Last-minute auction bid withdrawn; item sold to nine users for less than half

Question

Hello everyone,The bidding activity at my auction seems suspicious to meThe bids were around €80 when, shortly after the start of the last hour, two unusually high bids (for this item and in general) came in, causing the price to shoot up to over €190.However, in the last three seconds of the auction, one of the bids was retracted and the price dropped by more than half, so the item was sold for “only” €83. Both accounts that placed these high bids only bid once on my item, and they did so...

der_helle_simon · Accepted Answer

I’ve now learned that this is the "bid shielding" scam (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bid-shielding).Meanwhile, I’ve spoken with eBay customer service. I was advised to cancel the sale, block the buyer, and relist the item. In addition, the support agent filed an additional report against the buyer for bid retraction, which is then to be investigated by a separate team.It could not be ruled out that the buyer might leave me negative feedback. However, I can ask customer service to review this ne...