Auction Ending Time

[edconway14]

I'm a sniper.  I decide how much an item is  worth to  me  and  wait until the last second to enter my bid> if the item  is above that amount I  just don't bid.  I enter the bid so close to the end  that I don't have time   to reenter another bid. I want to avoid what they call 'auction fever'

Recently it seems that the time countdown on my computers (note plural-- this happens  on more than one computer)  is not correct. The auction ends while there is still time clicking down on my computer. Earlier today an auction was schedule to end at a certain time (say 9:45). The countdown indicated about 45 seconds left yet it ended.  

Anybody else notice anything like this?

[crazystuff4sale]

@edconway14 

You will need to refresh the page periodically to sync the count-down timer to ebay.

(Hit reload button or F5 on PC every few seconds.)

That's the only way to resolve the issue you're having.

[mudshark61369]

@edconway14,

This past week I did notice that the bid history page loses time quite quickly, while the auction page countdown clock is fairly accurate.  The first auction I encountered it on was on Monday, but I didn't have much time left to track the time differences.

However, on Wednesday I had both pages of an auction that had no bids  open more than an hour before its end,  and checked it periodically With a about 12 minutes left, a bid showed up on the listing, so I opened the Bid History page to see the exact ending time for the auction down to seconds. 

The BH page was 8:32 seconds behind the listing page info. I refreshed the page and went back to the listing page.

When that clock hit 5 minutes I opened the BH page again and it was 6 seconds behind 

I checked it again w/ 4 mins. left and it was -9 secs. behind,

at 3mins. it was -17

and w/ 2mins. left it was -20

 With a minute left it was -23

  Because the listing page matched my atomic clock synched computer's time I placed my bid which made it in with 2 seconds left and a note popped up saying "we are determining the winner", so I switched to the BH page which showed 22 seconds left to see if another snipe came in. None had Once it hit zero I opened the listing and saw the You won message.

I've checked it out on a few other auctions since and the BH page's clock seems to be losing time on an average of 3 to 4 seconds per minute.  If you were looking at the BH page's clock when you placed a bid, that could account for the auction already being over.

[woodland_gnome]

Your bid must be RECEIVED and timestamped at eBay's servers before the end of the last second. The countdown is NOT a real-time feed of bids coming in and eBay's clock counting down and is not an accurate measure of how much time you have left to submit the bid (click the confirm button) so it is received in time. It is rather a script that runs on your device periodically calling for updates on the status and time remaining, and uses your device's clock to count down from the time left display it last received from eBay (which took time to traverse the internet and get loaded into your device's RAM so your clock could start counting down). There is no adjustment for latency either way and so it is doubly slow compared to the time you would have to submit for it to get to eBay in time.

Back before the countdown was introduced, it is was relatively easy (and fun) to synch a local clock to the time remaining by clicking refresh on the Bid History Page at a particular noted time per the local clock (top of a minute was easiest) and then adding the returned time remaining to that time; this automatically adjusted for latency both ways and gave you the second before which you had to click the confirm button (best to do that a few times and pick the earliest result and add a solid buffer time since latency can change). But the countdown replaced the static display that enabled you to get a single unchanging time left display upon refreshing so it's not so easy anymore.  AND there is no longer a screen to confirm the bid (except see last paragraph).  I now use and recommend a "snipe service" to place your one true maximum bid about 6 seconds out; mine allows limited snipes for free (up to 4 wins per month) or several different pay plans if you are using it more frequently (or want a bit more reliability that comes with a "mirror server" in another location than the main server) and uses an eBay supplied API instead of the glitch user interface. It also captures any error message that eBay returns if the bid is unsuccessful, as opposed to you using the user interface where any such error message is overwritten when the countdown gets to 0 so you generally don't even see it much less be able to read it. There are other snipe services out there with their own plans, but we are not allowed to make unsolicited recommendations of particular ones.

ETA:  A big question is how the pre-authorization requirement now being rolled out (a few buyers at a time) to auction bids will affect sniping and especially snipe services.  

[khetzel]

I realize I am on a slow connection so the closest I am willing to play "chicken" is about 8 seconds.  I do realize that may give someone with more sofisticated equipment s chance to react.  I say let them have it if so since I did bid my absolute max. 🙂

[downunder-61]

Deleted, wrong thread