General view on closing auctions early when bids have been placed?

[Taffeta]

So there were some UK pony comic auctions. It's the second time in a month comic auctions have been mysteriously all closed at the same time. Last time was the seller initiating the sale because they just wanted rid of the comics - and there were no bids - but this time there were bids on the auctions.

This time all bids were cancelled on all the auctions (I was watching them), and yet no BIN auction appeared for the lot for someone to legitimately buy them all together.

I am not a fan of Ebay's add-a-BIN-do-a-private-sale routine, especially when it involves people's bids being cancelled to achieve it (I'm not sure really if that is allowed, tbh) - but surely it's 100% against ebay rules to sell auction items privately and accept a private offer without setting it up as a BIN?

Of course, there may be another reason that these auctions got taken down - which is why I'm not listing the name of the seller - but it looks mighty suspicious to me and I'm sure I wasn't the only person watching them.

What do people think?

[bluerose9978]

I know I as an eBay seller will get a ton of watchers on an auction and it will not sell. I call them dead-beat watchers. It's annoying. And I would rather sell it somehow than not at all. And I have taken down auctions down early that have had no bids when I've sold the ponies on the arena when I've had watchers. I figure that if the watchers were really interested they'd hit the BIN button or bid.

But if there are bidders, I think it's terrible for a seller to take the auction down and sell it to someone else. It is not fair for them to do that unless the bidders contacted the seller and said they changed their mind (which is not fair to the seller).

[Taffeta]

I know I as an eBay seller will get a ton of watchers on an auction and it will not sell. I call them dead-beat watchers. It's annoying. And I would rather sell it somehow than not at all. And I have taken down auctions down early that have had no bids when I've sold the ponies on the arena when I've had watchers. I figure that if the watchers were really interested they'd hit the BIN button or bid.

Hrm. I can understand that, I suppose - I've been on the other end, as a bidder who only watches stuff she has a genuine interest in buying if it doesn't go beyond her price limit, when auctions have vanished. But if a bidder chose to withdraw their bids, they can do that themselves, can't they? I've done it before when I accidentally bid on something that was not shipping to the UK so I didn't cause the seller hassle at the end. Also, why would a seller close an auction in that circumstance? You'd just let it run on, right?

Unless a kid saw them and wanted to keep them, or something bad happened to the item - I dunno. It seems kinda dodgy to me. I have made best offers on items with that option, but I admit if I see a pony on ebay that's also on here, I assume it's off limits till the auction has run. I didn't think of using ebay and the arena simultaneously...

[bluerose9978]

I've had to take bids off for buyers who didn't know how on more than one occasion. It's also possible that lone bidder contacted the seller and made an offer on all of them that the seller liked so the cancellation was mutual and then they used PayPal to finish the sale instead of eBay.

[ponylady]

I think people forget that when you are selling something on eBay, you are contracting with the eBay auction service to list your item for a fee. When the item sells, you have contracted to pay eBay a final value fee for the sale. It is a simple contractual agreement. If you violate the terms of the contract, well, that is cheating in my opinion. The thing is people still do it and make sales outside of eBay all the time. I believe it either has to do with folks knowing each other though or that there are buyers out there that prey on newbie sellers with an item that is in high demand.

I have had people e-mail me telling me an item was "overpriced" but that they would "do me a favor" and buy it for less than the minimum bid, if I would "end the auction early". These types of people are like the "early birds" at garage sales. They prey upon your insecurities and try to buy things for below market value by implying that they will never sell otherwise. "Sell it to me now," they are implying, "or lose your only hope of ever selling it."

If you want you can list the sellers name and perhaps we can take a look and see if this is a trending pattern with them. I know if I was watching an item or items from the same seller and it suddenly "disappeared" I would be like 

[northstar3184]

I know I as an eBay seller will get a ton of watchers on an auction and it will not sell. I call them dead-beat watchers. It's annoying.

I'm guilty of this. Lots of times I'm just curious how much something will sell for, especially rare nirvanas.

[bluerose9978]

I know I as an eBay seller will get a ton of watchers on an auction and it will not sell. I call them dead-beat watchers. It's annoying.

I'm guilty of this. Lots of times I'm just curious how much something will sell for, especially rare nirvanas.

I can see this on something rare or hard to find. But my auctions are mainly common ponies. And I'll have 8+ watchers and then it won't sell. And I'll be like really? With all those watchers? Not one bid?

[Taffeta]

I don't want to name the seller in case there is a legit reason for the auction being closed that has nothing to do with a private offer. I don't have any proof of this, and I'm not about to ruin the reputation of a seller if I don't have proof.

Bluerose, I know who the bidder was who had the bids cancelled, and I know they didn't make any offer, nor did they ask for the bid to be cancelled. It's part because of that that I asked the question, because otherwise I'd have made the same assumption. I didn't want to bring those details in because I was wanting to see generally what people thought about the situation overall. Either way the auctions are closed so there's nothing to be done about it. I was just wondering if the community's approach to such things had changed from the zero-tolerance stance back when I was on the TP and old Arena years ago.

