Should I Be Suspicious

At least three times in the past month, I have had bids in on an ebay item. I haven't won the item. I then check the winning bids and see that I have in each case been out bid by either one dollar or one dollar and change. This out bidding comes on the last day of the auction and in one case in the final seconds of the auction.

Should I have any concern about this?

in a word yes. find a different seller.

rohumpy......

No you should not be concerned......all bids rise one increment over the last......If bids rise by one dollar....your bid showing is $5.00 and I bid $17.00 at the last second.....I will win for $6.00.

Good to know sniping software is as prevalent in the postage
stamp world as anywhere else.

Wait a minute! Don't blame the seller. When you see the winning bid, it is not necessarily that person's maximum value, you see the next increment above YOUR bid.

For example, if you bid $10.50, and someone bid $18.00, the winning bid would show as $11.00 because the increment is 50c. This is like most mail auctions.

I often bid at the last minute and many people use auto bid services to pop in a last second bid.

In fact, I will admit to using sniping software virtually all the time.

I don't like bidding until the last 10 or 5 seconds, since, in my view, those early bids only serve to increase the price. So, I set my snipe up, with a price nicely above where the then current level is, but at a level I am happy with, and then let the software do the bidding for me. I recently won a stamp auction on ebay with a possible bid significantly higher than what won it because the next highest bid was so much lower. IN fact,the actual increment was $3 but that increment is set by ebay, not me. ebay is like any auctioneer, its the auctioneer that sets the bidding increments.

I'd suggest you investigate sniping and you might have more success in your bidding.

seems like pretty typical sniper action. the sniper services are set up to bid with about 6 seconds left in the auction. Depending on the value of the item, the outbid sounds like one increment over yours.

I've often have beaten the snipers. It takes a little patience.

What I am getting from the responses is that I should not be too concerned. It is just the luck of the auction.

spock as far as I recall it was with different sellers

Every time I catch myself thinking, "Doh! I lost it by a dollar! I should have bid just a tiny bit more" I tell myself that I was probably bidding against a dope who entered a proxy at three times catalogue. Sometimes that makes me feel better...

I go through that too, CJd. The reality is you never know how much you lost it by...

I never feel bad about loosing a bid.......I know I can find something just as nice or better fairly quickly......and I'll still have some money left to work with.

with Tom though I have been known to snip as well,It just depends on the item your bidding on.

I don't worry about the last second bidders. I bid what I think the item is worth and what I'm willing to pay and let it go. If someone beats me it doesn't matter if it's days or seconds before the close because he/she was obviously willing to pay more.

I do have to admit, though, that when I've been in a situation where I'm bidding on a series of lots separated by a minute or two and have been sniped a couple of times by the same guy I'll run up the bid on several lower cost items just to make him/her pay more. That takes some luck and/or skill and I've been caught having to take the lot once or twice but it is a lot of fun.

I also only bid what I am comfortable with paying. I generally do not snipe.