Can I retract or cancel my bid?

A bid may be retracted (canceled) by the buyer in some cases if the retraction meets the requirements of our Bid Retraction policy.

Note: There is no equivalent for bid retraction in Buy It Now listings, or for listings where the bidding has ended. Once you've confirmed your purchase, you are obligated to pay the seller. There is also no equivalent for bid retraction for item listings using the Best Offer feature.

Whether you can retract your bid or not depends on the following factors:

Why you are retracting your bid.
When your bid was placed and when the listing ends.

You can retract a bid or a Best Offer for the following reasons:

You make a typographical error and enter the wrong bid amount. For instance, you bid $99.50 instead of $9.95. If this occurs, enter the correct bid amount immediately after you retract your bid. If you do not place another bid, the retraction will be in violation of eBay's policy and could result in your suspension. Please review the retraction guidelines if you need to retract your bid.
The description of an item you have bid on changed significantly after you placed your bid.
You cannot contact the seller. This means that you tried to call the seller, but the seller's phone number doesn't work, or that you have tried emailing a message to the seller and it comes back undeliverable.

When your bid was placed

What is allowed

What is not allowed

More than 12 hours before the listing ends

You can retract a bid with more than 12 hours left before the listing ends. When you do this, all your previous other bids will also be eliminated. Be sure to bid again if you are correcting a bidding error that you made.

You cannot retract the bid during the last 12 hours of the listing, unless the seller agrees.

Please contact the seller to request that your bid be canceled. However, it is up to the seller's discretion whether or not to cancel your bid.

Less than 12 hours before the listing ends

You can retract a bid within one hour of placing it. In this case, only that bid will be retracted; any other bid you placed before the last 12 hours of the listing remains valid.

Restriction: Your total number of bid retractions in the past twelve months is displayed in your Feedback Profile. eBay will thoroughly investigate bid retractions. Abuse of this feature may result in the suspension of your account. Bids retracted within the last 24 hours of a listing may be viewed as bid shielding, which is a serious violation of our policy.

Note: If you retract a bid on an active item that is in a Bid Assistant group, the entire group will be closed. No other bids will be placed on items in the group.

To retract a bid, use the Bid Retraction form.

To retract a best offer, use the Best Offer Retraction form.

Ask Other eBay Members – the Community Answer Center

You can get help from other eBay members by using the eBay Answer Center. Designed for fast questions and answers rather than discussion, the Answer Center is a member-to-member forum where eBay members can ask questions, give answers, and share information about eBay. You can also search for your answers from previous postings.

Learn more about the Answer Center or visit the Answer Center Board for Bidding.

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