can you bid against yourself now on ebay????

duner

I kicked the habit for a while, but i bid on a couple of things over the past month or so. one thing that i've had happen to me at least 3 times, was that i put a higher bid in on an item i was already the high bidder for. low and behold, i raised my own high bid without any other competition bidding.

i've also had an instance where i was the only bidder on an item and the reserve was not met. i set a snipe on the item since i had only put a teaser bid in. the next day i find out i won the item...there were two bids, my initial bid at $50 which didn't meet the reserve, and my snipe. when my snipe was placed the bid went all up to the level where the reserve was met and i won the item...what on earth did i do that i bid twice and my second bid raised my initial bid another $50 and just enought to meet the reserve?

for years, i've raised my high bid and never bid against myself. what is going on????????
I've linked two examples below

example one
example 2

dallasactuary

Auction 2 worked correctly; in reserve auctions, think of bids of less than the reserve as "practice" bids - they don't really mean anything. The first (and only) REAL bid, your second bid, met (or exceeded) the reserve of $99.99 and you won the auction for that amount.

Auction 1 looks like a glitch. There were two rules at play here when you made your second bid: (1) you can't bid against yourself, and (2) bids should increment by $2.50 at that price level. Looks like the program logic favors (2) when, IMHO, (1) should take precedence. I'm certain that if you had made a third even higher bid it would not have changed the result.

AlanAllen

This is how it's always worked. In the first case your first bid was not a full bid increment over the underbidder, so your second bid bumped your bid of record to one bid increment over the underbidder. In the second case, the reserve was $99.99, so the only bids that count are those at $99.99 or higher.

Joe

fsjeter

I had the same thing happen to me on this auction. I didn't fuss about it because it's only pennies but it is happening. I placed a bid of $5.25 and was the high bidder at that amount. I then put in another bid of $6.75 and outbid myself. Like I said, it was only $0.29 so I didn't think about it too much. I don't know what's going on though.

Scott

BigKidAtHeart

pandrews

<< <i>It is called Shill-Bidding and
it is against the Ebay rules

and it is also AGAINST THE LAW
and Ebay is starting to bust people!
STORY >>



??

ZodiacMindwarp

It's not a glitch, it's not a mistake and it's not shill bidding.

AlanAllen said it accurately and succinctly:



<< <i>This is how it's always worked. In the first case your first bid was not a full bid increment over the underbidder, so your second bid bumped your bid of record to one bid increment over the underbidder. In the second case, the reserve was $99.99, so the only bids that count are those at $99.99 or higher. >>

MRyanF

NO this is NOT shill bidding.

You are free to bid as many times as you want on an item. You must misunderstand the topic. People here are not bidding up their own items they are selling, but are outbidding themselves on items that someone else is selling and they are buying.

Ex: I bid $5 dollars on a card that looks pretty good to me. I am the only bidder and have the high bid at $0.99. Later I figure out the card is much more rare than I thought and decide that I am willing to pay up to $1000. So I enter another bid. Perfectly legit. However, if there is no one else bidding, the second bid should NOT affect the first bid. If the selling price suddenly jumps to $5.50, then its a problem despite the fact that my max bid is higher than that.

GET IT??? There is only one person, ME, bidding on the auction, therefore the auction should reflect that, and still be going for the original $0.99.

ZodiacMindwarp

<< <i>Ex: I bid $5 dollars on a card that looks pretty good to me. I am the only bidder and have the high bid at $0.99. Later I figure out the card is much more rare than I thought and decide that I am willing to pay up to $1000. So I enter another bid. Perfectly legit. However, if there is no one else bidding, the second bid should NOT affect the first bid. If the selling price suddenly jumps to $5.50, then its a problem despite the fact that my max bid is higher than that. >>



This cannot and would not occur unless the reserve happens to be $5.50. The only way you can raise the selling price while you are the high bidder is when there is an underbidder whose high bid is less than one bidding increment below yours.

AndySomnifac

Isn't the definition of schill bidding to bid on your OWN auctions to artificially inflate the price? I fail to see how bidding incrementally higher on an item you are BUYING could possibly be construed as illegal. Especially when eBay has added the "increase your max bid" button (or whatever the exact wording is).