Why do people bid on eBay in this way?

May 19, 2006 4:09 AM

I have a question about bidding on eBay. Take a look at the bid history for this crazy auction to get a place on UK TV's Big Brother programme. Why are some bidders such as ceo_of_crazy_thursdays, puppy_sandwich and robthecricketer posting multiple bids in a row which often add thousands onto the price? Why not post just one big bid? Even stranger, why put up the price so much with sucessive bids before waiting to see who outbids you? The actions of these people appear to only serve to help the seller as it'll massivily boost the final price - so is this some sort of scam?
posted by mr_silver to computers & internet (8 comments total)

I think some of these are proxy bids by eBay.
posted by NucleophilicAttack at 4:15 AM on May 19, 2006

It's because noone believes the auctioner has what he claims he has.

Also note the timestamps are not monotonically increasing. Some of those bids were not winning bids. They're people raising their bids until they are winning I think.
posted by edd at 4:15 AM on May 19, 2006

It's been a couple of years since I frequented ebay, but I believe those bids reflect someone else bidding the item higher. E.g.,:

ceo_of_crazy_thursdays sees the item when it's at £30,350. He bids £100k, outbidding derbo288, who obviously bid £45k. ceo_of_crazy_thursdays is now listed as the high bidder at £45k.

Someone else (let's call him random_schmoe) comes along and bids £50k. That bid is not the high bid, so his name is not reflected on the bid history, but it pushes ceo_of_crazy_thursdays's bid up to £50k. After bidding, random_schmoe sees that his £50k was not enough to become the high bidder, so he bids £60k. Again, that's not the high bid, but it pushes ceo_of_crazy_thursdays's bid up to £60k.

... and so on.
posted by Doofus Magoo at 4:22 AM on May 19, 2006

What Doofus Magoo said; however, the order that these bids show up as can be misleading. That's why it looks as though people are out-bidding themselves.
posted by NucleophilicAttack at 4:24 AM on May 19, 2006

Yep, as per above, if I have understood the question correctly its cos in eBay you can enter you "Maximum" bid, but only the actual bid needed to beat the opposition shows up at any time. So when someone comes in with a higher bid, the eBay system increases the actual bids before then showing the new bid by the competition.

Also, if there is a reserve on a bid, it can look really odd. We had one the other day where we put a max bid in of £316 whilst the current bid (from someone else) was just £150. We expected our bid to show as £155 but it went straight to £300 as this was the reserve! I am sure some people thought we were mad but it was the only way to win the bid with the reserve.
posted by pettins at 5:04 AM on May 19, 2006

Because they are morons who are bidding on impulse and excitement rather than considering what the item is, how much is the most they want to pay for it, and sticking to that limit.

Which ebay and sellers (including myself) love, but it's horrible for your pocketbook. The auction format sucks people in with the promise of a possible bargain but uses that same hook as gambling to get people to chase the deal past when it's a deal anymore.

There's the additional factor that people don't trust/understand the ebay system of keeping your actual payment amount at the smallest level needed to win the auction, plus some (sometimes reasonable) suspicion that a seller will use a shill to nudge closing prices up if they bid too soon.
posted by phearlez at 9:46 AM on May 19, 2006

I've also seen it done as a 'trick'. By repeatedly bidding in small increments, you jack the bid count way up. People who just glance at the auction assume the bidding is intense and (in theory) don't bother to bid, allowing the repeat bidder to win. (I don't know if it actually works at all, though.)
posted by fogster at 3:08 PM on May 19, 2006

Nucleo's right; the bid history seems out of order and random. The only thing you can get from it is the current price.

Although there was an incident where a couple guys were bidding on their own items ( I think they were selling fake paintings), pushing the bids of real bidders to their max, also making others think it was a legit, rare, and expensive painting. It's against the law, but I know a couple of my friends do it on their items.
posted by lain at 6:04 PM on May 19, 2006