what goes on with ebay - am I a doofus?

[FirePower]

Having got one pin I realise the addiction and so have been watching ebay to see how sales go. I have never bought anything on ebay so have just started watching to get a feel of prices and how it all works.  Now I reckon there has probably never been a straight auction in the history of the universe (except those that start at a high price and drop the price with the first to bid getting the item) but can anyone explain what has happened here?  Below is a screen copy of the bidding that went on with the fairly rough  Whirl-wind.

What is bidder u***e up to?  With the same rating of 157 is it the same person with the second and third last bids? He had the high bid of $610 at 19:59:10 and then at the same time, with no intervening bids places another bid of $1050.  Why would you do this? If you were the seller (bidding using an alias) then I guess you could abort the sale or was he hoping for a last minute high bid or existing auto bid from someone?

Or am I far too suspicious and there is an innocent explanation?

Thanks for any comments that might educate me!

David.
 

[Marty Machine]

Looks like bidder u***e was placing bids probably from $435 onwards, but bidder a***b would have had a max bid of $600 placed, thus Auto-outbidding u***e, everytime he placed a bid....(hunting).

When price was upto $600, u***e would have placed a bid of $1050 as his max bid trying to work out what a***b max bid was....
( he wouldn't have placed $1000 as his max, in fear that someone would knock him off with a $1005 bid etc...)

Now the bid is sitting at $1050, and along comes 5***I to place a bid which maxed out u***e's max of $1050, and auto placed a bid at $25 more, being $1075.

Above $1000, bid increments are $25 steps.

Nothing strange there....
MM.

[FirePower]

Marty,

The strange part is that it went from $610 to $1050 with the same bidder with no intervening bids. ie Both these bids seem to have come from the same bidder, if he was a genuine buyer why would he outbid himself?

I don't think your scenario explains this.

cheers,
David

[Marty Machine]

Yep, i see now,

I think he initially placed say a $610 (or more) bid, which overlapped a***o, but then had a re-think, and placed another bid of say $1050 thinking he would have secured it, knowing that others will bid at $7xx to $8xx etc.

Either way, i'm not any of those people hehehehe

[illawarra_steelers]

I was watching that auction as the game was only 20 minutes away and the type of game I collect. The bidder a***b is a member here (hi Mark) and he bidded upto $600.

I feel this auction was legit in all ways.

These types of games don't come up often on eBay or anywhere for that matter and I thought it would of sold for more.

[Pintoxicated]

Good chance the last two guys were using Sniper type software.  The bid times by the 2nd highest bidder were at the same time and the last bid 5 secs later.  The sniper software places bids for you automatically in the final seconds of the auction.  It still comes down to the fact that you have to place the highest bid but the software times it to perfection in most cases.

[pinballist]

Wow I had no idea you could get software to do that!

I'm usually pretty good with snip bids (unless I've had a drink or watching a footy game at the same time)  That's how I missed Shangri La 

[Marty Machine]

.... but the software times it to perfection in most cases.

Unless your connection turns to shyte, no thanx to ISP changes etc 

[MrMaloo]

I think what bidder u****e has done here is this:

He placed his bid of $610 and was leading the bidding but with his maximum bid so it would have only taken one more bid and he would have been out-bid . He later put on the bid of $1000 + to give himself some leeway if someone else bid . After he bid this amount he would have still been winning the auction at $610 but now he wouldn't be outbid unless someone went above his $1000+ bid . The bidder who ended up winning did exactly that in the final seconds of the auction so they ended up winning it for one bid over u****e's maximum.

I think that bidder u****e was genuine as you can tell from his bid amounts which are just above a round $ amount . It's the auctions where you see a lot of bids for $599.99 etc. that are sus . If you was to bid that much and someone was to bid $600 even they would outbid you .

[scf]

It might make more sense if you click on that "Hide Automatic bids".
It gets a bit confusing because you are seeing both the proxy/automatic bids and the actual bids.

Bids with the same timestamp are a single bid.

What would have happened is that just prior to u***e bidding, a***o was winning it at $586.00 - but his max bid was $600.

At 19:59:10, u***e bid a max of $1,050.00. a***o's max bid was $600, so u***e becomes the winning bid at $10 more than that - $610 ($10 is the bid increment between $500-$1000). This is proxy/automatic bidding at work.

Five seconds later - 5***I bid an amount - we don't know what his max bid was except that it was at least $1075. As this is greater than u***e's max bid of $1,050.00 - 5***I becomes the winning bid at $1075 (above $1000 the bid increment is $25).

I hope this makes sense. It might pay to read ebay's help section on bidding.

[illawarra_steelers]

So nobody here is going to own up and say they picked it up?

[Pintoxicated]

.... but the software times it to perfection in most cases.

Unless your connection turns to shyte, no thanx to ISP changes etc 

The snipe bid is placed by the sniper server, some have a small subscription fee so that there is also a backup server if something goes wrong with the first server - they guarantee your bid will be placed 100% if you subscribe or about 99.5% if you use the free version.

[pinballist]

It's a good idea actually because it stops you from bidding over your head which can happen in the heat of the final moments of an auction. Plus, it keeps the price more in line with market expectations.

[FirePower]

Thanks for the explanation scf, it's all clear now. I wanted to see the automatic bids as it is all part of the process that I was trying to understand.  The key peice of info that you provided was that "bids with the same timestamp are the single bid" - all makes perefect sence to me now.  I had mistakenly assumed that the timestamp was when the bidder placed a one off bid or the ebay server placed the automatic bid.

I had read ebays help section, but to be frank, I found it a bit lacking in depth.