how does the bidding system work

[gunnaparty2]

I bid $25.00 on an item where the starting bid was $5.00,so it was showing me winning at $5.00,7 seconds before it ended someone else put in a bid and the price went to $5.50 then to $16.56 with no auto bids in between and no time between the bids either,so how does this work?.this may be a stupid question but has me intrigued

[digital*ghost]

It sounds like one or two bidders sniped their bids in the last few seconds - this can be done manually on eBay by the bidder, but there are also some programs around that will do it on behalf of the bidder so that they don't need to be at the computer when the auction ends.

I'm not sure how the bid would have jumped to $5.50, as the system shouldn't have accepted a $5.00 bid after someone else (i.e. you) had placed an opening bid, but the second bidder would have sniped for $16.06, which was immediately outbid by your $25.00 (eBay will place proxy bids on your behalf equal to one bid increment above the next lowest bid, until your maximum is reached or you are outbid).

[miked9]

Hi.  Similar query.  I bid $105 to top a $103.50 bid.  I had not used the "max bid" facility before and a message came up that I was close to my max bid.  I had a bit of a read and was happy to put in a max bid of $150.  I looked a few minutes later and the new winning bid was mine at $150.  I think there were 9 bids when I got in ititially and now there are 11.  I cannot see how my max bid became the winning bid so quickly.  Bid 10 would have had to be $147.50 wouldn't it?

Thanks,

MIke

[digital*ghost]

---

@miked9 wrote:

  Bid 10 would have had to be $147.50 wouldn't it?

---

Not necessarily, but close enough to - it will show you the exact amount bid in the bidding history of the item, but it would have needed to be between $147.50 and $150 to max out your bid and still have you as the winning bidder (if another person bid $150 after you, yours remains the winning bid because it was placed first). 

When another member places a bid, they are told they need to enter a bid at least one incrememnt higher than the current price, but they can enter any amount higher than that. If the price is $103.50 and the bidding increment is $1.50, $105 is the minimum you could bid, but there's no maximum. Subsequent bidders would have been told to enter a price that will outbid the current price of the item, but not necessarily the maximum bid of the highest bidder as that is unknown to everyone else, so lots of people bid in the same way you did (that is, enter tens or even hundreds more than the current price as their max bid, so sometimes the price can jump quite dramatically with just one or two bids). 

[diecastcarsvicki]

the 2nd bid was made with max bid of $16.56 which boast the price to that amount but you remained the highest bidder as your max bid is $25.00  

[gunnaparty2]

there was a bid of $5.50 before but at the exact same time as the $16.56 bid and I just had two more strange bids,I bid on a pinball machine,starting bid was $0.99 0 bids,so I bid $200.00 at 21:16:02,it came up and said I've been outbid by a bid at 20:44:34 but my name is the first one on the list of bidders.The same person had another pinball machine also 0 bids at 0.99 so I refreshed the page,still 0 bids but as soon as I bid it said there was already a bid on that one as well,what the(another word)