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 Replies: 17 / Views: 3,653 |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1291 Posts |
On Saturday night, I was watching the individual items that I was selling tick down to their last seconds. I was actually watching on my smartphone and I was amazed at how many went up in price at the last possible instant. In fact, some didn't appear to change at all, but when I switched the view from "selling" to "sold", some of them had in fact gone up. The only thing I can figure is that these folks are using some sort of proxy bidding software and setting it to place their bid with 1 second left. One of these last-micro-second bids caused one of my bidders to suspect me of manipulating the bids. She wrote: Quote:
Was winning bid at 15.75 at 0 sec screen went off, and when the winning page showed up, it was 20.09, which was my maximum bid. Seems very suspicious to me. Please contact me.
So I contacted her and eventually sent her a copy of the bidding history showing her that a bidder with 1255 feedbacks popped in at the last possible instant with a bid of 19.99. I don't think it convinced her. I'm bracing for a negative or at least some caustic comments in her feedback..... Edited by weerdsteev
02/17/2014 1:17 pm
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Rest in Peace
United States
10625 Posts |
All this after getting that negative reversed from the "individual" that didn't know you sold restored Buffalos. You just can't win.
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Bedrock of the Community
United States
10045 Posts |
Quote:
Was winning bid at 15.75 at 0 sec screen went off, and when the winning page showed up, it was 20.09 Doesn't a clock run during the last minutes of an ebay auction--BUT does the page refresh bids every second? I know the auction page refreshes once the auction has ended, and that's usually when I discover whether I out-sniped anyone else--not before?  |
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
1291 Posts |
Yeah, I think that no matter what type of device you're looking at, it cannot refresh itself fast enough to show that last second bid to you in real-time. As you're watching time tick down, ebay can record the bid with 1 second to go but cannot necessarily send it across the internet to your device in the time that it takes to go from "1 second left" to "0 seconds left". I would also NOT be surprised to find out that ebay is accepting bids a teensy bit after it hits 0 seconds. They probably know that people are trying to cut the timing as close as possible and if they close it at precisely when it's supposed to close some of those bids just won't make it in through all the last second traffic. Sounds sinister and paranoid to say that, but where additional ebay revenue is concerned - who's to say...? Edited by weerdsteev
02/17/2014 2:41 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1391 Posts |
It probably has more to do with latency and the difficulty of syncing two remote computers than it has anything to do with revenue.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1391 Posts |
You could just refund her money and then add her to the blocked buyers list. Might be easier in the long run.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1291 Posts |
I offered to do that. She said "no". Said she'd grade me based on the coin and not her suspicion.
We'll see...
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1130 Posts |
I don't see why she would be upset. She got outbid at the last second. I mean, I kind of get what she is saying, but she shouldn't be mad enough to leave bad feedback because of that.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7375 Posts |
IMO she should be happy she won by .10. Sounds like she had the perfect bid. Last week I won a couple of auctions by very small margins, and was thrilled about it. Lately, on popular items it seems like people are holding their last bids for the final few seconds, and may the best man/woman win. Saw a 1909 s vdb jump through the roof in the final few seconds. Some people are never happy. Like you said, the bid history will show what happened.
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Valued Member
United States
110 Posts |
You might suggest that your winning bidder go to the completed auction page on ebay, then click on the link for "xx bids", which opens the bid history on her own desktop. From there she can click again on the disguised name of the second bidder, so she can see for herself the bid history of that person, including whether that bidder chooses to enter last-minute bids, and the number of different sellers that bidder buys from. By doing that, she will almost certainly discover that the last minute bidding was something commonly done by that bidder, and in many auctions unrelated to you. That's a search skill that your buyer needs to acquire anyway, to determine ON HER OWN whether she is being cheated. -Duncan Edited by Duncan_Doenitz
02/17/2014 9:10 pm
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Bedrock of the Community
13014 Posts |
It does amaze me what people think sellers are able to see on ebay. The only way to "probe" a max bid I know of would be to bid it up until youre the high bidder and cancel all the bids which would be obvious to as a buyer when youre outbid then then youre winning again or an immediate second chance offer when they bid one to many times. I have gotten that immediate second chance offer before that was so fast the "winning bidder" couldnt have even written an email in that time. In that case I told them if they wanted to take my price before the "other bidder" came in Id do it otherwise no. But theres no magical reveal high bid button or way to account for snipers |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1080 Posts |
I was watching an auction simultaneously on my phone and my laptop a while back, and there was a 3 or 4 second difference between their countdown timers.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
1751 Posts |
Wow 3 or 4 seconds that a huge discrepancy, it be had to win on your computer. Many times I will place my bid the last 4 seconds, I will show as winning when the clock goes to zero. Then the page will refresh and I will have been out bid. I never count on winning until the page refreshes. I like the fun of doing my own sniping. Even if I lose, it's still a lot more fun!!
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Valued Member
United States
331 Posts |
I just had an auction where the item was very rare, only one known, and a the seller was selling another one. I estimated that the item was worth approx. $7-800 and bid $1400 in an attempt to avoid being sniped. I really! wanted it. The item sold for one bid increment over my high bid. Right after it sold a third one was listed by the same seller with a BIN of $1400! I think he used a shill buyer to bid on the first one to get a value and then listed the second hoping to sell both at way more than their real value. I e-mailed him and told him the item was way over priced and he cancelled the auction and relisted it with a lower BIN price and I bought it then. I haven't seen the first one relisted but I probably will.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4085 Posts |
This is typical ebay stuff. Last second bidding is standard operating procedure for many people. It's typically how I bid on ebay, although I usually bid my max bid with around 4 seconds left as a buffer. She should be happy she won - it's rare that I win an item where I have bid my max bid early. |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
7375 Posts |
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Replies: 17 / Views: 3,653 |
Posted 02/17/2014 2:24 pm
