It's called sniping an auction. Don't let it stop you from bidding, just play the same game. I use bidnip.com to snipe auctions. Essentially you set the max limit price for the auction and then let bidnip bid for you. It uses Ebay's minimum bid and will bid up to your maximum price. It does this within the last few seconds of the auction. You do have to be able to accept if it goes over your price though, as you will still loose the auction. You can still go to bidnip before the auction ends and raise your price if you feel so inclined. It has a cost, currently about $.70 per auction, but it was about $.25 a couple of years ago, but you get 5 free for signing up. There are other services out there that do the same thing.