EBAY

[Robert M. Bratcher Jr.]

At 11:03 AM 3/16/98 -0800, you wrote:
>I am puzzled (perhaps just very naive) about the bidding on EBAY.
>There were several items that I thought I would bid on and did so,
>but with puzzling results.
>
>As an instance: An opening bid for an item was $10.  I bid $15 for
>the item (as well as my memory serves me) and as soon as my finger
>was lifted from the ENTER key, a message came back that I had been
>outbid by another and his bid was $16.  I then bid (immediately)
>$17 and, again, as soon as I lifted my finger from the ENTER key,
>the message came back that another had made a bid of $18 and the
>new bid level was $19.  Once more, somewhat skeptical and chagrined,
>I bid $19 only to experience the exact same situation: no sooner had
>I lifted my finger from the keyboard than the message that I had been
>outbid by someone that had bid $20.
>
>Now that may be a regular and understandable phenomena but I don't
>understand it if it was!  It looked to me as though it was somehow
>programmed into the server to simply raise the bid by $1 every time
>I bid (in an effort to juggle up the price???).  I became skeptical
>enough to withdraw any further bids.
>
>Can anyone please explain to me (1) How in the world someone could,
>with the speed of light, outbid me three times in a row? (2) How
>this could be done without an automatic programmed response from a
>computer? (3) How anyone would be caught continuing to bid up a
>price when they were confronted with the same situation I was?
>(4) Is this a truly legitimate operational practice and I have
>somehow missed the bidding protocol? (5) Etc., etc., etc.
>
>If, and only if, someone can satisfactorily explain this phenomena
>to me will I go back and make any further bids.  What did I miss
>or not understand?
>
>Rod, N5HV
>w5hvv at aeneas.net

All this is explained on Ebay's pages.

http://cayman.ebay.com/aw/faq.html

Helps to read all parts of it.

Basically someone has a bid which is much higher than yours. A "Proxy"
(part of the bid) keeps raising the price until the bid limit is reached.

For example say I bid $100 on something with $25 as the last bid. My new
bid (on Ebay) is about $26 or so. That $100 is my top limit which means I
will remain high bidder until someone places a bid which is more than mine.
Of course Ebay keeps my bid limit secret from everyone.

It's all in the FAQ files...

bratcher at pdq.net
Record collector, 8mm, super 8, 16 and 35mm Film collector.
Looking for prerecorded reel to reel tape albums.
I like old radio's too.
Collins, Hallicrafters, National & Hammarlund are my Favorites!

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