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?
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."
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.dll?ViewBids&item=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.
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.
I didn't notice that, rbm. The auction does state shipping to US only. Guess that solves the mystery.
Actually, and I am sitting here with a red face, I changed my username on the attachment, for the purpose of confidentiality, from maui09 to AAAA, not realizing there was such an actual user name. ("Oh what a tangled web we weave....") The thing that bothers me is that the winning bidders username, although he bid prior to everyone else, isn't listed first and only appears when the auction is over.
That's the way it is supposed to work, since he was the first bidder, and his max was enough to win the auction. As other bidders push up the bid of someone in that situation, his/her name stays on the top. Bids are listed in amount order, not date order. That's the weird part, especially since his name obviously did appear when the other guy made his two lower consecutive bids.
Okay, It happened again. Maybe I am just so stupid I can't see it, so can somebody explain this to me? http://offer.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewBids&item=3939689644 The guy I bid against was investmentassociates ( 800) at the time I bid, he was high bidder at $15.00. he placed that bid this afternoon at 2:49 (Nov-15-04 14:49:02 PST). The guy that won placed his bid at 7:59 this morning (Nov-15-04 07:59:51 PST) or almost 7 hours earlier. His name never came up until I bid. He obviously placed a max bid in the morning, but if he did, why did the $15.00 bid stand?
It seems that your bids are being ignored for some reason. This auction stated that it shipped worldwide so it doesn't seem to be a location problem. As I recall, you have had that ID since 2002 but it still has a 0 feedback rating. Why don't you contact eBay and see if there is a problem with your ID. Maybe after a certain amount of time has passed with no activity your ID is considered to be inactive. Have you won anything at all under this ID?
Susan, you must have missed his post about the AAAA being an attempt at anonymity which went awry. He is maui009, with a feedback higher than mine. lincoln64 - I did a spreadsheet on the bidding, and everything checks out, with tomvan having placed his winning bid almost 24 hours before you. The question is why his bidding wasn't showing up on your screen. I second Susan's suggestion to contact EBay and let them know you are not seeing all bids. Of course since you bid the most you were willing to pay (you did, didn't you? ) you lost auctions to other buyers willing to pay more. That's the way auctions - live, mail, internet, whatever - work. Remember too, he didn't necessarily beat you by the 50¢ increment that the seller got - his max could have been much higher.
I don't mind getting outbid, that's the nature of the beast. I bid the max I am willing pay and I win some and lose some. I'm not disputing that he had the winning bid, I'm just saying something seems fishy. I'll contact eBay and find out what I'm missing. Any suggestions as to where I should go, specifically, to do that?
After looking at the auction again, I think what happened was that tomvan placed a proxy bid which was then outbid by blixlee, investmentassociates, and you. tomvan got notification from eBay that he had been outbid. On the last day of the auction, he then went through the link in the email sent to him by eBay and raised his proxy bid. This means that for the two days in question, tomvan did not have the winning bid, which is why it wasn't showing up. When he raised his proxy, he showed up as the winning bidder again. I think the problem with the time might be ebay. I would contact them regarding the time difference between the winning bid and the prior bids and ask them for a reasonable explanation.
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!! Makes Perfect sense now. You should be writing mystery novels! It sounds so simple once it's explained. I think that the time difference is because his original bid was increased and not recorded as a new bid, so the winning time reflected his original bid time.
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.
