"Nick Hull" wrote in message
...
I was interested in some dial calipers that "800 watt" sells on ebay, he
seems to put a couple up for auction every week. When the price on the
one I was bidding on got too high, I dropped out and instead bid on an
identical item that had been listed for several days at $13.99 with ZERO
bidders. With 2 days to go I put in an initial bid at $13.99 with a
maximum bid of $18. In less than 60 seconds after my bid was accepted I
was outbid! And my shill-o-meter started activating.

How could someone outbid me in a minute on an item that had been sitting
for days with no bids and had 2 days to go and there was another
identical item with no bids? Could this be anyone but the seller? If
there had been a starting bid by someone else obviously they would have
gotten an e-mail that i outbid them, but who gets notice that I entered
a starting bid? Can anyone tell me what is going on?


Not sure for certain. I would contact ebay about this, and they have the
means to watch this person. Maybe it was just a fluke.

I use bidnapper, a sniping service. It wins me a lot of things. I just
have to put the price I am willing to pay, and lots of times, I get it for
less. Sometimes I don't win.

Bidding before an auction is over is a sure way to drive up the price,
whoever the other bidder is.

Steve