Also, sometimes I bid on, say, 4 bundles of the same item in the same auction, but it turns out that - even with my maximum bid- I am only winning 1 of the bundles. I then up my bid so that I am winning on all three. In that instance, I am bidding against myself on that one item, but I made that decision since I wanted all four.
Example: there are 4 5-packs of a cigar available on an auction, Right now its showing all four have $8 bids on them. I bid on all 4 at $9 each with a $12 maximum bid
After hitting the button, it says I am winning only one of the 5'ers at $12 since 3 of people before me (who had been bidding $8) also had a $12 maximum bid and they were in line in front of me.
So now I up my bid to $14. I am now winning all four at $14, but I did, in actuality, bid against myself on that one bundle so that I am now paying $14 instead of $12 for that one unit.
Why do this? Well, maybe I really want all 4 of them and the price is still good AND, with the combined shipping, it dollars out better per cigar if I have 4 units at $14 rather than one unit at $12.
But this is, IMO, unfair. I should be able to bid on the one unit at $12 and the other units at $14 if I so choose without having to do something sneaky like setting up a different account with different email and bidding on the same auction from two different accounts. (now, nobody would do that WOULD they???? )