Ebay Scams Dont get scammed, know the scams.

[Facebook 0]

eBay loophole-- there is an easy way to win any eBay auction for almost no money. I just had it happen to me, and I'm very unhappy with the results of my lost time, and eBay charging me fees that I now have to try and get retracted. While in my case, I had a reserve, many auctions out there do not, and eBay encourages no reserve with their 'hot item' section. To make matters worse, if you start your item off at a reasonable price, you'll get very few bids, and thus less people watching it during the final minutes of the auction.Normally, on eBay, the process works like this:You place a max bid for the item. Say the item is an antique vase. You like it, think its worth $100. Bidding opens at $2. You place a bid of $100. eBay gives you the opening bid at $2. You are protected up to $100.Another bidder. Bidder 2 comes along and he wants the vase for $50., so he bids that amount. Bidder 1 is still the high bidder, at $55 ($50 + $5 increment). So Bidder 2 comes back and bids again, this time at $105. Viola! Bidder 2 is now winning at $105 (he met your high bid of $100 + the $5 increment.More bids. Bidder 3 thinks the vase is worth $125, and bids that amount. He becomes high bidder with a price of $110. Bidder 4 thinks the vase is worth $130, and becomes high bidder posting that amount. The auction continues in this way until the end. Usually, in the last minutes, the bidding gets very heated, and the vase may end up selling for $600., which is close to what your local antique shop might charge.This is how the scam works:Same vase, opens at $2. Only this time, Bidder 1 bids $1000. The opening bid still shows only $2. He immediately follows with a false identity Bidder 2, at $990. Bidder 1 becomes high bidder at $995. Since this is more than you can get a similar product locally, and in a price range the average user is not going to spend lightly, there are no other bidders.Scam complete. 15 seconds before the auction ends, Bidder 2 rescinds his bid, the "high" price drops back to the opening bid of $2, and Bidder 1 wins at that amount. Unless the seller has a substantial reserve to protect his investment (which is discouraged by eBay) he will be obligated to sell the vase for $2. If he does have a reserve, he doesn't have to sell, but he still owes eBay posting fees and the auction was a waste for him. For those of you who will say that the seller is not obligated to sell -- two things:Seller must first be aware he was scammed.Seller will likely end up getting neg feedback from scammer if he does not sell!

[jlhaslip 4]

A bidder cannot retract a bid in the last 12 hours unless the bid was retracted within 60 minutes of being placed.

You can only retract your bid or Best Offer at certain stages of a listing, depending on when you placed your bid:
When your bid was placed
What is allowed
What is not allowed

More than 12 hours before the listing ends
You can retract the bid with more than 12 hours left before the listing ends. When you do this, all your previous other bids will also be eliminated. So be sure to bid again if you are correcting a bidding error that you made.
You cannot retract the bid during the last 12 hours of the listing, unless the seller agrees.

Please contact the seller to request that your bid be canceled. However, it is up to the seller's discretion whether or not to cancel your bid.

Less than 12 hours before the listing ends
You can retract the bid within one hour of placing it. In this case, only that bid will be retracted; any other bid you placed before the last 12 hours of the listing remains valid.