Alright, so last night I bidded on this item on Ebay that someone had already bid on - and when as soon as I placed my bid, it kept coming up "You have been outbidded" over and over again! But I thought it told you right there how much the other person had bidded! It's like they placed a secret bid! I am very confused
: /

That person placed a max bid on that item. which means if the item is say, $10, they can enter $20 as their max bid. but it'll show up as 10 until someone else comes and bids on it, it'll automatically rise 50cents. Keep bidding till you pass the max bid.

The bid that shows is only the next increment (the minimum bid is the increment). So the high bid shows as $57 and the minimum bid is $1, when I bid I can bid any higher amount than the $1. So I really want the thing and bid $80, but the high bid only shows $58.

When you bid, as long as its less than $80, ebay will show the other bidder has outbid you.

That's just how it works.

You can place a maximum bid on ebay for the max price that you will pay, so you can try and win the item. You can place a max bid anytime once you place one bid. Look on the page of the item and it'll say "increase max bid" if you have already put one bid on the item. I hope that helps. Feel free to email me with any other questions about it.

they placed a max bid......say the current bid for the item is $1.00, and i wanna bid on it, i can say i want to set my max bid at a certain ammount, say $10.00. Now I will be the best bidder, unless someone bids more than $10.00. But this does not mean it will show what my max bid will be. So now you did what I just said, and you are the winning bidder for $1.20, and everything is great. Now say someone comes along and wants the item. They bid on it for $1.50. Even if you arent watching the auction, you will automatically outbid them, up to your max of $10.00.

It kind of is a secret bid....and you will never know if someone has put a max bid in, unless you are outbid as soon as you make a bid....then ya just gotta keep trying.