It seems that when I make a bid today on something sold by a private seller, whether my bid will be inclusive or exclusive of the buyer protection fee will be completely random. At times when I thought I was putting in a bid inclusive of the fee (what used to be the case), I found that ebay added the fee on top so I was bidding higher than intended. If I try to avoid this happening by entering a bid without the fee added and I'm entering just one bid increment higher than the current bid (excluding fees), then sometimes my bid will be accepted and sometimes not, and that is irrespective of whether it was telling me my bid was too low on the 'review bid' pop-up.
