He must really want this tree he put 106 bids 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/151310397053?ssPageName=STRK:MESINDXX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1436.l2649

It's not bad, only $50 right now.

There's still three days left. I bet it goes for 150.00

That is a weird way of bidding on an item.

I have been wondering about these auctions with ridiculous amounts of bids by the same person. Is it some automatic bid thing or what.

That's hilarious

It must be auto bidding.  There's no way he could put in more than 1 bid for $50.  Does anyone know the seller?

in my opinion I call this intimidation bidding, he saying what ever you bid I am gonna top you, but if I am interested in the Fig I will bid, just to up his cost. let him pay...
Mark

Black Madiera and Ronde de Bordeaux seem to have been going for crazy money.  Seriously, 2 Black Madiera cuttings were over $30 when I looked last.  I'm content to wait until its out of fashion and I can get a few cuttings for under $20.

He may be just on a separate account and inflating the bid to try to get someone to pay a bunch for it.

[quote=rcantor]There's no way he could put in more than 1 bid for $50. [/quote]
When you're the high bidder, you can then bid a higher amount it will show up as another bid for the same amount as your (current) high bid.  It only shows the true higher amount if someone else bids against you, and then your bid goes up.  My guess is he's using "one click bidding", and just hitting the button over and over.  

I don't know the bidder or the seller.

Mike 

This was brought up last week when Frank (FMD) started a thread about eBay bidding and someone else thought it was fraudulent stuff going on.  This bidder has bought two or three things from me recently and, for some reason, he just bids that way.  His bids are usually in $.50 increments.  He is from Puerto Rico and is a nice guy, the only customer to ever say one of my trees was "charming"! :)

Well Harvey, if your trees are charming I'm sure they picked it up from you. LOL

I remember seeing a vista or black mission not long ago and there was 180 bids. I wanted to bid 88 just so hed have to pay that much but my luck I'd end up with a 88 dollar black mission.

But the odd thing is, his ID is the only one that shows up in the list of bidders.  Shouldn't a competing bidder's ID show up too?  Hard to believe that a competing bidder is bidding him up in 50 cent increments 105 times!
Jim

[quote=needaclone]But the odd thing is, his ID is the only one that shows up in the list of bidders.  Shouldn't a competing bidder's ID show up too?[/quote]
You didn't look closely enough.  There's another bidder who bid 50.00 on May 24 at 19:35:20 PDT.  Since this fellow had already bid that much (and more), ebay just bumped the current bid to 50.00, with this fellow leading the bidding.  It worked just how it's supposed to.
[quote=needaclone]Hard to believe that a competing bidder is bidding him up in 50 cent increments 105 times![/quote]
There was only one competing bid.  This fellow can increase his bid as many times as he wants (and it won't increase the current bid, until and unless someone else bids something higher than 50.00.  This is how ebay's automatic bidding works.  It's a little unusual how he increases his bids, but it might be their "one click bidding", or it might be manually entered higher bids on his own  (sometimes called "covering bids").  Anyway, it looks like it's working correctly... you can go read about how ebay's automatic bidding works on their site.

Mike

Jim, he is the only bidder besides myself who bid $50 at May-24-14 19:35:20 PDT but his bid of $50 was placed earlier than mine at

That must be automated, the bids are coming in 3-5 seconds apart.

I think there's sketchy stuff going on with a few ebay fig sellers... Just look at the bidding history and you see patterns with certain names.

Its automated bidding

[QUOTE=Chivas]He may be just on a separate account and inflating the bid to try to get someone to pay a bunch for it.[/QUOTE]You do that in the stock market, you go to jail!  :-)

Here is ONE good way to bid on ebay:

(a) First off, know exactly what you want.
(b) It also helps to know the seller/source.
(c) Put your hands in your pocket, and determine what exactly the $_worth it is to you (say xyz).
(d) First bid at below xyz.
(e) Then increase your MAXIMUM bid to xyz; ebay will do any automatic bidding if required.
(f) Walk away,away, chill; and hope for the best (avoid them bidding WARS!).
(g) If you win; you own it (congrats and pay).
(h) If you loose; [better luck next time] there are plenty of other good fish in them big oceans...

[QUOTE=Figfan203]I think there's sketchy stuff going on with a few ebay fig sellers... Just look at the bidding history and you see patterns with certain names. [/QUOTE]

This is the second time in a week someone has made an undocumented claim of "stuff" going on.  I disagree.  I sell a lot and bid/buy a lot and watch dozens of auctions at any given time.

I've already explained the situation but people continue to make up crap about something funny going on.  It's not that complicated.  It's not automatic bids.  Automatic bids only get placed when someone challenges the bidders existing bid.

There is more than one method eBay provides for someone to bid on an auction.  I don't know how to take a screenshot of my smartphone, but there is another auction I am bidding on right now that is presently at $21.00.  When using the eBay app for my Android phone, it gives me the option of bidding at $21.50.  After each bid I place it gives me the option of placing another bid $.50 higher than the existing bid.  It just takes a click of a button to make each bid.  If I want to bid $50 I can just click the button a bunch of times (which this bidder is apparently doing) or I can edit the bid amount and then place the bid.  Depending on keyboard options on a phone, it's often just easier to click the button.

There is absolutely nothing fishy going on with this guy's bidding.  It just isn't a very common practice.  I've had around 250 auctions in the past six months and he's the only bidder that has done this but I have other bidders that do different things that I think are unusual.  Still, there isn't anything fishy about those bids either.

The high prices for some varieties isn't due to fraudulent practices.  Some people just have enough money to buy things they really want.  Many of my most valuable figs have been sold by offers made direct to me, not through auctions.

As George says, people should not get caught up in bidding wars.  Just decide what something is worth to you.  I know that is hard to do as I've bought many things myself where I paid more than I originally said it was worth.  In the end, if I really want it, the sky is the limit!  My house/farm is nearly paid for, we have good retirement savings, we have money set aside for our son's college expenses, and my wife has a good job! LOL :)

Ok

I have bought a lot on eBay lately, and once I won and the price went down. How did that happen?

If it's the auction I am thinking of, a bidder who had outbid you asked for their bid to be cancelled since she found out more about the variety and decided it wasn't suited to her climate.