Bidding against myself?

Question

Ok, say I am the first to bid on an item, and I enter the minimum amount. Then it's coming down to the wire, and the auction is about to end, and no one else has placed a bid. Now I'm getting worried that someone is going to snipe it at the last second, and I'll lose the item. So I want to enter a higher bid. But if I do that, and still no one else bids, will I have to pay my higher second bid amount, or the amount of my first bid?

eburtonlab · Accepted Answer

In a no-reserve auction, if no one else bids, you will pay the opening bid amount regardless of how many times you bid or how high you bid.

The bid price will only rise if someone else bids against you. In that case your bid amount will rise to be one increment above the next highest bidder's amount, up to your maximum bid. If someone bids higher than that, the new bidder becomes the high bidder, and the amount of the bid will be up to one bid increment over your highest bid, not exceeding the highest bidder's maximum bid amount.

In the case of a tie, the earlier bidder is considered the winner.

woodland_gnome · Answer

You cannot bid against yourself. Only 1 bid by 2 bidders (or 1 bid and the Starting/Reserve Price set by the seller) figure into the price calculation.

The general rule is that the price is 1 bid increment over the highest bid of the second highest bidder. Exceptions:

a. If the highest bidder's bid is less than a full increment over that underbid (including an earlier-placed tie) the price will be the full amount of the highest bidder's bid. (If s/he has placed multiple bids that are higher than the underbid it gets complicated as to which bid is used to make the price calculation*).

b. If there is no underbidder (there is only 1 bidder) the price is the Starting Price set by the seller.

c. If there is a Reserve Price set by the seller the price is the greater of that Reserve or the price as calculated above. If nobody bid at least as high as the Reserve the high bidder's bid SHOWS at what the price would have been without the reserve but there is no sale (if the seller makes a Second Chance Offer to the highest bidder it will be at that showing amount except in a couple of categories where the seller can set the amount up to the Reserve Price amount--in no case does s/he see the high bidder's hidden maximum).

*If you really want to know: If you are leading at $xx.xx because that is the full amount of your maximum bid (and the underbid is less than a full bid increment lower) and you place a new bid, the "current bid" might (but current practice seems to be it doesn't) go up to the full bid increment over the underbid (i.e. as if the new bid was the only one you placed), but if that happens and there is no further bidding activity after that it will go DOWN to the $xx.xx at the end for the final price. Originally it went up and stayed up (eBay calculated the price based on the HIGHEST bid of the highest bidder) but eBay got sued over doing that by buyers who claimed they were "bidding against myself" and did a settlement in 2009 where they promised not to raise the price without prior notice to the bidder when s/he goes to increase the bid; but instead of giving that warning it changed the formula to use the LOWEST bid of the highest bidder that beats the underbid (including an earlier tie) to calculate the price. THEN a few years ago eBay appeared to have gone back to sometimes calculating the "current bid" using the high bid (i.e. it would go up if you rebid while leading by less than a full increment, again sometimes but not always--I'd seen bid histories both ways) but using the lowest winning bid for the final price (i.e. it went back down at the end if subsequent actions don't make it moot--I have not seen any bid history where it does not go back down if it went up), but I was never able to get any eBay employees to say whether that observation was correct and if so if is a deliberate change in the policy or simply an error in recoding something.

rock.star · Answer

You cannot bid against your self if no one else bids the winning bid will be your first bid .