Bidding Against Yourself?

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I'm not sure if they've just recently fixed this but I bid on something the
other day and there was a link asking if I wanted to increase my maximum bid
amount. I would understand that to be simply increasing the top end of my
bid, not necessarily "re-bidding" at a higher rate.

Mike.

--


mikerekka at hotmail dot com hates spam


"Mike Rivers" <mrivers@d-and-d.com> wrote in message
news:znr1109252025k@trad...
>
> There was an article on Morning Edition today about someone filing a
> class action suit against eBay for luring him into pushing up the
> auction price by encouraging the current high bidder to increase his
> proxy bid.
>
> Seems like someone got an e-mail message from eBay telling him that he
> was currently the high bidder, and to secure his winning position, he
> should raise his bid. So he did, and discovered that the price went up
> by the bid increment.
>
> Of course this is the way it works when someone else has the high bid
> and you bid higher, but apparently the data base doesn't recognize
> that you're modifying your bid limit rather than placing a new bid. I
> guess you eBay regulars who never bid until the last minute never have
> to worry about this, and occasional bidders like me decide how much we
> want to bid, bid that amount (whenever) and if we get a notice that we
> win, we buy, otherwise we let it go. But there are apparently some
> people out there who don't understand the procedure and have been
> misled.
>
> eBay is "studying" this.
>
>
>
> --
> I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
> However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
> lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
> you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
> and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

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In article <FgnTd.493900$8l.482124@pd7tw1no> mikerekka@hotmail.com writes:

> I'm not sure if they've just recently fixed this but I bid on something the
> other day and there was a link asking if I wanted to increase my maximum bid
> amount. I would understand that to be simply increasing the top end of my
> bid, not necessarily "re-bidding" at a higher rate.

Well, there's usually a pretty long time between the occurrence of a
problem and the lawsuit, so I don't know how long ago this occurred.
Perhaps it has been fixed. Or maybe not.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

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Recently, Mike Rivers <mrivers@d-and-d.com> posted:

> There was an article on Morning Edition today about someone filing a
> class action suit against eBay for luring him into pushing up the
> auction price by encouraging the current high bidder to increase his
> proxy bid.
>
> Seems like someone got an e-mail message from eBay telling him that he
> was currently the high bidder, and to secure his winning position, he
> should raise his bid. So he did, and discovered that the price went up
> by the bid increment.
>
That sounds odd. You typically get a bid confirmation e-mail and also get
an outbid notice if applicable. But, you don't have to do anything about
it in either case.

> Of course this is the way it works when someone else has the high bid
> and you bid higher, but apparently the data base doesn't recognize
> that you're modifying your bid limit rather than placing a new bid.
>
I've made a few purchases on eBay using proxy bidding, and I've never seen
that happen. The bid price goes up by other bidders, and as long as your
proxy bid is still above theirs, the new purchase price is the last bid +
the increment set by the seller. For example, if the previous bid is
$45.00, "next bid" increment is $0.50, and your maximum proxy bid is
$200.00, the new bid price to beat is $45.50, not $200. I've even
increased my bid amount due to second thoughts prior to other bids being
placed, and my previous winning bid wasn't increased at all.

All that said, I know that there are sometimes "shill" bidders that drive
up the price without any intention to purchase the item. And, if someone
has more than one eBay identity, then they could bid against themselves.
But, there isn't much eBay can do about that.

Regards,

Neil

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In article <FWoTd.8673$c_.6397@newssvr31.news.prodigy.com> neil@myplaceofwork.com writes:

> That sounds odd. You typically get a bid confirmation e-mail and also get
> an outbid notice if applicable. But, you don't have to do anything about
> it in either case.

Of course not, but apparently there was something in the automated
message this person received that encouraged him to raise his bid,
which he did, and found that this resulted in raising the selling
price of the item with himself still as the highest bidder.

> I've made a few purchases on eBay using proxy bidding, and I've never seen
> that happen. The bid price goes up by other bidders, and as long as your
> proxy bid is still above theirs, the new purchase price is the last bid +
> the increment set by the seller.

Right. So you have a bit in for $53 and the current selling price is
$39. So you're safe until someone bids higher than $53. But then you
get a message suggesting that you raise your bid, you put in a bid for
$60, and immediately see the selling price increase to $40.

This didn't happen to me, and I wasn't there. All I know is how I
heard it described on the radio. But everything suspicious with eBay
interests me - makes me a little gleeful that I don't participate.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

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"Mike Rivers" <mrivers@d-and-d.com> wrote in message
news:znr1109280945k@trad...

