mentioned, they are idiots, or they crunched the numbers and decided it was worth losing the listing fee and/or FVF.

Either way, that benefits eBay by getting some extra money for itself, but does nothing for the frustrated and annoyed buyers (who might have missed out on bidding on other auctions in the meantime—and no, you can't expect people to bid on each auction).

> I would not buy from a seller who indulges in that sort of activity -- too great a chance they will cause the sale to fail in some other way even with a successful buyer.

Fair enough, but like I said, it's becoming more and more common, so it's hard to know (or even often notice) which sellers are going to cancel (I only pointed out because I've come across listings from them—and their various alias accounts—many times in searches this past month and they cancelled all of them).

They are definitely cheating and one would think that because the cheating is at eBay's expense, eBay would have at least some interest in stopping it (it's certainly not a small loophole anymore; as I said, it's becoming more and more common).

[momcqueen]

If the issue is that these sellers are behaving in a way that is borderline sketchy, take your business to another one of a million sellers who is not. The outcome wouldn’t improve if the listing were to remain active or you won it. As to the game with ending auctions early? That’s to the greater misfortune of the seller, not the buyer. The buyer loses nothing in this scenario; it costs the buyer nothing st all. As you grow tired of these games, use a different seller or limit your search to Buy It Now. If your complaint is that you are looking to buy something for nothing and with these auctions you are being continually thwarted in that attempt, I would ask oneself the reason one expected success in that respect. The old adage exists for a reason: if it sounds to good to be true, it is too good to be true.

[momcqueen]

It also goes without saying that it’s necessary to check feedback. Giving money to a massive powerseller with 98 per cent feedback who is located in China is a risky prospect to start.

If it is mainly when seeking ‘deals’ where the objective is to pay zero dollars for an item of value that you experience these types of auctions-ending-early shenanigans, change the goal and the outcome will change with it. No good comes of this. Anyone who’s been online shopping more than a few years can attest to the validity of this.

[pjcdn2005]

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@ypdc_dennis wrote:

      Cancelling auctions on a regular basis does come with a price tag -- ebay         will charge a FVF on the highest cancelled bid if less than 12 hours is left.

I would not buy from a seller who indulges in that sort of activity -- too great a chance they will cause the sale to fail in some other way even with a successful buyer.

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It’s not possible to end an auction ealy if it has bids and less than 12 hours are left unless they sell to the highest bidder but as you said, they are charged fvf if they cancel bids and then end an auction early.  I wonder if ebay actually follows through on that.

[cumos55]

It was many, many years ago when auctions were still a very important part on eBay...

Seller had a high bid of $55,  but it became evident the seller had a high reserve, at about $65.

Seller did not appear to have offered the item to the person with the $55 bid....a second chance offer

Item was relisted.  This relist of the item had  no bids.... zero bids.

Bidders  showed this seller how he had lost a sale.

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In the situation described here.....  the seller will pay the price of receiving less bids with each relist.....  on the relist  and all of the other auction listings

Auctions can be used on today's eBay.  However, they must be used carefully  or an auction listing will sell at a low price, if not very low price.

Fixed price listings are the standard on eBay today...

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Success on eBay  is based on knowing .... what not to do