Why would a buyer bid multiple times in small increments against themselves?

[nitra92]

Hi there I am fairly new to selling.  Why would a buyer bid multiple times increasing their bid in small increments bidding against themselves?  There is at least one bidder on the item who seems to be genuine with a lot of good feedback about them who has sensible bids increasing as the other bids have increased.  And then 2 bidders who look like they are bots or something.  But what would the point of this behavior be? surely if they are not genuine customers they'll lose what little good feedback they have and i will just re-list? 

Is it up to me to police this or does eBay monitor the behavior of bidders who look like bots? 

[red_magpie]

Some buyers don't understand the automatic bidding system, and keep on nibbling away with multiple small bids until they have outbid the current high bidder.

Some do it more strategically, to intimidate other bidder into thinking that there's no point in bidding, as they seem so determined to win it. This is called bid stacking, but there's no evidence that it works.

Both are perfectly legal, there's nothing to "police".

[nitra92]

Thanks red magpie ... really helpful and thanks so much for taking the time to reply