Item sold for my max bid but i didn't win it...?

carrie483

Excuse me for maybe sounding dumb but i haven't used ebay for a while.

I bid on an item which already had a bid on it and i put my highest bid as £5. Item sold for £5 and i didn't win it, It said i was outbid but surely if the bidder before me had put in a higher proxy bid then the winning bid should be more than £5.....?

Cheers, carrie

RFW

If the winning bid was the same as yours and placed before yours then the earliest high bid wins. Usually worth bidding a few pence over to stop you from losing.

benjacksmum

It sounds like the bidder before you has placed exactly the same top bid as you. Because he placed his bid first, he wins the auction.

It scenarios like this that lead people to placing maximum bids of £5.01, in which case you would have won the auction by a penny

Hope that helps.

carrie483

Ah ok, i assumed it would've jumped up to the next bid. Cheers RFW

appleblossom

I learned the same lesson and now I never bid on an even amount, I would have bid say £5.27 just in case.Its a real bummer when you lose out for the sake of a penny.

blue_haddock

Yep i always bid with a few odd pence on the end as most people bid in round numbers. For example if i was looking to bid on something up to £100 i'd actually go to something like £101.27 Which is just enough to hopefully ensure i win the item

stokechick16

Not sure if you do already, but you could use them auction sniper things (sorry forgot what there called)

Emmy_L

I recently had this problem,where I bid for the item and I didnt win it.(and that was through a sniper )
Apparently the bidding goes up in specific increments.There is a page on the ebay site that lets you know exactly what they are,so maybe it's a good idea to check it out

Premier_2

stokechick16 wrote: »

Not sure if you do already, but you could use them auction sniper things (sorry forgot what there called)

That wouldn't help in this case. If the OP had used a Sniping tool and placed a maximum bid of £5.00 then the OP would still have lost as a maximum £5.00 bid had already been placed.

In fact a sniping tool may lose a buy when this happens as the bid is effectively not placed on ebay until the final seconds of the auction whereby a bid placed directly may be placed days earlier. As has been explained previously, when there are 2 or more bids for the same maximum value, the earlier bid wins.

blue_haddock

Even with a sniper you are still best off bidding a few pence over the number.

scbk

Early bird catches the worm