Ebay newbie here.., answer this question please. Options

[DougC]

I've bought a couple of things through ebay over the years but I've never had this situation happen, can someone please explain. When I bid on a item (2 different things today) then go to the "confirm bid" button, it immediately gives me a "you've been outbid" message. It happens everytime and immediately/similtaneously so I know it's not just a coinsidence and some one is bidding at the same time. I guess it's some kind of feature or something and I probably have little chance of winning an auction where someone is "automatically" bidding. ??

Doug C

[tracks914]

Here is a simple way to do it.
Look at the item.
Look up what it is worth to buy brand new. (very important, some people get carried away and pay more than they could have bought it for new)
If it's $100 new then set your highest possible price.
If all you are willing to pay for it is $60 then wait until the last 15 seconds of the auction and put in your bid of $60.
If it is sitting at $1 and no one else bids you will still get it for $1 even if your max bid was $60.
If in the last 2 seconds someone snipes it from you for $61 then you didn't want to pay that much for it anyway and just move on.
If you really want it but still don't want to pay more than $60 then you can sign up to a sniping site and they will put in your max bid in the last 3 - 5 seconds to attempt to outsnipe someone else.
Understand?