.
.
I agree Joe, there's no reason why a new user with no feedback can't start bidding.
But the thing is, I have had some problems in the past with eBay newbies who may not understand the binding nature of a bid. They sometimes will bid something way up, then want to back out with some lame excuse when they win the auction.
"Someone else accessed my account and placed a bid." "I accidentally entered too many zeros on my bid." "I was drunk when I bid and didn't mean to." "The cat did it." And then they want to back out, which, as I said, tends to "taint" the listing; re-listing is seldom successful.
I do try to give new users the benefit of the doubt. In this case, I was leery because of the obsessive number of bids he kept placing, even after he was already the high bidder. That is why I sent this bidder an email asking him to verify that he would make good on his bid if he won. He did not reply. That is not a good sign.
After getting his contact information and placing a phone call, I found out that the phone number on his account is false. Another bad sign.
I contacted eBay and they did some checking. While they won't reveal the nature of the results of their investigation, when I saw that they cancelled all his bids, that told me all I need to know about this user.
If, however, the bidder had replied to my email and said he would make good on his bid, then he would still (presumably) be the high bidder.
