oh im sorry i think i misunderstood the point. When you said this "the second highest bid that is not the same user " the same user means the person who is actually log in the system?

try this

SELECT TOP 1 idCustomerBid, idProduct, bidAmount, bidDate
FROM bidHistory
WHERE (idProduct = 272) AND (idCustomerBid <> 2) AND (idCustomerBid NOT IN
...

Hi, i once have that problem and i use this function and it work for me.

http://geekswithblogs.net/AngelEyes/archive/2007/04/12/111504.aspx

try this

select ( select f.cycle as col1
from final as f
for xml raw, elements, type).query('for $col1 in (row/col1) return concat($col1, " ")')

I did not test this.

Regards.