Not much unfortunately. Ebay used to suspend a user's account if they did too many bid retactions. You are technically only supposed to be able to retract a bid if you entered an incorrect amount, or the seller had substantially changed the listing contents, or if they had some other change done that seemed not kosher. I don't know if they still enforce this, as it seems to be a big joke with some people, and must be a joke if ebay isn't enforcing it like they used to.

I would suspect that the current high bidder is a friend or another account of the seller or something similar.

On the thread on ebay sniping I talked about one of the reasons why I like the snipe software is because it avoids sellers who suss out the maximum proxy bid of bidders by upping a phoney bid until the phoney bidder comes out on top, and then retracting the bid to leave the genuine proxy bidder's bid maxed out as the high bid.

If I am correct, then there is nothing the seller should do because the seller is behind this.

If this happens repeatedly it should be reported as "shill bidding" and ebay will investigate it and suspend the account.

So the "bidder" with the high number of retractions is driving up the bid, then retracts with the seller's permission, leaving the next highest bidder as the winner.

Why do that at this point in the auction on this item? It has a reserve price.

Perhaps the other bidders have seen this too... there have been no bids for three days....

Denmark.....

Correct. That "technique" won't work with a reserve auction.

I believe the seller can cancel someone's bid at their discretion.

Not the same as a bid retraction. There are people out there that get paid to run scams for others on their auctions. They run until someone catches on and reports them, then they come back with a new profile. I personally would cancel any bidder that showed up on my stuff with more than 1 or 2, just to keep from having to allow it later anyway. I can tell you, that high occurrence of retraction is abnormal. Why would that many people allow someone out of a deal in the first place? Either it's a scam, or they are threatening seriously bad feedback? That would be grounds for filing a complaint, and in some states it could even end up in criminal prosecution. That would be considered extortion in my opine.

Sorry, I did not see the post by kevins. I get the whole thing. That is correct, you kill 'em before they mess up your deal, and then you got none, or you get more from the second chancer's, even tho I find that a slimy way to up the value of the sale. Personally, I would have to take the bidder that was highest st the time the "shill" entered and try to work something out, if I were stuck with the "shill" at any point.

I would second that.

As I stated before, its called shill bidding, and it should be reported to ebay, they will suspend all accounts involved.