Ebay warning. Bid against yourself

muppetlab

As a user of ebay for over 20 years i recently discovered it was possible to bid against myself. Having placed a bid on an item in an auction i was the highest bidder for several days despite the reserve price not being met. As the auction end drew closer and after a bit more research on the product in question i decided i would like to increase my potential maximum
bid. (I had been the high bidder at £8.50 with a maximum bid of £50 with 4 other bidders.) I entered my new maximum bid price of £556 to find that i was still the high bidder but that my winning bid was now £500. Upon speaking to several ebay agents and trying to explain the difference between a high bid and maximum bid what they essentially said is that even if you are the highest bidder with reserve not met and you enter a maximum bid over the reserve price, your bid will default to the reserve price even if no one bids against you. In my case this resulted in my bid increasing by over £490. This is not mentioned anywhere within ebay’s bidding terms. Its seems pretty important as i can imagine many people changing their bids at the last minute of an auction and assuming they outbid other bidders to reach the reserve when they have just increased the price for themselves.  

caprikid1

"when they have just increased the price for themselves. " but you increased it to a price you could buy it at ?

The initial bid may have outbid other buyers but not the reserve.

Never bid more than you are willing to pay.

It's interesting though , never knew it would do that although reserves seem less common.

saajan_12

This doesn't sound like its really about bidding against yourself, as if you had put your first and only max bit at £556, it would have had the same result? The point is if your max is over the reserve, then the bidding level will jump to the reserve price. That does in some way make sense as that's a price you can buy it at and the seller will sell it at.

Otherwise wihtout this functionality, the item wouldn't be sold, and you might be annoyed the other way, that you said  you were happy to pay more than the reserve but you still didn't win. 

muppetlab

Thats what second chance offers are for. If an item doesnt meet its reserve the seller can then offer it to the highest bidders. Seems that ebay in its desperation to claw back as much fee as possible now decide the price you will pay ie the reserve price and not necessarily other bidders. 

muppetlab

saajan_12 said:

This doesn't sound like its really about bidding against yourself, as if you had put your first and only max bit at £556, it would have had the same result? The point is if your max is over the reserve, then the bidding level will jump to the reserve price. That does in some way make sense as that's a price you can buy it at and the seller will sell it at.

Otherwise wihtout this functionality, the item wouldn't be sold, and you might be annoyed the other way, that you said  you were happy to pay more than the reserve but you still didn't win. 

Which is exactly what second chance offers are for. 

soolin

muppetlab said:

Thats what second chance offers are for. If an item doesnt meet its reserve the seller can then offer it to the highest bidders. Seems that ebay in its desperation to claw back as much fee as possible now decide the price you will pay ie the reserve price and not necessarily other bidders. 

Bids have always jumped to the Reserve bid though once a reserve has been met, nothing has changed. Otherwise a winning bidder could never win an auction that had a low start price and a reserve.  The highest winning bid is always shown live.

Using the example of something with a £500 reserve , a £50 bid might be the highest bid but it is not a winning bid, so that buyer would never have been able to win it. Once the bidder bids more than £500 the price will automatically go to a winning bid , IE £500.

A second chance offer on a reserve auction can only be made if the reserve was not met which is what you were possibly trying to achieve, but this has always been the way it works- the highest winning bid will always be shown - your only hope of getting it at less than reserve was to have topped out your bid below the reserve and hope no one came in with a snipe at the last moment. Even then you would be reliant on seller being so desperate to sell and already out of pocket for paying for a costly reserve that your bid was high enough to tempt them.

TimeLord1

Is bid retraction still available? By entering the item number, if done in error, or is this only available for the seller to retract after contacting them to ask. All links now seem to be as below.

pinkshoes

muppetlab said:

Thats what second chance offers are for. If an item doesnt meet its reserve the seller can then offer it to the highest bidders. Seems that ebay in its desperation to claw back as much fee as possible now decide the price you will pay ie the reserve price and not necessarily other bidders. 

But it DID meet the reserve. The reserve was £500 and you bid £556 so it jumped to the reserve price.

If you'd bid £450 then the reserve would NOT have been met and they could then use the second chance offer option.

theoretica

I agree - it isn't you bidding against yourself, it was you bidding against the reserve.  I don't see as many reserves nowadays, but it worked like this, jumping to the reserve, years ago.

RedImp_2

What happened exactly what I would have expected to happen. You got it for £56 less than you were prepared to pay.

soolin

theoretica said:

I agree - it isn't you bidding against yourself, it was you bidding against the reserve.  I don't see as many reserves nowadays, but it worked like this, jumping to the reserve, years ago.

Just wanted to say that your phrase ‘. - it isn't you bidding against yourself, it was you bidding against the reserve.’
is absolutely perfect and describes the situation exactly. I may accidentally steal that wording and use it myself in the future.