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Twice now I have purchased a relatively inexpensive item from the same seller on ebay. Both items had a buy it now price and a starting bid listed for about 10 dollars below the BIN price.
No bids so I wait for the last couple minutes of the auctions in both cases and place a bid about midway between the opening bid and the BIN price to save a few bucks. In both cases, I win the item but there is one other bidder that bids after me for the exact same amount as my max bid thus driving the price up to my max bid.
Coincidence? Somehow I think not. It was a different bidder each time that bid after me but the same seller. Because I was the first bidder and another bidder bid the same amount after me, I win the items. What do you think? ... coincidence? or can somebody related to the seller (or the seller himself) somehow find out what I bid or use a proxy bidding service that somehow knows what I bid and then matches my max bid to drive up the price?Hope that makes sense ... anyone know whats up?
Follow Ups:
I know this is an old post but I'm hoping to get some help on a similar issue. I recently won an item and noticed in the bid history that the same bidder had bid in small increments against me and other bidders at least 12 times. I set my reserve at 250 and they bid in increments of 10 from 200, but stopped as soon as my max bid was reached. I then raised my max bid to 300, and they did the exact same thing. The user had no feedback score and their account was opened on the exact same day that the auction started. I don't know how to prove their was a connection to the seller, or what could be done even if I could prove it. Any thoughts or suggestions?
You're certainly not the first to spot this sort of bidding. Its fairly common w/ BIN items. You bid $15.00 for a $20.00 BIN item w/ a $10.00 opening price. So far so good. You're whown as the lead bidder. Now, w/ a few moments left another bidder puts in a max bid of $15.00.... You bid first and had a max of $15.00, thus you're first in line so you're gonna win it for $15.00 The ebay system works for you as a "proxy" bidder, making an automatic bid to match the 2nd bidders max price.If the 2nd bidder had made a max bid of $15.01 against your $10.00 opening bid, he would have won the item for $15.01 since his max topped your max bid.
The Ebay system uses this "proxy bid" function anytime you make a bid above the next incremental bid amount; you bid $10.00 on a item w/ a $9.00 current bid, you'd be shown the top bidder @ $9.25 [$0.25 bid increment at this price level]. I've seen an item setting at $0.99 and at the last minute shoot up to over $100.00 because a single bidder put in a high max bid and last minute "sniper" bids pushed it up.
Hope this helps explain what happened.
Pete [Sniper Bids: One bid, One win] S.
Disturbed is a life style...deal with it.
Almost definitely a coincidence. Two additional thoughts:1. If a seller had an inside contact at eBay, it's POSSIBLE that it's not a coincidence.
2. Lets say #1 above is true, would they take the risk of being caught, to make a couple of extra dollars? I doubt it. A multi-thousand dollar auction could be a different story.
BTW, Len provided an excellent example of how one can raise their own bid price by placing an additional bid when they are already the high bidder (I have seen it happen).
I was bidding on an LP in the $10 price range and while I was the highest bidder, I decided to raise my own bid. It turned out that I was 'bidding against myself' and paid my maximum amount. I can't explain it, but since then I've been checking to see that 'proxy bidding' is in effect. Perhaps sellers can switch that feature off?
Tom
Hmmm ... that's interesting. I never thought of what would happen if you weren't happy with your own max and then made another, higher bid. You wouldn't think that ebay would be set up such that a bidder would compete against himself but then again, any excuse to raise the final value fee and make a little more money for itself I could see ebay doing. In my case, I just thought it fishy that twice, with the same sellers items, my max was exactly matched by another bidder making me the winner but at my max price. But as the other poster pointed out, it had to be coincidence ... I guess.
Guys, you can't bid against yourself. What likely happened with reuben is that he initially placed a max bid that outbid the previous winning bidder by a small margin less then the minimum bid increment. If you bid again with a higher value, ebay will bump your bid up to the minimum bid increment.For example, proxy bids between $500-999 are placed at $10 increments. If the current winning bid is $605.00 and you enter a max bid of $606.00, you will become the winning bidder. However, you did not meet the minimum bid increment. If you bid again with a max bid of $650.00, ebay will bump your bid up to $615 ($605 + $10 minimum bid increment). You aren't bidding against yourself, per se. You're simply meeting ebay's defined proxy bid increments.
There isn't as much foul play with ebay as people think there is. A lot of it is simply not understanding how some of the details work and presuming the worst.
Thanks Len.
It is impossible to find out what a bidder's max bid is. No such service exists nor could possibly exist in the ebay system. If you got a notice of bid retraction or multiple samll incremental competing bids, then there is a strong argument for foul play. If the bid history indicates <3 bids between two bidders, foul play is extremely unlikely.Your experience consists of a sampling size of two, so I would not jump to any conclusions. Besides, it is only a +/- margin of $5 between your bid and the BIN price.
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