How to retract a bid on eBay

Why would any one want to retract a bid on eBay? The idea is that you want to win the item right. Well I have retracted a couple of bids over the years. One of them was because I put the wrong amount in, $100.00 instead of $10.00. I use the bid retraction form and retracted my bid of $100 and then bid the $10. I did retract one bid because the seller would not respond to my emails once I put the bid on the item. I realised that the computer part may not work with what I already had and needed some information. I never got the information, even after I retracted my bid. I did not want to take the chance of buying some thing I could not use. The retractions showed up on my feedback for 6 months, but it did not cause sellers to reject my bids. It might have been different if I had retracted a lot of bids.

EBay will only let you retract a bid if it meets the requirements of their Bid Retraction policy. Fist you cannot retract a bid on a buy it now item or after an auction has ended. You can only retract your bid for three reasons.

If you made a typographical error, like I did, putting $100.00 instead of $10.00. You must enter the correct bid amount once you retract the first bid. Otherwise eBay will see your actions as a violation of eBay's policies and your account can be suspended.
The description of an item you have bid on changed significantly after you placed your bid. I have never seen this but I am sure it happens.
You cannot contact the seller. This means that you tried to call the seller, but his or her phone number doesn't work, or that you have tried emailing a message to the seller and it comes back undeliverable. I have had one seller not respond to emails and they did loose my bid when they don’t respond.

When you placed your bid and how long is left on the auction determines if you can retract your bid as well. You can retract a bid if there is more then 12 hrs left before the auction ends. You can retract the bid within one hour of placing it. If you had a bid placed before the last 12 hours of the auction remains valid and can only retract it if the seller agrees. You contact the seller to request that your bid be cancelled and it is up to the seller’s discretion to cancel the bid or not.

EBay investigates bid retractions. If they feel that you are abusing this option they can suspended your account. They also take a very close look at bids retracted within the last 24 hrs of a listing as it can be seen as bid shielding. So be careful when entering your bids and try not to retract bids very often.

Source: eBay