people maxing outbids on purpose? (in General)

it seems like it happens 2 me everytime i bid my maximum always gets met at last second...

lol, if you're still winning the item, it means you're bidding CORRECTLY!!!
You can complain when your max bids get BEAT at the last second and you don't win said item. (you can and then we will point and laugh)
Seriously tho, it's just a case of people trying to get the item at the end of the auction and not willing to keep bidding against you or the auction ending.

well, whenever I see something of interest, I research past auctions, I decide based on those how much I'm willing to pay, and I place my max bid. If I really want it and my max bid isn't enough, I'll up it, if not, I'll leave it. That's just the way I do things.

I also tend to wait until it is in the ending soon page, so I don't have 15 "you've been outbid" messages to sort through every time I log in.

If people are maxing your bid out on purpose, there's nothing to stop them from doing so....except, of course, overestimating how high you'll bid and outbidding you for more than they want to pay.



More likely, you both had the same idea of what your max bid should be and you simply had placed yours first.

the correct way to be obnoxous is to go up by minimum increment. At some point you will see the maximum being met and stop.

"At some point you will see the maximum being met and stop."

exactly what kind of indication to you get that the maximum is being met?

when the increment is not at maximum.
e.g. say the auction increment is at 10k each (actually a %, but just take a little effort).

you see a DB for 10k, you bid 20k, then the other autobid to 30k, you continue to 40k, if it only jumps to 45k, you know you hit the maximum. if it jumps to 50k, then continue with 60k. for the truely obnoxious, try making your bid end with 9996, e.g. 1199996 instead of 1.2m so you get to see the maximum.

that would seem like a bug in the system then that needs to be rectified.

Going up my minimum increment is not foolproof, however, and I would chuckle my socks off to see the jerk pulling that maneuver stuck with a huge bid. :)

If this is truly an e-bay style system then surely the tester bids are part of it all?
Just be glad they aren't forcing you out of pocket in real life.