Am I missing something here?

[Nigel Meaby]

I was watching an auction for an M6 Millennium edition on Ebay. Up until the last second there had been 4 bids placed. A fifth bid was placed in the last second of the auction by a new bidder. The fifth bid won it. What's so strange about that you ask? The fifth bidder won it for the same amount as the fourth bidder had placed as their maximum bid.

If a bidder places the same bid as an earlier bidder preference is given to the earlier bid so the 5th bidder surely to win it needed to place a higher bid? If that's all sounding too confusing take a look at the bidding history http://offer.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&_trksid=p4340.l2565&item=250815271751

Am I missing something here with the way bidding works on ebay? If you won it and are a member of the forum, good luck to you but how did you manage it? I wasn't interested in bidding for it so no sour grapes, I was just interested to see how much it sold for so followed the closing stages 😀.

 

[jsrockit]

1776 vs. 1766...

 

[barnwulf]

The winners bid was $10.00 higher than the 4th bidder.

 

[Nigel Meaby]

Oops! Trip to the opticians for me! 😉 And for you too Barnwulf. It's €10 not dollars! 😉

 

[SolaresLarrave]

A friend of mine won a Pentax Spotmatic by bidding one penny above the highest bid. That's how eBay works: cold, hard cash really talks.

 

[Nigel Meaby]

It's a good price either way by European standards with a Leicavit included. I wonder if the buyer frequents this site?

 

[rogerzilla]

Also, if your pre-placed maximum bid exceeds any other bid even by one penny, you still win. The minimum increment rule doesn't apply for proxy bidding.

E.g. I make my maximum bid £100.01. A sniper comes in with 5 seconds to go and bids £100.00. I still win, although normally I would have to bid £102.00 to beat a £100.00 bid. This is a small advantage to proxy bidding, which is otherwise fairly useless.