>
> Of course not, but apparently there was something in the automated
> message this person received that encouraged him to raise his bid,
> which he did, and found that this resulted in raising the selling
> price of the item with himself still as the highest bidder.
>
Sounds fishy to me that it is an ebay problem. Sounds more likely the bidder
didn't understand the terms of the auction, and didn't disclose all the
details.

I'm guessing the seller had a reserve price, and the bidder's first bid was
the high bid but didn't match the reserve. So even if he won the seller
would be under no obligation to sell it for lower than the reserve. He would
have gotten a prompt to say "You are the high bidder, but your maximum bid
hasn't matched the reserve price."

So, the bidder was prompted to raise his bid to make the reserve. So he did,
and the next bid coincidentally matched the reserve, so his bit was raised
to the reserve price. If he had bid AGAIN after that, bid amount should not
have increased, though he would have raised his proxy amount.

"If your maximum bid is the first to meet or exceed the reserve price, the
effective bid displayed will automatically be raised to the reserve price."
http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/buyer-reserve.html

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"Mike Rivers" <mrivers@d-and-d.com> wrote in message
news:znr1109280945k@trad

> Right. So you have a bit in for $53 and the current selling price is
> $39. So you're safe until someone bids higher than $53. But then you
> get a message suggesting that you raise your bid, you put in a bid for
> $60, and immediately see the selling price increase to $40.

Guess what. The guy who sent you the email is going to start playing that
fish on his line - you.

> This didn't happen to me, and I wasn't there. All I know is how I
> heard it described on the radio. But everything suspicious with eBay
> interests me - makes me a little gleeful that I don't participate.

Based on 50 completed transactions totalling $1,000's, it is my presumption
that some sellers are bidding on their own auctions to drive the prices up.
It's just another kind of reserve auction in their view.

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"Matt Macchiarolo" <matt@nospamplease.com> wrote in message
news:ZLOdnbTaSrhU9YPfRVn-uw@comcast.com...
>
>
> "Mike Rivers" <mrivers@d-and-d.com> wrote in message
> news:znr1109280945k@trad...
>
>>
>> Of course not, but apparently there was something in the automated
>> message this person received that encouraged him to raise his bid,
>> which he did, and found that this resulted in raising the selling
>> price of the item with himself still as the highest bidder.
>>
> Sounds fishy to me that it is an ebay problem. Sounds more likely the
> bidder didn't understand the terms of the auction, and didn't disclose all
> the details.

I think what (probably) happened was that the auction in question had at
least two people using the automatic bid feature, so each time someone new
came in & entered a bid, you had at least a couple of individuals' auto-bids
running up the numbers, and as soon as it hit their maximum bid, they each
got an automatic e-mail asking if they wanted to increase thier bid level.
This happened to me once - it's no big deal, IMO.

Unless there's something I'm missing in this story.

Neil Henderson

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In article <ZLOdnbTaSrhU9YPfRVn-uw@comcast.com> matt@nospamplease.com writes:

> Sounds fishy to me that it is an ebay problem. Sounds more likely the bidder
> didn't understand the terms of the auction, and didn't disclose all the
> details.

Hey, what can I say? I heard it on NPR, all of about 30 seconds worth.
I'm sure there are a lot of details missing and we'll probably never
know. I just never like to miss an opportunity to take a jab at eBay.

> I'm guessing the seller had a reserve price, and the bidder's first bid was
> the high bid but didn't match the reserve. So even if he won the seller
> would be under no obligation to sell it for lower than the reserve. He would
> have gotten a prompt to say "You are the high bidder, but your maximum bid
> hasn't matched the reserve price."

> "If your maximum bid is the first to meet or exceed the reserve price, the
> effective bid displayed will automatically be raised to the reserve price."
> http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/buyer-reserve.html

I suppose that could explain how his bid jumped from wherever it was
to the reserve, but he said it jumped by the bid increment. Seems like
quite a coincidence that he was below the reserve by just the
incremental amount, but I suppose it could happen. If his message had
explained that he was still under the reserve, this wasn't explained
in the radio version.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

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Recently, Mike Rivers <mrivers@d-and-d.com> posted:

> In article <FWoTd.8673$c_.6397@newssvr31.news.prodigy.com>
> neil@myplaceofwork.com writes:
>
>> I've made a few purchases on eBay using proxy bidding, and I've
>> never seen that happen. The bid price goes up by other bidders, and
>> as long as your proxy bid is still above theirs, the new purchase
>> price is the last bid + the increment set by the seller.
>
> Right. So you have a bit in for $53 and the current selling price is
> $39. So you're safe until someone bids higher than $53. But then you
> get a message suggesting that you raise your bid, you put in a bid for
> $60, and immediately see the selling price increase to $40.
>
This exact thing would happen if someone else's proxy bid was $39.25. Your
proxy bid outbids them, and there's no indication of their bid for you to
see. I'd think this is both reasonable and expected computer behavior.

