My bid didn't register...v.confused and angry?????

allconnected

Willa, do you believe that

a. Someone placed a bid of £400 on this auction but
b. The auction ended at a selling price of £255

and that this happened because the person who paid £255 had a higher maximum bid (say £450) in place?

If so, you're wrong.

The new bid of £400 would have caused the price to increase to the point where it beat the new bid by one bid increment, and so long as the maximum bid was high enough the earlier bid would remain the winning bid.

To win an auction, a bidder doesn't have to pay his maximum bid (especially if there is no competition) but he does have to pay more than any other bidder was prepared to pay - that's how auctions work!

Allconnected.

willa

TurkishDelight wrote: »

In this situation the only price that the auction could finish is above £400. http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/buy/bid-increments.html

What do you mean 'your bid will be raised to £9.50'. The 'you' in the example has already bid £20 so how could it be 'raised' to £9.50.
Sorry I still don't understand from what you've said.
No-one has been able to tell me exactly how I have got this wrong.
I am very familiar with bidding and winning on Ebay from my own experience.

willa

allconnected wrote: »

Willa, do you believe that

a. Someone placed a bid of £400 on this auction but
b. The auction ended at a selling price of £255

and that this happened because the person who paid £255 had a higher maximum bid (say £450) in place?

If so, you're wrong.

The new bid of £400 would have caused the price to increase to the point where it beat the new bid by one bid increment, and so long as the maximum bid was high enough the earlier bid would remain the winning bid.

To win an auction, a bidder doesn't have to pay his maximum bid (especially if there is no competition) but he does have to pay more than any other bidder was prepared to pay - that's how auctions work!

Allconnected.

I understand that bit.
I am thinking that the winning bidder in the OP's auction had originally placed a higher bid than the one the OP put in at the last minute. Is this wrong?
Perhaps I have got the behind the scenes bidding workings a bit wrong, granted, ?????, but I still do not understand how the OP has been wronged here from what s/he has said. Do you think s/he has been wronged?

willa

What do you think has gone wrong with the OP's auction then because, from what has been said, and from my own experience, I can't see that anything has gone wrong!!!! :j

TurkishDelight

willa wrote: »

What do you mean 'your bid will be raised to £9.50'. The 'you' in the example has already bid £20 so how could it be 'raised' to £9.50.
Sorry I still don't understand from what you've said.
No-one has been able to tell me exactly how I have got this wrong.
I am very familiar with bidding and winning on Ebay from my own experience.

Okay-
You see a item for 99p.
No bids already (important bit this!)
You put a bid on for £20.
The bidding price stays at 99p.
If no-one comes along and places another bid then the item is yours for 99p.

However....
Say another bidder does come along.
They put in a bid of £9.
The price you will pay now goes to £9.50.

This is how ebay works, this is how ebay has always worked, so I'm a little confused that you don't know this.

willa

TurkishDelight wrote: »

Okay-
You see a item for 99p.
No bids already (important bit this!)
You put a bid on for £20.
The bidding price stays at 99p.
If no-one comes along and places another bid then the item is yours for 99p.

However....
Say another bidder does come along.
They put in a bid of £9.
The price you will pay now goes to £9.50.

This is how ebay works, this is how ebay has always worked, so I'm a little confused that you don't know this.

Ah. Thanks for that.
However, something is still not sitting right with me.
I am sure there is more to this because what the OP has said matches what has happened to me before. I have bid more than what an item has sold for - and lost - even though I was the last bidder. Because the winner has previously bid higher than me so Ebay will ensure that that person wins.
I really don't see how the OP bidding £400 at the last minute would/should make the price paid shoot up to that amount from £255 and I still can't see what has actually gone wrong with the OP's auction which was the whole point of their original post on this thread asking for advice??!!?!

pinkshoes

The OP placed a bid of £400 with 10 seconds to go.

For him to be outbid, someone would have had to bid over £400, so this whole thing doesn't make sense.

i.e. if someone had bid £255, then the OP would have won at £260 (£5 increment).

As far as I can see, it's physically impossible for OP to be outbid if the auction ended under £400.

If I were the OP, I would phone up ebay and ask them, as well as sending a message to the seller stating that they bid more than the winning bid, so were surprised to get an email saying they were outbid, yet the auction going for less.

Perhaps the seller was super dooper quick and cancelled the OP's bid 5 seconds before the end??? (I would have no idea why though...)

willa

But somebody did bid over £400, before OP, that's why OP was beaten.
It all depends on maximum you say you are willing to pay, and no-one else can see what this is, only the increasing increments.
Maybe I haven't explained it very well, but I am sure I'm right on this!

lammy82

willa wrote: »

The price you pay is not necessarily anywhere near your maximum bid. The trick to win something is to try to outmaximum the other bids (by guessing basically because you can't see what they are) and bid in, say, the last 10 secs. You can bid stupidly highly and you will probably pay much much lower than this bid. I have lost things before because I was misled by the top bid I could see and didn't know how it worked.

I think you're confused about how this works.

Yes, you can bid stupidly high, win, and still pay much lower than what you bid, but you will still be paying one increment more than the second-highest bidder.

Can anyone else confirm that this is how it's supposed to work?

shandypants5

willa wrote: »

But somebody did bid over £400, before OP, that's why OP was beaten.
It all depends on maximum you say you are willing to pay, and no-one else can see what this is, only the increasing increments.
Maybe I haven't explained it very well, but I am sure I'm right on this!

Willa,
Whoever is willing to pay the most should always win the auction.

BUT, they have to pay just a little bit more then the next lowest bid below them.

just like a real "live" auction. you decide how much your willing to spend, then the auction starts low and gets higher and higher untill all bidders drop out ( pass their maximum) untill there is only one bidder willing to pay this price.