Ok maybe I'm just dumb here but someone explains this . Bidding on a eBay item current price says $150. I bid $151 and it says I'm outbid by someone else, check the bids and I'm currently the highest...so...what's goin on?

I cant imagine the struggles u face

No idea why it shows you the highest but the person that had the bid befor you may have plased a max bid and it automatically triggered an increase after you mandated your bid that was higher than last one. At least thats how some government auctions i used to buy from worked. Never did anything on e bay.

lol
Oh the torment continues…. Life sucks…..

....ummm ...ok , I guess??

Huh , didnt think of that

Just keep bidding,,, that’s what I would do.

You did a great job with your decoder ring on my post. With my vision fluctuations lately I cant read what I typed tell later making my typical poor posting even worse.

There are automatic bids already put in as soon as you bid you will be out bid etc. Happens all the time. I think it is a bot set up in their system to force higher sales bids.

It's just the way the program works. Say something is currently at $20. I REALLY want the item, so I bid $110 on it. The bid will change to $20.01 (or maybe 20.50, or 21, I forget exactly how ebay does it)... not $110. Now wolfdog comes along and bids $25... since that is less than the $110 I bid, ebay will automatically bid on my account and place a bid for me at $25.01. The days go on and it gets bid up to $100... ebay enters $100.01 for me. Now the auction is almost over and at the last second, someone bids $110.01. That is higher than my bid.... so I lose the auction and they win it.

What I don't understand is what you mean when you say "check the bids and I'm currently the highest".

Checked here and our of all the bids mine would be the highest

Well, no. It shows you bid 146...then 5***3 bid 150... then you bid three more times but none of those bids were higher than whatever 5***3 had bid.... so they still have the high bid with 163.50

not sure if it is the system trying to put you in a bidding war with yourself or an auto bid in the back ground.

I mostly Just say you to Flee Bay

had an issue 20 years ago and that is a grudge I will hold it might be the only one I have. Other than there are a few people I can only trust to be underhanded so I never trust them to do anything less.

the seller probally put a minimum on the item

ebay is shady sometimes. Certain items more so

When I learned about the bid sniper apps/bots, it took a lot of fun out of it for me.

There is no voodoo about it, until you bid over and above the last bidders highest amount they put in all you do is inflate the price they pay.

Bidder 5***3 has a higher max bid than was your current bid. His max is not disclosed and the algorithm will keep bidding higher against you until the bid exceeds his limit or you give up. That is why eBay asks you for your max bid when entering your bid ...asking what is the value you are willing to pay. The algorithm has built in incremental increases built in as the value increases through the various price ranges. So a bid at $10 may only increase by a dollar, but a $100 may increase by $5. It appears for now 5***3' s maximum bid is $163.50 as his bid is winning; but the bid amount over your last bid was less than the algorithm's automatic bid increase, their bid being made ten hours ago. And they have been sent a notification that they are in this case still winning but they are at their max bid asking if they want to increase their max bid and to enter a new limit bid. If you chose to increase your max bid, you may be able to win if no one would bid higher than you within the remaining time left in the auction; but if 5***3 is intent on winning, they will probably have already increased their max bid or are waiting until the last few seconds to try and snipe (ethically steal) the auction away from you by placing a ridiculous high bid, knowing the price will only increase by the algorithm's stepped price above competing bids.

It all gets down to what value each bidder has individually placed on the auction, the number of bidders, the risk/reward profile of each bidder, and gamesmanship. Did you win Wolfie?