Ebay Question

lincoln64 · 11-14-2004, 10:50 PM

I placed a bid on ebay today. I knew I was going to be away for an hour or so, so I put in a max bid. I was high bidder when I entered my max bid and was recoreded as such on the auction page. I don't understand how the bidding went.

I am AAAA. I was high bidder when I left. I outbid someone whose last bid was on: Nov-11-04 22:18:32 PST, my bid was placed on: Nov-14-04 09:48:36 PST, somehow the winners bid was placed before (Nov-11-04 21:35:31 PST). His bid never showed up until the bidding was over (please see link below) What am I missing?

pcrdnadave · 11-14-2004, 11:00 PM

It does seem odd.

satootoko · 11-15-2004, 12:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lincoln64

the winners bid was placed before (Nov-11-04 21:35:31 PST). His bid never showed up until the bidding was over (please see link below) What am I missing?

I can't explain why you couldn't see his bid earlier, but according to the bidding history you posted it went like this:

On 11/11 at 9:35:31 p.m. ivy296j placed a bid of exactly $18.93. It was displayed as the seller's opening bid amount, since only enough of any maximum bid to reach a winning amount is ever posted. The reason I'm sure it was his exact bid is that it is less than one increment higher than yours. Normally a max bid is increased to a full increment over the next highest, but if it is not that high, the max bid itself becomes the new high bid.

At 10:16:52 strech12 placed a bid of $15.00. It was too low, and ivy's posted bid went to one increment over $15.

At 10:18:32 Strech tried again, this time bidding $17.00. It was still too low, he wasn't willing to go higher and gave up, so ivy's posted bid went to one increment over $17.00. (Obviously at that time ivy's bids were showing up on strech's screen, or there would have been no reason for him to make his second bid.)

On 11/14 your a bid of $18.83 was placed. If everything had been working correctly, it would have been shown as not enough, with ivy's full $18.93 displayed as the high bid. Had you then bid higher, you would have won (unless ivy was watching, and decided to increase his bid).

I've seen a lot of software glitches on EBay, but this is the first time I've ever heard of a high bidder not showing up.

lincoln64 · 11-15-2004, 12:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by satootoko

I can't explain why you couldn't see his bid earlier, but according to the bidding history you posted it went like this:

On 11/11 at 9:35:31 p.m. ivy296j placed a bid of exactly $18.93. It was displayed as the seller's opening bid amount, since only enough of any maximum bid to reach a winning amount is ever posted. The reason I'm sure it was his exact bid is that it is less than one increment higher than yours. Normally a max bid is increased to a full increment over the next highest, but if it is not that high, the max bid itself becomes the new high bid.

At 10:16:52 strech12 placed a bid of $15.00. It was too low, and ivy's posted bid went to one increment over $15.

At 10:18:32 Strech tried again, this time bidding $17.00. It was still too low, he wasn't willing to go higher and gave up, so ivy's posted bid went to one increment over $17.00. (Obviously at that time ivy's bids were showing up on strech's screen, or there would have been no reason for him to make his second bid.)

On 11/14 your a bid of $18.83 was placed. If everything had been working correctly, it would have been shown as not enough, with ivy's full $18.93 displayed as the high bid. Had you then bid higher, you would have won (unless ivy was watching, and decided to increase his bid).

I've seen a lot of software glitches on EBay, but this is the first time I've ever heard of a high bidder not showing up.

Thanks, I thought it was a real head scratcher. Still don't know why it happened, but it happened on a couple of other occsions when I put in a last minute bid. It said I was high bidder with less than 7 seconds to go and the I lost the auction to someone who had placed a max bid much earlier. Oh well, "Ya pays yer money, and ya takes yer chances."

susanlynn9 · 11-15-2004, 09:29 AM

Lincoln64, what is even stranger is that your bid doesn't show up on the actual auction at all. Here is the direct link to the biddinghistory on that item:

http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.d...tem=3939957500

It looks like your bid was not accepted, as it never shows up in the history.The other option is that the seller cancelled your bid because of the 0 feedback rating.

In answer to your question about how the winning bidder could show up three days later, the only thing I can think of is a glitch in a snipe program. Perhaps the bidder set up the snipe on the 11th with instructions not to actually place the bid until the 14th? I could see how the date could show as the date the snipe was initially set up. It's still wrong, but at least it's understandable.

rbm86 · 11-15-2004, 11:45 AM

The Ebay profile for "AAAA" is a zero feedback user from Germany. If that is you, and you bid on his auction, it is likely he cancelled your bid. The auction listing states he only ships to the US, so "AAAA" being a user from Germany is probably why the bid was cancelled.

susanlynn9 · 11-15-2004, 11:48 AM

I didn't notice that, rbm. The auction does state shipping to US only. Guess that solves the mystery.

susanlynn9 · 11-16-2004, 01:14 PM

I'm so glad I could help

satootoko · 11-16-2004, 02:04 PM

Did I misunderstand your original postings?

In an EBay auction main page both the name of the current high bidder and the number of bids received are listed. If you click on the number of bids link, you go to a complete listing of all bidders with their bid times and current amounts. I thought you were saying that the ultimate winners were not showing up on the bid lists. Were you actually saying that they didn't show up as the high bidder at certain times? If that's the case, there really was no problem.

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