> This didn't happen to me, and I wasn't there. All I know is how I
> heard it described on the radio. But everything suspicious with eBay
> interests me - makes me a little gleeful that I don't participate.
>
Ah... just gloating? ;-)

Regards,

Neil

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In article <WTETd.8804$Lh3.3188@newssvr31.news.prodigy.com> neil@myplaceofwork.com writes:

> > So you have a bit in for $53 and the current selling price is
> > $39. So you're safe until someone bids higher than $53. But then you
> > get a message suggesting that you raise your bid, you put in a bid for
> > $60, and immediately see the selling price increase to $40.
> >
> This exact thing would happen if someone else's proxy bid was $39.25. Your
> proxy bid outbids them, and there's no indication of their bid for you to
> see. I'd think this is both reasonable and expected computer behavior.

I don't think it's either reasonable or expected computer behavior. If
there was a $39.25 bid sitting on the item and you bid $53, the
current price would go up to $40.25, assuming the bid increment was
$1.

If you had a bid of $53 in and the current price was $39.00, someone
who bids $39.25 wouldn't see a change in price, but would probably get
a message saying he didn't raise the bid by the minimum amount.

This is just too much for me to try to guess. Personally, I wouldn't
be worried about paying an extra dollar, but I would be bothered by
the CONCEPT, and I think that's probably what the lawsuit is really
about.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

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Recently, Mike Rivers <mrivers@d-and-d.com> posted:

> neil@myplaceofwork.com writes:
>
>>> So you have a bit in for $53 and the current selling price is
>>> $39. So you're safe until someone bids higher than $53. But then you
>>> get a message suggesting that you raise your bid, you put in a bid
>>> for $60, and immediately see the selling price increase to $40.
>>>
>> This exact thing would happen if someone else's proxy bid was
>> $39.25. Your proxy bid outbids them, and there's no indication of
>> their bid for you to see. I'd think this is both reasonable and
>> expected computer behavior.
>
> I don't think it's either reasonable or expected computer behavior. If
> there was a $39.25 bid sitting on the item and you bid $53, the
> current price would go up to $40.25, assuming the bid increment was
> $1.
>
I think we're getting tangled up a bit, Mike. If the current high bid (by
someone else) was $39, the bid increment was $1, and you placed a proxy
bid for $53, the current bid would reflect you as high bidder at a price
of $40. That seems reasonable and expected behavior to me.

OTOH, if it was *your* bid for $39, and you decided that it might be a bit
low and placed a new proxy bid for $53, there shouldn't be any increase in
the current price. If there was, it would be a problem. But, I haven't
seen that happen yet.

> If you had a bid of $53 in and the current price was $39.00, someone
> who bids $39.25 wouldn't see a change in price, but would probably get
> a message saying he didn't raise the bid by the minimum amount.
>
That *is* what happens, in my experience. The bid is not posted, and an
opportunity to raise the bid is presented.

> This is just too much for me to try to guess. Personally, I wouldn't
> be worried about paying an extra dollar, but I would be bothered by
> the CONCEPT, and I think that's probably what the lawsuit is really
> about.
>
I'm puzzled; what is it about the concept that bothers you?

Regards,

Neil

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In article <afLTd.12226$hU7.4936@newssvr33.news.prodigy.com> neil@myplaceofwork.com writes:

> I think we're getting tangled up a bit, Mike. If the current high bid (by
> someone else) was $39, the bid increment was $1, and you placed a proxy
> bid for $53, the current bid would reflect you as high bidder at a price
> of $40. That seems reasonable and expected behavior to me.

I agree.

> OTOH, if it was *your* bid for $39, and you decided that it might be a bit
> low and placed a new proxy bid for $53, there shouldn't be any increase in
> the current price. If there was, it would be a problem. But, I haven't
> seen that happen yet.

Apparently this was the situation that I heard described on the radio.
But like I said, I don't know when that happened (or even exactly what
happened but it seemed pretty clear from the description) so it might
have been a short-term bug that was fixed and forgotten about.