I also had a similar perception of the ebay situation to ponylady - if it's on ebay, then it's a contractual obligation to sell the item through ebay. If it doesn't sell, then you can obviously sell it privately to someone elsewhere, but once it's listed, it's my understanding as a seller that I'm only allowed to accept a private offer if I put a BIN on the item for that person making the offer to buy it (and that's a fairly new development in the last 6 or 7 years). Otherwise you're evading the ebay fees and removing yourself from buyer and seller protection, which is generally frowned on by ebay and is pretty risky if you don't know who you're dealing with.

[ponylady]

The stance still remains the same here Taffeta on fellow collectors asking that an item be ended early  We don't tolerate it.

[Taffeta]

I have noticed it happening a lot more on ebay in general in pony auctions since I came back to the Arena, so that was another reason why I asked. I notice it with comics because I watch them regularly, but I have seen it with Nirvana as well.

I guess then that if there was a private offer involved, it wasn't someone in the pony community.

[bluerose9978]

Well if there's a bid on it, I think it's wrong for a seller to cancel.

However, if there are only watchers there are different reasons for canceling. Like I said I've cancelled because I've sold on the arena or TP from my website if there's not a bid. There has been times where I've had to turn arena members down because I forgot to put a hold on a pony because it already had a bid on eBay.

I've also had to take down auctions because I went into the hospital unexpectedly for a week a couple years ago. I had my husband end the auctions for me cuz the med I was on prevented me from being able to look at a computer screen very well.

[Taffeta]

Well if there's a bid on it, I think it's wrong for a seller to cancel.

However, if there are only watchers there are different reasons for canceling. Like I said I've cancelled because I've sold on the arena or TP if there's not a bid. There has been times where I've had to turn arena members down because I forgot to put a hold on a pony because it already had a bid on eBay.

I've also had to take down auctions because I went into the hospital unexpectedly for a week a couple years ago. I had my husband end the auctions for me cuz the med I was on prevented me from being able to look at a computer screen very well.

Yeah, thats why I'm not naming the seller. I have no way to know if there are personal or other circs influencing the decision which may have nothing to do with private offers. It just seems a bit odd.

And yes, there's a difference between bids and watchers, definitely. You also take a risk as a seller in closing the auction to an offer BIN early, because you sacrifice the chance of a last minute bid flurry, so that's almost something you take into consideration at the time. A quick sale now or a potential sale later...but if there are bids, I think that changes the perspective completely. A bid means you have someone interested, and the moment that happens, you have a contracted obligation to continue the auction to the end of its duration (unless you do a BIN with that buyer to end it sooner, I *think*?) or unless that bidder asks to cancel/cancels.

Sometimes too watchers have personal circs which affect their decision to bid. I won't bid on a pony if it goes out of my price bracket - I won't watch a pony that I have no interest in, but sometimes things happen which mean that you can't bid on that item. The other day I had three days when my ebay acct would not log in because my browser was buggy and I had to reinstall it. Things happen both ways (though I have also had deadbeat watcher situations on my auctions in the past. Once as many as 22...O.o)

[Galactica]

It's definitely not okay to end an auction early if there are bids-  it is not okay (and I would be surprised if it happened) for a buyer to contact a seller through ebay and try to negotiate a sale outside of ebay.  The reason I would be surprised is that ebay monitors the messages to some extent, and they exist as records- so if ebay ever found out that the buyer or seller had negotiated the sale of items listed on ebay- to try and exclude ebay- those parties could lose their buyer and seller rights! Definitely not worth the risk I would think.

I think what happens sometimes though is that stuff is listed on a forum (not necessarily the arena, but any collector forum). And then the items don't sell, so the person lists the stuff on ebay.  Maybe they still have a list up somewhere.  Then someone through hypotehtical collector forum decides they want various items after all and agrees to buy it.  At that point, SO LONG AS THERE ARE NO BIDS-  I really don't see anything wrong with the seller ending the ebay auctions in that situation and selling the items through the collector site.   Annoying yes, if you are a potential buyer and you have say entered a snip bid, only to find that the item ended early! But that is the risk the seller is taking by not letting the listing run it's natural course.  Also, seller risks having the buyer flake out without any of the seller protections ebay provides (like indemnity for lost packages where there is proof of mailing).

Also what might happen is that people list things like ponies on ebay- and then change their mind.  Honestly it has happened to me 

Regarding "watchers" - I don't think whether a listing has a watcher or not is at all relevant. There are ALWAYS watchers, even for items that never get a single bid! I figure they must just be watching out of curiosity, or to see how much a particular item is going for, or in the hopes the seller will re-list with a lower price.  It is possible also that they may be someone considering entering a bid- but if they haven't bid, than I think they have run the risk of missing out....

[lovesbabysquirmy]

Huge no-no in my book!!!  Unless it's obvious that it's been cross-posted to a number of sites , one sold and the seller needs to update, I would consider it highly suspicious!

[Wardah]

Regarding "watchers" - I don't think whether a listing has a watcher or not is at all relevant. There are ALWAYS watchers, even for items that never get a single bid! I figure they must just be watching out of curiosity, or to see how much a particular item is going for, or in the hopes the seller will re-list with a lower price.

That last one is what I sometimes do. Because I want the thing but I think their price is too high so I wait for the seller to lower it.