on 10-31-2012 05:25 AM
then it seems i get outbid instantly?....... why start so cheap if thats not the price the seller wants......
If you are outbid right away then that means that someone else has bid already and that they have bid more than the starting bid.
It's called proxy bidding.
If the auction starts at 99 cents, a buyer can bid that amount or more but it will only show that their bid is 99 cents until someone else makes a bid and outbids them.
There is more information on proxy/automatic bidding here:
http://pages.ebay.ca/help/buy/automatic-bidding.html
You can see all of the automatic bids on an item by clicking on bids and then on show automatic bids.