I posted my sad story yesterday. I posted a question about causing my own bid to be raised on the eBay "Answers" board. Of course there is no one from eBay posting on those boards - just other users who consider themselves authorities on the subject at hand. My complaint was that the eBay software did not work the way the policy is written. No one addressed that aspect of the issue but I did get some information that might be useful to some folks. There are 3 ways you can cause your own bid to be raised:

1. "Let's say you are tied with another bidder and you hold the official high bid because you placed that bid amount first. If you place another bid, you will lose your favored "early bird" status. As a result of putting in another bid (causing you to become a later bidder), the system will increase your bid to one bid increment more than the previous bid just so that you can keep the position of high bidder.

2. Another instance where it would appear that you are bidding against yourself would be if your current high bid is between bid increments. If you were to place another bid, your bid will increase to the next round bid increment. The high bid will always try to be a full bid increment over the next highest bid. If you are currently less than one bid increment over the next highest bid, then raising your maximum bid will increase the current high bid to a full bid increment above the next highest bid.

3. Also, in a reserve auction, if you are the current high bidder and the reserve still has not been met, your bid may be raised if you place another bid that meets the reserve amount. On reserve auctions, if your maximum proxy bid meets or exceeds the reserve amount set by the seller, the system will place a bid so that the reserve is met. This allows for an auction to be ended successfully."

These are quotes from eBay so I think they are accurate. Case 3 operates they way it should but the other two seem wrong to me - I think it was a sloppy software solution and they prefer to explain how it works rather than make it work right. On the auctions I bid on this is never going to make a wits worth of difference but if you are bidding on a high dollar auction were the incremental bid is pretty high it could have some impact. Just passing along the information...

Chas - The "22 cent sore winner" as some one on eBay called me...