How to file claim? I was winning bidder My $352 bid but lost to buyer who's bid was 24 seconds late.

Question

I bid $352 for a baseball card and I was in the winning position when bid time ended at 1:20 AM on 4-21 but I lost the purchase to someone who was 24 seconds late. See photo. How can I phone ebay administration so they can hear the issue? If phoning is not an option, where is the claim form for my protest. Please help

winning bid image.jpg

woodland_gnome · Answer

Do not assume a precision that isn't indicated. hh:mm is not the same thing as hh:mm:00.000. eBay truncates (rounds down) its time displays to the lower second, minute, or even hour depending on the page you are looking at and in some cases how much time remains. hh:mm could be anywhere from hh:mm:00.000 to hh:mm:59.999. That's OK on search results and the like, but for years now they also truncate to the minute on the main Listing Page for the auction, and more recently started doing it on the Bid History Page for the actual endtime (but the bid times are still to the second, confusing things further).

Go back to the Bid History (where you found the bid time) and look down at the Starting Price line and you will see that the starting time displayed there was less than or equal to x days (the "Duration" also displayed at the top) earlier to the second. The auction ends x days to the second after the start time (I'm not sure whether that is at the end of that clock second or if it is at the anniversary of the fraction of a second it started to the fraction of a second that eBay keeps a record of on the timestamp to break ties that came in during the same second; I know it is not at the beginning of the second because bids are accepted that bear the same second display as the Start Time) unless something happens to cause it to end earlier (e.g. seller ends early with or without a winner, buyer uses Buy It Now option, etc.).

For an active auction with a bid you can calculate the endtime to the second from the starting time and duration displayed on the Bid History Page IF there has been a bid (there is no direct display of the endtime of an active auction on that page, only for completed auctions and as previously noted that is truncated to the minute and doesn't display the seconds).

lady_madonna · Answer

@bobcam777

There is nothing to claim. You were outbid by a higher bidder.

The auction ended at 10:20:31pm PDT. The winning bidder placed their bid at 10:20:24, which was 7 seconds before the auction ended.

https://www.ebay.com/bfl/viewbids/386920692105?item=386920692105&rt=nc&_trksid=p4429486.m145235.l2565