Is the auction system broken?

Looking at closed auctions, I've noticed that sometimes the winning bid is much higher than the next highest bid (e.g. Chapel Stile, Buttermere). This doesn't square with how the "maximum bid" system is supposed to work, the winning bid should never be more than $1 greater than the next highest bid.

Is the bidding system is set up so you are bidding against yourself, or just taking your maximum without regard to what others are bidding?

X person bids a maximum of $1400, but the bid start is 1000 then it types:

X: 1000

then Y person bids $1500, but the maximum bid is 1400 so it types:

Y: 1401
x: 1000

then X person bids $1460, but the maximum bid is 1500 so it types:

Y:1461
X:1460
Y:1401
X:1000


hope this helps.

KA - if you look at the record you just created you'll notice that the winning bid is exactly $1 greater than the next highest bid as I described in my OP.

What you described is exactly how it should work, unfortunately that's not how it actually seems to work. The winning bid can be several hundred dollars greater than the next highest.

Shack Dougall US$1145.00 Jul-14-06 17:12:26 PDT
Anshe Chung US$1001.00 Jul-14-06 11:15:49 PDT
Shack Dougall US$1000.00 Jul-12-06 21:01:37 PDT

nothing weird in this sample,
Shack bid 1000
and anshe bid 1144
then shack bid higher.
thats all

Looking at this some more I wonder if what is happening is that the system is only posting loosing new bids, not existing loosing bids.

That is, if person X bids 1143 it is shown as X:1000, then another person Y bids 1010, that is shown as Y:1010 with an immediate bid of X:1011 from the original bid.

X 1011
Y 1010
X 1000

Now another person Z bids 1145 which is the winning bid. The system shows that but not the original X:1143 so it shows

Z 1145
X 1011
Y 1010
X1000

That must be what it's doing, you have to infer from the high bid what the next highest was.

/130/e7/121046/1.html#post1146991
yes it is.