16 Sep
1999
16 Sep
'99
12:53 p.m.
This agrees with my statement. Note that you do not
have to cancel bids if
the reserve was not met and you don't want to sell. And your "valid reason"
need be nothing more than you felt like it. Yes, you are obligated to sell
to the legitimate high bidder (which presumably happened in the HP2114
case)
Ah - but if you look further into the rules for cancelling, it states:
You should only cancel bids if you have a good reason
to. Also, please
remember that bids cannot be reinstated once they've been canceled. Here
are a few examples of a legitimate cancellation:
Bidder contacts you to back out of the bid.
You cannot verify the identity of the bidder, after trying all
reasonable means of contact.
You want to end your auction early because you no longer want to sell
your item. In this case you must cancel all bids on your auction
before ending the auction.
Note the last one here... "because you no longer want to sell your item".
This is not the same as no longer wanting to sell your item *on ebay*
because you have been offerred more off ebay...
I guess my feeling is that what the seller did was unethical since he did
want to sell the item. If he wanted to sell the item, and put it up for
bid, then he is accepting the risk, like anyone else, of not getting what
they would like for it. That should not be sufficient cause for stopping
the auction and making those who bid in good faith suffer from his
greediness.
Because your cancellation will be put in the bidding
history for this
auction, bidders may ask you to explain your cancellation. So, please
include a one-line explanation of your cancellation for the official
record.
And from all the questions about what happened to the auction, and why
it was ended early... it would appear the seller didn't even do this.
Megan Gentry
Former RT-11 Developer
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