plantladylin said:I've never bought anything on Ebay; years ago I bid on something that I really, really wanted and it got down to within a couple of seconds when I was outbid ... I was so disappointed that I never bid on anything again and whatever the item was it must not have been that important because I can't even remember what it was! 
Nowadays a lot of e-bay sellers have the Buy It Now option but I haven't even looked at e-bay in a long time.
I almost always Buy it Now. I recently Bid on an item and my Max bid was exceeded by someone else. They now have this feature. Say an item is 5 $. You can place a max bid of 10 but it will accept your bid marked up to 5.50 until you are outbid.
What happened to you was likely a "sharpshooter". They wait or use software to wait til the last few seconds and then outbid you.
One of the few auctions I ever used was to buy a 19 1/2 foot Bayliner boat. It was close so I drove and looked it over. Had that not been the case - no way I would have bid. I had and enjoyed it for 6 years while my daughter was young. I sold it when she was 14.
