Lost Bid

Question

I was the high bidder right to the last second on bidding. 2 minutes after it closed I got an email that said I didn't get the winning bid. Happened to me twice this week. Even took a picture of it that I was high bidder and the bidding had ended. How does this happen and how can I prevent it from happening again. Happened twice this week. Thanks

woodland_gnome · Answer

The countdown you see is not a real-time feed of bids coming into eBay's servers and the eBay clock counting down. Rather, it is a script that runs on your computer and calls for updates on the auction status about every 3 seconds. It uses the time remaining from those updates to start your own computer's clock counting down from the time the page loads or the last successful update, and displays the "current price" and your status as of the last successful update.

Meanwhile, on eBay's end, a bid coming in is timestamped before eBay does anything else with it. If it gets the timestamp before the end of the last second of the auction, it is a timely bid. Then the bid must be processed to see that it is a valid bid for that item (meets the currently calculated minimum bid amount, not subject to a seller block or over the Buyer Activity Limit or from an account with a bidding suspension, timestamped before the end of the auction) before it is handed over to the server that is calculating the status of the auction. This is usually all done in a fraction of a second, but sometimes can take a couple of seconds. Only after the status server calculates the new "current bid" and leader is that information available to be sent in response to an update request from your computer (and it takes some fraction of a second for your request to get to eBay's servers and another for it to get back, get loaded into RAM, and get displayed on your screen, and the script runs the clock down from when the new "time remaining" loads in RAM, which usually results in your countdown being slow because of the time lag).

So, between the 3 second (at best, not all updates are succesful) gaps and the time to process a new bid, there is always at least a 1-4 second window at the end where the results of a new bid will NOT display on your countdown screen before YOUR clock reaches 0 and the script calls for a full refresh of the Item Page. At that time the results of the late bid usually come up (you are not seeing the actual bid, you are seeing the calculated "winning price" or "current bid"), but I always (and everyone should) give it a few seconds and then manually refresh just to be sure before relying on the result as final (again, on a busy night it might take a few seconds to finish processing a bid).

If you bid your TRUE maximum, it doesn't make any difference whether you saw the bid before your countdown ran out--if you had been able to react to it before the auction ended you wouldn't have reacted anyway, since you would not let yourself bid more than the MOST you would be willing to pay. If you did not bid your TRUE maximum and were unable to react, now you know why it is important to bid your true maximum REGARDLESS of what anyone else appears or doesn't appear to be bidding. Highest bid received (but not cancelled/retracted) before the auction ends win, but the price is set by the high bid of the SECOND highest bidder (again, as of what is received but not cancelled/retracted before the end) so it is not necessary to take into account what others have bid, what you guess they have bid, or what you guess they MIGHT bid (except to assume it's about the same as you so add a few cents to the round number you think is your TRUE maximum as a tie-breaker) and expecting to react to other bids as they come in is a recipe for losing at less than you are willing to pay.

lady_madonna · Answer

@rodpe_8319 If you could provide an item # or link to the listing, we can examine the bidding history page and explain the circumstances for your loss.

eburtonlab · Answer

There is a big difference between being the high bidder while the auction is still ongoing, and being declared the winner after the auction has ended and all the last second bids are tallied by eBay.

You have not actually won until the auction is over and you see a link to pay or you are declared the winner and an automatic payment is made. Even if the countdown on your computer goes to zero without you seeing any additional bids that does not mean that eBay has not received bids before the auction ended.

Bidding ends a set number of days after the auction started down to the exact second. Bids are accepted so long as a bid for a valid amount is received by eBay's server before the auction ends, even if those bids are not displayed on individual bidders' pages around the world until a few seconds later.

eBay does not extend bidding. Once you have bid your maximum, bid extensions can not help you, only hurt you.

For some unknown reason eBay no longer displays the ending time to the second at the top of the bid history page, but if there are any bids you should be able to calculate the actual ending time by examining the starting time of the auction at the bottom of the page. Auctions always begin and end at the same time down to the exact second, unless the auction is ended early by the seller. All bidders have the same time to place valid bids, and no one gets any extra time. eBay time stamps every bid as it is received by eBay, and the times are displayed to the second in the bid history if you use a desktop browser.

If you think you have encountered an auction where a bid was accepted after the end of the auction, examine the starting time closely and compare it to the time the bid was received and you should find that the bid was received before the auction actually ended. If not, please post an item number so that others can see it.

If you bid the maximum amount you are willing to pay (taking into account any shipping or taxes) then the only way you can lose is if someone is willing to bid more than you were and actually does so, or if someone bid the same exact amount, earlier.

No one can count on having the last bid, and bidders should assume that other bids will be placed at the end of the auction too late to be reacted to, and set their bids accordingly. Note that the countdown displayed on your device and the bids you see are not updated in real time, and just because you did not see any other bids when your clock reaches zero does not mean that eBay did not receive other bids at the last moment.

You have not won until the page refreshes and you see a note indicating that you have been declared the winner and you see a link to pay or your payment is taken automatically. A note indicating you are the high bidder issued while the auction is still ongoing is not the same as being declared the winner by eBay after the auction has ended.

If your auction countdown is not behaving correctly, check to make sure your computer's time and time zone are set correctly, and the date and time are synchronized with an internet time server such as time.windows.com or time.gov.

Check your computer's time here:

https://time.is/