Good morning. PWCC "data girl" here! Thanks for the post. You are correct that we place blocks on all user IDs that we identify with more than 25 bid retractions in the last 6 months. There is indeed a bidder in the auction you note with more than 25 retractions. I have placed a block on this user ID and have reached out to him/her explaining our policy.
Please note that our policy has almost been in place for six months, which was the time frame we agreed to set the threshold at 25. Soon we will begin reducing the threshold because we feel the bidding community has had enough opportunity to improve their behavior.
As was noted by others in this post, our challenge is that eBay doesn't allow us to restrict bidding based on retraction history; in fact, we have to review each bidder to determine their total number of retractions. We catch many of the bidders with retraction history outside our policy, but we are limited by the tools provided to us by eBay. We greatly appreciate the assistance of many in the bidding community. Please continue to send concerns to either me at
betsy@pwccauctions.com or our dedicated email address
bidmonitoring@pwccauctions.com.
Finally, yes - eBay is indeed partnering with us in trying to curtail bid retractions. For the first retraction with PWCC, eBay sends a warning email describing the pilot project. The second retraction with PWCC, eBay places a bidding restriction where that user ID can't bid at all on eBay for 14 days. The third retraction results in that user ID being suspended from eBay indefinitely.
Please don't hesitate to reach out with any questions about or feedback on this policy or pilot program.
Thank you!
Betsy Huigens