Automatic bidding

[danny.boy99792012]

Yesterday and the day before I was involved in a strange occurence. First,  I never signed up for automaic bidding on an item and I found over night my bids went from $73 to $113.50. Also I certainly never wrote that my Max bid was $8000! Obviously I never typed that in either. So I was forced to retract the bid and remove myself from automatic bidding. Suddenly I was back at $113.50 and I believe i authorized it to go to $114.00. I watched it carefully and than suddenly I saw that the next bid had to exceed $116.50. But there were no other bidders. I would have been bidding against myself. So I did nothing and in the last second it said I was outbid. Yet I could see no one bidding. I felt I was cheated. Was this sell manipulating me? And how can I avoid this in the future? Because I am interested in bidding on another item. 

[lyndal1838 · Accepted solution]

Could you please post the item number where this strange bidding occurred.  Much of what you are saying makes very little sense and without seeing the history I would be loath to try and explain it.

But just a few comments to set you on the right track.  If you want to use the auction option on ebay you are indeed "signed up" for automatic bidding.  By placing the highest amount you wish to pay for the item you are authorising ebay to bid on your behalf up to that amount. 

If the bid was at $73 when you placed your maximum bid, and it went to $113.50 it means that someone else placed a bid and ebay automatically increased your bid (still within your maximum amount) to keep you winning the auction.

Once the bidding exceeds $100 the increments are $2.50 which is why you would see that the next bid after $114 is $116.50.  If you do increase your bid the amount will not increase unless someone else exceeds your first maximum.

You really need to read the Site Map (bottom of every page) and the Help pages to understand how ebay works.