AH Max Bid Feature

[spacktrack]

Originally Posted by Thromdog

Interesting. Imagine if this was allowed on ebay? Being able to lower your max bid seems kind of weird, I'm actually kind of surprised it's allowed.

1. Let's say the current high bid on an item is $100 for Bidder A.
2. Bidder A has a max of $150 on the item
3. Bidder B comes in and puts a max bid of $10,000
4. Item is now showing a high bid of $160 for Bidder B
5. Bidder B lowers his max bid to $170 ???

Seems like this could be used as a method to expose Bidder A's max bid. Not sure I like that....

The far more serious issue with what you've outlined on eBay is bid retractions. Bidder B in your scenario could, on eBay, retract the bid entirely and re-bid $149, leaving Bidder A at $150, his max bid. That's the real issue and the one that gets used and abused all the time. Lowering a max bid is allowed on eBay--they just call it a bid retraction.

In an auction like REA or Heritage, there's no bid retractions. If Bidder B outbids Bidder A, his bid sticks. Whether or not his max bid was $160 or $10,000, he has entered into a binding contract should be win the item at that level. There's no obligation on Bidder A to come back and bid over Bidder B.

The reason that changing max bids downward is allowed is because any number of things can happen during the course of an auction where maybe the original max bid is no longer feasible or wanted.

If you place a $10,000 max bid on day 1 of REA on an item that is opening at $1000, and then you find out a week later, when the item is at $2500, that your transmission needs to be replaced or another card has popped up that you want or you lost your job, why shouldn't you be able to change the autobid downward? That, to me, is the more responsible option--you're on the hook for what you've bid and where the level is at (there's no retracting), but you're not forced into watching a max bid get hit and hit when you know you can't pay or no longer want to pay the original $10,000.

Brian