true, but if I bid $1200, and somebody outbids me by $1210, i'd be mad. Sometimes you don't know how much you're willing to pay until the last 20 secs.
Listen and heed my wise words:
In a bidding war between 2 people,
you will always be beaten out by the bid increment.
This means that in an auction of less than $150 you will ALWAYS appear to have lost by $1. Deciding how much you're willing to pay in the last 20 seconds is for suckers. That mentality is what makes people stupid enough to pay more than retail for something on Ebay--they keep upping their bid in the last minutes thinking "Oh, it's just one more dollar," and 2 minutes later they just paid more for some used crap than they could have got new by just walking over to Best Buy.
You must decide how much you are willing to pay IN ADVANCE. Consider the scenario in your mind of what you would do at the last minutes of the auction if someone started bidding you up. When do you draw the line? Decide NOW and make that your maximum bid and save yourself all this aggravation.
Refer to my sig. Ebay really isn't complicated if you allow yourself to understand it's very simple mechanics.
Case-in-point. This week I wanted to buy an item, a series of 5 matted and framed photographs, signed by the photographer. The current bid was $60. I decided as much as I like it, I was unwilling to pay more than about $100, including shipping. The auction said $8 shipping, and I wanted to give myself a little wiggle room (never bid round numbers) so I bid $93.62--I'd pay around $101 including shipping.
I set that in my sniper. I ended up winning, but had I lost because someone else bid more, I'd not fret--they overpaid.
Pick your maximum bid now, grasshopper. Resist the urge to up it later.