Cancelling bids

TerrorFirmer

I'm selling something and I expressively stated I would not sell to new members or members without at least 20 feedback. Lo and behold along come a few guys and bid on it, with 0 feedback. Can I just cancel these bids, or is that against Ebay policy? Because I don't want to have to go relisting it if one of the guys that wins has no feedback.

Judgement Day

Hope this may be useful.
As far as I know stating in your listing that you will only accept bids from people with 20+ feedbacks is not legal.

To add buyer requirements to your listings:

• In My eBay, under the My Account column, click the "Preferences" link.
  
• In the Site Preferences section, click the “Edit” link. The Buyer Requirements page opens.
  
• Select your buyer requirements. These include blocking buyers who:
  
  • Are registered in countries to which you don't post
    
  • Have a feedback score of -1,-2,-3 or lower
    
  • Have received two Unpaid Item strikes in the last 30 days
    
  • Have reportedly breached eBay policies
    
  • Are currently winning or have bought '1-100' of your items in the last 10 days
    
  • Do not have a PayPal account
    
  
  
• Click the Submit button to save your requirements.
  

The requirement(s) you select will be applied to your current and future listings and can be disabled at any time.
Note: The exception to this is the requirement that the buyers have a PayPal account. This requirement will apply to future listings only and can be disabled per item on the Sell Your Item form. Current listings, including good-'til-cancelled and selling tool templates, will not be affected. You'll need to revise these listings or templates to enable this requirement.
Requiring buyers to have a PayPal account does not mean that the buyer must pay for the item using PayPal. It only requires that the buyer be a PayPal account holder before they can bid on or purchase the item through whichever payment method you accept.
You can use buyer requirements to reduce your chance of experiencing a buyer who doesn't pay for the item they have won or agreed to purchase. For example, eBay has found that buyers who are also PayPal account holders have up to an 80% lower Unpaid Item rate than buyers who are not PayPal account holders.

JJ

As the seller, you're free to cancel bids as you please. If you're the bidder that's where eBay policy kicks in with restrictions on when you're supposed to cancel.

Judgement Day

As I understand it the seller can end the auction any time but the OP doesn't want to have to go through the hassle of relisting. I cannot see any mechanism on eBay for cancelling specific bids from individuals which is what you seem to be suggesting. In hindsight the OP should have set his Buyer Requirements so that bidders with 0 to -3 feedback could not bid. Stating that buyers with less than 20 positive feedbacks were not allowed to bid is meaningless. I have been trading on eBay for some years but their guidelines are far from User Friendly and this is my interpretation of the rules.

JJ

The seller can cancel specific bids by going on to the Bid History page and clicking on the "cancel bids" link near the bottom of that page or by going straight here:

http://pages.ebay.ie/help/sell/cancel_bids.html

And if the seller wants to block the bidder after cancelling his bid, he can do so here:

http://cgi1.ebay.ie/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?bidderblocklogin

JJ

Also, I would presume that the OP is selling some kind of highly sought after gadget type item (mobile phone, sat nav, mp3 player). These types of items are a target for buying scams so it's understandable that you wouldn't want new members bidding on your item though saying you won't accept bids from members unless they have at least a feedback score of 20 is a little harsh.

The best thing to do in this situation is to set your buyer requirements so that buyers with no credit card on file and a feedback score of 0-5 or less can't bid on your items. You can set your buyer requirements in the Site Preferences section of your My eBay.

TerrorFirmer

Thanks guys. Didn't realise you could set preferences. Wouldn't you know, guy who bought it registered yesterday and has 0 feedback. :rolleyes:

TerrorFirmer

Does this mean I've to pay ebay for a final value fee (13 euro) even though the item didn't really sell, as no way I'm sending to south america to a user registered yesterday with 0 feedback. :mad:

JJ

You can file an Unpaid Item Dispute (http://pages.ebay.ie/help/sell/unpaid-items.html) after 7 days or immediately if the buyer becomes NARU (no longer registered), which seems very likely to happen in this case. I'd recommend reporting that buyer to eBay, especially if that buyer tries to send you a fake payment.

Judgement Day

Thanks JJ for that tip on cancelling specific bids - I might never have come across it.

Another point that the OP might like to consider for future listings is to specify 'carefully' what countries they will post to. I know there are chancers in every country but posting to countries with Third World type postal sysytems like Eastern Europe, South America, Spain, and France is asking for more trouble than its worth.