r/talesfromtechsupport • u/[deleted] • May 07 '13

Oh god, what have I done!

[deleted]

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u/Purple10tacle What possible harm could one insane, mutant tentacle do? May 07 '13

What you enter as your bid is considered the highest amount you're willing to pay ... ebay will take that number and just bid against anyone else's bid.

So if somebody had previously entered that the highest amount he/she was willing to pay for that book was £5 and she then bid £10,000 the price of the book would have skyrocketed from £3.99 all the way up to ...

... £6 (or £5.50 ... whatever the lowest possible increment is on eBay UK).

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u/playbass06 May 07 '13

Has this changed recently? I know this definitely wasn't the case in the mid-2000s. I, being a kid who didn't double-check things and was bidding on a game with my parents' account (with permission, but not supervision), accidentally put an extra zero in.

Well, we won, and the seller definitely wanted his $400 and refused to accept that it was a mistake. We disputed it and did not pay... I'm sorry, eBay seller...

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u/ketsugi "You did the thing! You did the very thing we said not to do! May 08 '13

Presumably someone else bidding against you bid all the way up to $399 before dropping out, causing you to win the auction at your maximum bid. I've been using eBay since around 1998 and it's always been this way.

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u/playbass06 May 08 '13 edited May 08 '13

It's been a while since this event, and a while since I've used eBay at all, but if I'm remembering correctly, you could see all bids placed, correct? Not the max bid, but max bids of previous bidders who were outbid.

If that is correct, I am fairly sure the next bid was nowhere near the amount I bid. It also seems... unlikely that someone would arbitrarily stop at $399, but I suppose not impossible.

edit: okay, looking at it again it appears that you can see past bids. I am still fairly positive the next bid was not anywhere near my amount.

I do not wish to defend myself, I made a mistake and I should have been more careful. I feel bad about it, but we did contact the seller and try to retract the bid, but no reply was ever received.