Word to the wise...If you really want to buy something on eBay just figure out your max bid and throw it in about 4 seconds before the auction ends or use a sniping tool such as esnipe.com to bid for you. You'd be surprised how much of a difference it makes. eSnipe costs a little money, but it saves you a lot more through lower priced wins.
eBay does not make you pay the full "max bid" amount if you win the auction. You only pay one bid increment more than the next highest bidder. There is no incentive for the 30 or so people who are interested in this thing to be bidding it up right now. You're just going to see someone else come along behind you and raise the stakes. That truck is at $1125 right now. You could bid $20,000 if you wanted it bad enough, but you're only going to have to pay the seller $25.00 more than the next highest bidder. i.e., if you threw in a $20k bid right now and nobody else bid on it you would win it for $1150.
As an example...My brother bought a Carolina Skiff on eBay with this method. He bid $5800 or so with only a few seconds left. The seller told him that as soon as the auction was over people were e-mailing him saying that they were willing to pay $6k-$6.5k for it. They were pissed that he sniped the auction. If they were willing to pay that much they should have bid that much though. It's their own fault for putting in little incremental bids reacting to the other bidders instead of just putting in their true max and seeing if anyone else was going to raise them. eBay is not an auction house where bidders outbid each other until everyone gives up. When the time is up it's up.
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