> > This is just too much for me to try to guess. Personally, I wouldn't
> > be worried about paying an extra dollar, but I would be bothered by
> > the CONCEPT, and I think that's probably what the lawsuit is really
> > about.
> >
> I'm puzzled; what is it about the concept that bothers you?

The concept that the computer system allowed him to bid against
himself by entering a higher bid when he was already the highest
bidder and seeing the selling price go up. It should be smart enough
to protect dumb people. And also that the system sent him a message
encouraging him to do this.

Now I suppose that it could have been a sham - that the message didn't
really come from eBay, but from the seller or a shill, who knew about
this bug and figured that he could raise the price a bit.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

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Neil Gould wrote:

> OTOH, if it was *your* bid for $39, and you decided that it might be a bit
> low and placed a new proxy bid for $53, there shouldn't be any increase in
> the current price. If there was, it would be a problem. But, I haven't
> seen that happen yet.

I have. I raised my max bid amount out of curiousity on a cheapo item
and that is what happens. The current amount goes up by the minimum "see
ya/raise ya" amount, just as if you'd never bid earlier or as if someone
else had bid.

--
ha

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Mike Rivers wrote in <znr1109295516k@trad>:

>In article <ZLOdnbTaSrhU9YPfRVn-uw@comcast.com> matt@nospamplease.com writes:
>
>> Sounds fishy to me that it is an ebay problem. Sounds more likely the bidder
>> didn't understand the terms of the auction, and didn't disclose all the
>> details.

Listen here:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=45...

>Hey, what can I say? I heard it on NPR, all of about 30 seconds worth.

Actually, it was a bit more :-)

SM
--
reply-to works, even if it doesn't look as if it did.

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"hank alrich" <walkinay@thegrid.net> wrote in message
news:1gsjlqy.4s0jb01ckavhoN%walkinay@thegrid.net...
> Neil Gould wrote:
>
>> OTOH, if it was *your* bid for $39, and you decided that it might be a
>> bit
>> low and placed a new proxy bid for $53, there shouldn't be any increase
>> in
>> the current price. If there was, it would be a problem. But, I haven't
>> seen that happen yet.
>
> I have. I raised my max bid amount out of curiousity on a cheapo item
> and that is what happens. The current amount goes up by the minimum "see
> ya/raise ya" amount, just as if you'd never bid earlier or as if someone
> else had bid.

Yeah, this can happen if you have at least one person using the automatic
bid (proxy bid) feature, and their max bid that they've entered is higher
than the last bid you placed.

Neil Henderson

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Mike Rivers wrote:

<snip>

> It should be smart enough
>to protect dumb people.

It is expectations such as this that, in my opinion, are at the root of
much that is wrong in America today.

<snip>

--
========================================================================
Michael Kesti | "And like, one and one don't make
| two, one and one make one."
mkesti@gv.net | - The Who, Bargain

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In article <ZETTd.19608$D34.13083@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com> neil.henderson@sbcglobal.netNOSPAM writes:

> Yeah, this can happen if you have at least one person using the automatic
> bid (proxy bid) feature, and their max bid that they've entered is higher
> than the last bid you placed.


But if the last bid they entered was higher than your bid, then they'd
be the high bidder, not you.

Or maybe this is what happens: The current price is $30. Your current
proxy bid is $40. The minimum bid increment is $1. When someone
bids higher than $31, the price will go up by a dollar. So someone
enters a bid of $40.25. Now he's the highest bidder, so the price goes
up to $31. Now, when you get the message suggesting that you raise
your bid, you do, and then you become the highest bidder so the price
goes up to $32. But what you didn't notice was that the bid had
already gone up by $1 (indicating that there was another bid since
your last one).

So this is expected.

However if you had looked at the price, saw that it was still less
than your high bid but more than it was when you placed that bid, it's
an indication that there's a bid sitting in the pot that's higher than
yours and that if you're willing to pay more than the current price,
you'd better raise your bid. So you bid $50. Since there's a $40.25
bid sitting there that you've now topped, and the price goes up to
$41.25 when it was at $31 (or $30, I lose track?) at the time you put
in the new bid. That would indeed tend to piss one off, but it's not
bidding against yourself, it's bidding against the person whose bid
was just a few cents higher than your last bid.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

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Recently, Neil Henderson <neil.henderson@sbcglobal.netNOSPAM> posted:

> "hank alrich" <walkinay@thegrid.net> wrote in message
> news:1gsjlqy.4s0jb01ckavhoN%walkinay@thegrid.net...
>> Neil Gould wrote:
>>
>>> OTOH, if it was *your* bid for $39, and you decided that it might
>>> be a bit
>>> low and placed a new proxy bid for $53, there shouldn't be any
>>> increase in
>>> the current price. If there was, it would be a problem. But, I
>>> haven't seen that happen yet.
>>
>> I have. I raised my max bid amount out of curiousity on a cheapo item
>> and that is what happens. The current amount goes up by the minimum
>> "see ya/raise ya" amount, just as if you'd never bid earlier or as
>> if someone else had bid.
>
> Yeah, this can happen if you have at least one person using the
> automatic bid (proxy bid) feature, and their max bid that they've
> entered is higher than the last bid you placed.
>
That's the only way I've seen this happen, too. I've raised my own proxy
on a few items, and my current "high bid" price didn't change at all. I
realize that my own experience is just one more data point, and that
perhaps this did happen to someone else, but I'd think it to be a fluke
rather than the way proxy bids usually works.

Neil

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Recently, Mike Rivers <mrivers@d-and-d.com> posted:

> neil@myplaceofwork.com writes:
>
>> OTOH, if it was *your* bid for $39, and you decided that it might be
>> a bit low and placed a new proxy bid for $53, there shouldn't be any
>> increase in the current price. If there was, it would be a problem.
>> But, I haven't seen that happen yet.
>
> Apparently this was the situation that I heard described on the radio.
> But like I said, I don't know when that happened (or even exactly what
> happened but it seemed pretty clear from the description) so it might
> have been a short-term bug that was fixed and forgotten about.
>
Or, the person simply misinterpreted what actually happened (more below).

>>> This is just too much for me to try to guess. Personally, I wouldn't
>>> be worried about paying an extra dollar, but I would be bothered by
>>> the CONCEPT, and I think that's probably what the lawsuit is really
>>> about.
>>>
>> I'm puzzled; what is it about the concept that bothers you?
>
> The concept that the computer system allowed him to bid against
> himself by entering a higher bid when he was already the highest
> bidder and seeing the selling price go up. It should be smart enough
> to protect dumb people. And also that the system sent him a message
> encouraging him to do this.
>
> Now I suppose that it could have been a sham - that the message didn't
> really come from eBay, but from the seller or a shill, who knew about
> this bug and figured that he could raise the price a bit.
>
An interesting speculation, and a more plausible explanation than proxy
bidding software working differently for different people. Another
possibility is that someone else placed a bid at the same time that was
just under the complainer's new proxy bid. Being outbid in this situation
may not show the intermediate bid that drove up the price.

Regards,

Neil

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Recently, Mike Rivers <mrivers@d-and-d.com> posted:

> neil.henderson@sbcglobal.netNOSPAM writes:
>
>> Yeah, this can happen if you have at least one person using the
>> automatic bid (proxy bid) feature, and their max bid that they've
>> entered is higher than the last bid you placed.
>
> But if the last bid they entered was higher than your bid, then they'd
> be the high bidder, not you.
>
[...]
>
> However if you had looked at the price, saw that it was still less
> than your high bid but more than it was when you placed that bid, it's
> an indication that there's a bid sitting in the pot that's higher than
> yours and that if you're willing to pay more than the current price,
> you'd better raise your bid. So you bid $50. Since there's a $40.25
> bid sitting there that you've now topped, and the price goes up to
> $41.25 when it was at $31 (or $30, I lose track?) at the time you put
> in the new bid. That would indeed tend to piss one off, but it's not
> bidding against yourself, it's bidding against the person whose bid
> was just a few cents higher than your last bid.
>
OK. I'm currently bidding on an item, so I thought i'd test the idea of
"bidding against oneself" to confirm what really happens.

* My first proxy bid was well above the current bid price, but as it turns
out, below someone else's proxy bid. I immediately got an "outbid" message
along with the opportunity to post a higher bid. Both my bid and the
higher bid from the proxy were displayed.

* I entered a higher proxy bid, and became the "high bidder". There is an
option to "increase your chances of winning" by placing a higher proxy,
so, I decided to test the process as we've been discussing it and posted a
higher proxy. Both of my bids were displayed, both with the *same* bid
amount equal to the bid increment ($10) above the other bidder's highest
proxy.

So, my bid did not up the ante in this auction, which is the same way I
remember this process working before.

