Auction Concerns
Summary: joshescomics expressed concerns about a recent auction on eBay, questioning how the winning bid could be placed so precisely over their own bid and labeled as an auto bid. eburtonlab explained that the winning bidder possibly submitted their maximum bid in a similar manner at the last second, which is typical in eBay's auction system. burky79 suggested the possibility of extended bidding affecting the outcome, but eburtonlab clarified that extended bidding was not applied in this case. mudshark61369 confirmed that the winning bid was indeed placed one second after joshescomics's bid, contributing to the loss.
This past Monday I bid on an item. The highest bid was $345. With a second left, I submitted max auto bid of $426, about $80 higher than the last. But winning bid was $431, exactly the $5 increment increase. It shows the winner clicking min at the bell 6:39:00 to $360 then all of a sudden the $431 appeared. It's also bold which ebay states that is the auto bid manually submitted. How on earth would he be able to type that in, after hitting min (highlighted grey) bet at the bell which was lower than my auto? And how is it even possible he auto bid exactly $5 more than mine. The bid history below shows him auto bidding $360 at the bell and $431 a second after the bell (right above mine) then the final winning bid shows at the bell. Feels like cheating somehow since it doesn't make sense.
Bidder
Bid AmountBid Time
Highest Bidder3***jFeedback Score (1208)
$431.00
21 Sep 2026 at 6:39:00pm PDT
This is an automatic bid (proxy bid) placed by eBay on behalf of the bidder.3***jFeedback Score (1208)
$360.00
21 Sep 2026 at 6:39:00pm PDT
i***iFeedback Score (77)
$355.00
21 Sep 2026 at 6:39:01pm PDT
This is an automatic bid (proxy bid) placed by eBay on behalf of the bidder.3***jFeedback Score (1208)
$431.00
21 Sep 2026 at 6:39:00pm PDT
joshescomicsFeedback Score (56)
$426.00
21 Sep 2026 at 6:38:59pm PDT
This is an automatic bid (proxy bid) placed by eBay on behalf of the bidder.joshescomicsFeedback Score (56)
$350.00
21 Sep 2026 at 6:38:59pm PDT
4***1Feedback Score (18)
$345.00
21 Sep 2026 at 6:38:56pm PDT
0***1Feedback Score (4)
$340.00
21 Sep 2026 at 6:38:56pm PDT
c***nFeedback Score (397)
$335.00
21 Sep 2026 at 6:28:01pm PDT
mudshark61369
·1 week ago@joshescomics ,
Below is a screen shot taken starting with your last bid received at 6:38:59pm PDT when there was actually 2 seconds left in the auction. A lower bid probably placed by a sniping program was received at 6:39:01 The winning bid was received one second after yours at 6:39:00 pm. At the time your bid was received you were the winner, but because a higher bid was received with time still left (1 second), you lost.
The exact end time of the auction can be found at the bottom of the bid history when the starting price was met.
burky79
·2 weeks agoSounds like maybe a case of extended bidding? If a bid is placed in the final 60 seconds, the clock resets to 60 seconds.
eburtonlab
·2 weeks agoIt was a ten day auction with all the bids falling within those ten days.
https://www.ebay.com/bfl/viewbids/168646100843?item=168646100843&rt=nc
burky79
·2 weeks agoI mean, eBay's new extended bidding system that recently went live where they extend the auction by 60 seconds if someone bids at the last second. It completely breaks the way people have been using last second bids for decades. It's the equivalent of an auctioneer saying "going once, going twice..." to wait to see if there's any more bids.
eburtonlab
·2 weeks agoThe time was not extended in this auction.
And extended bidding is only being tested in a couple of specific categories.
eburtonlab
·2 weeks ago · Edited@joshescomics
The high bidder may have submitted the bid exactly the same way you did, just a second later.
Because of the way eBay bidding works, the high bidder wins and pays at most up to one bid increment over the next highest bidder's maximum bid. The bid increment for a $426 bid is $5, so as long as the high bidder's bid was at least $5 more than your bid, it would be shown as $5 above your bid.
There were several bids in the last couple of seconds of the auction; none of the bidders were reacting to each others' bids. Whether they were using a sniping service or bidding manually, they were submitting their maximum bids as close to the end of the auction as possible, just like you.