There are programmes such as 'Bidnapper' which automatically place bids for you. However, what's more likely is that you're making single bids, while your opponent has simply set a maximum bid.

Let's say the person currently winning has bid £10 for the item. You come along and bid £12. Unfortunately, they'd set a maximum bid of £15, so the system automatically ups the bid against you by a quid. If you bid again, the system will automatically bid against you again, until their maximum is reached. Their bids can be made mere nano-seconds after you last submitted, so they'll always win if they're below their max bid level.

Incidentally, if you do decide to use maximum bids, it's worth setting a final bid with an less obvious number of pence at the end - other people tend to bid in round numbers, so that additional 12p (or whatever) can make all the difference.

The lesson being you have to REALLY bid the maximum. SO if your maximum is £25.12 then bid that. ie if you bid 25 then cursed because you lost it for "only" another 12p, you shold have bid the 12p to start with. I tend to bid as late as I can, diaries permitting - a few minutes before the end of the auction ideally.

It's often called sniping, and there are automated websites and programs which will place last second bids.
It can be annoying to lose out this way, but as ivan states, if you use your max bid as the maximum you're willing to pay then you've lost nothing.

I buy loads of stuff on e-bay, but I've always resisted using one of those auto-bid applications, even though it has probably cost me a few items that I really wanted. Every now and again, when something comes up that I really want, I'll end up sitting by the computer watching the seconds tick down, getting ready to make a fresh bid if I feel it's worth going over what I'd originally decided on. I just don't like the auto-bid function, because I see it as a form of cheating and not in the spirit of things. I suppose I should move with the times though.

I'm a big ebayer and have never used a sniper tool, even though there are quite a few free ones around. Some people I know recommend Goofbay. I bid my maximum and keep the stoical attitude described above should I lose.

It's been a while since I bought anything on eBay, but my tactic was to bid once and once only, just before the auction ended, for the maximum I was willing to pay. It seemed to me that anything else either encouraged other people to outbid me or tempt me to pay more than I really should.

for me and a charity. Don't try to be too clever and put in multiple bids. For example, I'm selling a CD that starts at £10. Someone puts a bid in of £10, followed by the next increment of £10.50 and the next of £11. The auction now shows a top bid of £10 with 3 bids. Why they do that? To hopefully put off other potential bidders who *might* be frightened off a bidding war. What it tells me, the seller, is that someone has bid a minimum of £11. I just need to get a friend to bid upto £11 on the item and it will push the price up from £10 to £11.

It also gets done the other way of course where someone goes crazy with the bidding to put off other bidders, but at the last minute contacts eBay with an excuse like "my 11 year-old son has been bidding on my account without my knowledge" and retracts all bids, for his mate to then nip in and pick up a bargain.

Ebay can be a good place to shop/sell but it is definitely a place to be cautious. In every batch of goods I sell there is usually one item that the buyer tries to back out of. It is very much geared towards the buyer and not the seller whenever things start to go wrong.

Call it sniping or whatever you want but what is the point of giving other people the chance to outbid you? I generally place my first bid with 3 or 4 seconds left on the clock. I don't see that I'm doing anything wrong - it's just common sense.

.. Is the site I use.

Reasonably simple to use - you get 3 placed bids free each week - if you require more then I think is approx £5 / month. Both the FPO & I have ebay & auctionstealer accounts - so we never need anymore than that.

As per earlier posts- I always use a daft number as my bid - ie £15.87 (always above the 50p mark as people tend to do £15.26 etc).

Forget the "it's cheating" angle. It's an auction. It's no different than any other auction - whether it is 18th century art, a car or a house. The only important bid is winning one.

I find that using a sniping site reduces on average the amount I pay. By constantly outbidding against someone over the duration of the auction - only alerts them that they have a rival bidder. Bidding 10 secs before the end of the auction gives them little time to react.

Finally keep a look out for auctions that finish during the day (ie in working hours) -as most people are at work and the auctions tend not to reach the price they would do at weekends / night time - again using a sniping tool can help you - so you don;t need to be sat at a Pc when the auction ends.

I also agree that selling is now a lottery since the changes to the feedback system - buyers can leave negative - seller can't. The whole system is skewed towards the buyer so that coupled with the extortionate fees - its often not worth the bother.

If you do sell remember to schedule your auction to finish during the busiest periods - Sunday or Monday nights - between 7.30 & 8.30 -as thats when most people use ebay.

is also the site I use.
I don't regard sniping as cheating at all. At auctions in the wild it is fairly common for a new bidder to enter the bidding as the auctioneers gavel is raised.

While the above is fine advice, the exception is when the seller has more than one item to sell or can create more. This is particularly true of items like live recordings. What happens here is the seller will contact everyone who has placed a bid and sell the item to them for their bid. This is great if you get in early and watch other folks outbidding each other. In some cases I have bought live CDs for a perfectly reasonable couple of quid while "the Winner" has paid over twenty for the same item. Nobody is doing anything wrong but winning isn't always the best result.

... it can be useful to do a bit of research into the item in question, i.e. search for completed auctions (in the "Advanced" search area, tick the "completed items" box), and see how often the item comes up, and how much it usually goes for. That way you'll know if you're being realistic with your bid, and if not, whether you'll be waiting hours, days or months before it's likely to come up again. Ebay is as susceptible to market forces as anything, and it's amazing how consistent it can be...

Other than that, as already stated, bidding odd amounts & last-second "sniping" (I do it "in person") is what seems to get best results most often.

I came a cropper last night when I was waiting to bid on an item until the last few seconds. I had my amount typed in the box, so all I had to do was wait until the last few seconds and then click enter and it would have been mine. Except, due, no doubt, to the weather conditions in this windy area of the Pennines, upon clicking enter all I got was a few seconds of waiting whilst the page tried, and failed, to connect, followed by a message that the bidding for the item had now ended. Fortunately, the item didn't sell, so a quick e-mail of explanation to the seller and he re-listed as a buy it now and I made the purchase.

Around 8 or 9 years ago I came a cropper doing a similar thing when I was trying to buy a mega rare Stephen Duffy 12" single (don't ask!). I was all primed with my last minute bid when my mother-in-law picked the telephone up downstairs, cutting off my internet connection. It was in the days before wireless broadband hit our household. Took another 7 years to finally track down another copy of the record from a bloke in Mexico, although I did manage to get it for £70 less than the other copy had gone for, so it was worth the wait.