Regards,

Neil

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In article <YijUd.4095$DW.1530@newssvr17.news.prodigy.com> neil@myplaceofwork.com writes:

> OK. I'm currently bidding on an item, so I thought i'd test the idea of
> "bidding against oneself" to confirm what really happens.
>
> * My first proxy bid was well above the current bid price, but as it turns
> out, below someone else's proxy bid. I immediately got an "outbid" message
> along with the opportunity to post a higher bid. Both my bid and the
> higher bid from the proxy were displayed.

So you didn't bid enough. That's understandable. In order to change
the price, you have to be the highest bidder and you weren't.

> * I entered a higher proxy bid, and became the "high bidder". There is an
> option to "increase your chances of winning" by placing a higher proxy,
> so, I decided to test the process as we've been discussing it and posted a
> higher proxy. Both of my bids were displayed, both with the *same* bid
> amount equal to the bid increment ($10) above the other bidder's highest
> proxy.
>
> So, my bid did not up the ante in this auction, which is the same way I
> remember this process working before.

So now you were the higest bidder and the selling price, while still
below your bid, jumped by the bid increment. That seems reasonable.
But you were given some information that told you that you were still
outbid. So you weren't making a blind decision to raise your bid, and
you understood that doing so would raise the current price. Nothing
wrong there. You expect the selling price to go up when you bid higher
than anyone else.

The thing that confuses many sellers, I guess, is that it doesn't work
like a real auction. If the current price is $10 and you bid $50, in a
real auction, the selling price becomes $50, not $11, and everyone
knows this. Anyone who thinks it's worth only $25 shuts up and after
the "Going three times" it's sold. But the possibility of getting
something for less than you think it's worth leads to the
cat-and-mouse games which are characteristic of eBay auctions.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Recently, Mike Rivers <mrivers@d-and-d.com> posted:

> neil@myplaceofwork.com writes:
>
>> * I entered a higher proxy bid, and became the "high bidder". There
>> is an option to "increase your chances of winning" by placing a
>> higher proxy, so, I decided to test the process as we've been
>> discussing it and posted a higher proxy. Both of my bids were
>> displayed, both with the *same* bid amount equal to the bid
>> increment ($10) above the other bidder's highest proxy.
>>
>> So, my bid did not up the ante in this auction, which is the same
>> way I remember this process working before.
>
> So now you were the higest bidder and the selling price, while still
> below your bid, jumped by the bid increment. That seems reasonable.
> But you were given some information that told you that you were still
> outbid.
>
To be clear, there was no "outbid notice", just an option to increase my
chances by increasing the maximum proxy; it's an option, and clearly
presented as such.

> So you weren't making a blind decision to raise your bid, and
> you understood that doing so would raise the current price. Nothing
> wrong there. You expect the selling price to go up when you bid higher
> than anyone else.
>
The current selling price *did not change* after I increased my proxy bid,
which is what the complaint described in this thread claimed . Both of my
bid entries displayed as the same amount, which is well below the proxy
amount that I entered.

> The thing that confuses many sellers, I guess, is that it doesn't work
> like a real auction. If the current price is $10 and you bid $50, in a
> real auction, the selling price becomes $50, not $11, and everyone
> knows this.
>
Well... it does sort of work like a real auction. If you send someone to
the auction to represent you, they are a proxy bidder. You tell them how
much you are willing to pay at most, and they keep bidding until that
amount is outbid. Same principle at work, here.

> Anyone who thinks it's worth only $25 shuts up and after
> the "Going three times" it's sold. But the possibility of getting
> something for less than you think it's worth leads to the
> cat-and-mouse games which are characteristic of eBay auctions.
>
A lot of people play those games, which also happens at real auctions. I
look at it as "frenzy behavior". I typically bid what the item is worth to
me, and if I don't get it, so be it.

Regards,

Neil

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Neil Gould wrote:

> I typically bid what the item is worth to me, and if I don't get it, so be
> it.

A great way to save money and conserve adrenaline for its proper
application. <g>

--
ha

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"Neil Gould" <neil@myplaceofwork.com> writes:
>An interesting speculation, and a more plausible explanation than proxy
>bidding software working differently for different people. Another
>possibility is that someone else placed a bid at the same time that was
>just under the complainer's new proxy bid. Being outbid in this situation
>may not show the intermediate bid that drove up the price.

OTOH, if Ebay is running distributed servers, it's possible that only
SOME of them have the "bug". This could explain why only some people
are experiencing the problem.