Bids that didn’t happen…
I posted this last night and now it’s nowhere to be found. I bought a watch last night. With 45 seconds to go in the auction, I entered my max bid at $211.37. I was then the high bidder at $150-something. A few more bids came in, but I remained the high bidder at $177. I raised my max bid to $219.11 but it didn’t matter because there were no more bids. I sat there and watch the clock countdown to 0:00 and I was the high bidder at $177. Then is said “determining winner†or something like that for a minute. I won of course, and get the invoice a minute later….$211.37 + tax/shipping. I am furious. It’s very obvious eBay tacked on a bid that didn’t happen in order to drive the price up to my first high bid. I set that high bid to win against other humans, not for eBay to set the final price at that to drive up their fees. I strongly considered canceling the whole purchase, but I didn’t want to shaft the seller because they were innocent in it too. But I want to know what can be done considering I watched the item end at $177 and eBay said it magically just hapoened to end at my first max bid
house*of*paws
·2 years agoHi @bryanandstacie
Your ‘nowhere to be found’ post from last night can be found on the ‘Ask a Mentor’ Board … and received an answer.
The easy way to locate your posts is to click on your Username anywhere in the Community. You’ll be shown ALL of your posts.
BTW, you are equally uninformed about how bidding works. No shame. Many people are confused about the end-of-auction scramble to sort out sniper bids. I’ve got to say that accusing eBay of shilling is a bold assertion … though completely fictional. Sorry to burst your conspiracy bubble.
tobaccocardyahoo
·2 years agoYou are among the many who assume something nefarious is likely to be happening on Ebay and the internet, in general, when something you do not want to happen occurs.
I am amazed at the number of people who do not trust the internet who spend large amounts of time on it.
Small targeted scams are unlikely to occur as a result of the software on large internet sites. It is too hard to target small scams.
roadking5555
·2 years agoThis has happened to me when manually trying to get my last bid in at the end of an auction, I also have seen " the green light you are the highest bidder" and then see " we are determining the winner, refresh the page" and find I did not win the auction.
This auction you bid on ended at
7:04:52pm PST
The 2nd bidder placed a bid of $210.00 at 7:04:50pm PST (2 seconds before the auction ended).
I have found a 2-5 second difference between when Ebay auctions end and my open window countdown on my laptop when I place a bid, and when I look at the time stamps on all the bidding activity after the auction, I thought I bid at the last possible moment but, my bid was posted at least 5 seconds before the end and not in the last 2 seconds as I thought.
This has happened multiple times, a few I have won but most I had been outbid when I thought it was impossible another bid could have been placed.
I know that does not help answer your question, just adding my experience.
mudshark61369
·2 years ago@bryanandstacie,
If you look Carefully at the bid history and toggle between see automatic bids, and Hide auto bids, you can see what happened. If you were as you claim refreshing that page every few seconds you may not have been giving your device time to finish updating the previous info. New bids do not automatically get displayed or refresh the page.
Note: At the top of the page it says the auction ended at 7:04pm PST however the start time was 7:04:52 pm PST. So at 7:04 there were still 52 seconds left. Were you watching the bidding from the listing page or from the Bid history page. The two clocks can be out of synch from each other.
One bid that did not happen was your increased max bid of $219.11, If it had been entered the winning price would have been $2.50 more than the $210.00 placed at 7:04:50.
Did you click on the scrambled bidder IDs of the last three bidders? Do you really think ebay made up those bidder histories just to "shill bid" the auction?
You can believe what you want, but the auction bid history shows what really happened, and ebay had nothing to do with the price being raised.
nobody*s_perfect
·2 years agoIIRC eBay was taken to court over this phenomenon a few years ago, and the outcome was that the high bidder's new, higher proxy bid would not be factored-in. Hence the bid history showing the OP as the winner with both of his bids showing at 211.37 because the final, higher bid of 219.11 was not used because he was already the high bidder. The higher bid was placed at 7:04:36, a relatively leisurely 16 seconds before the auction ended at 7:04:52.
mudshark61369
·2 years ago@nobody*s_perfect,
I did not know about the court case, but the finding/ruling in that matter doesn't seem right. I would of course have to read the transcript of the case, to understand the ruling and understand the reasoning behind the court's finding.
To me it seems, If a bidder increases their maximum bid before another bidder enters their bid, very near to the end of an auction, (in this case 16 seconds before) then it would seem that the winning bid amount should have been $212.50 one full increment over r***l's bid of $210.00 not the OP's previous high bid amount.
It took me a bit to figure out what IIRC meant. Only 1 mug of coffee so far, may be the reason I had trouble with that.
nobody*s_perfect
·2 years agoI think the principle behind eBay's policy is that you can't bid against yourself. Remember that when it comes down to bidders vs sellers, eBay usually chooses to keep the bidder happy. In this situation that means keeping the selling price a little bit lower by using only the bidder's earlier bid to keep them in the lead.
woodland_gnome
·2 years ago@mudshark61369 It was not a court ruling. It was a settlement between eBay and the class action representatives in 2011. Aside from forking over money eBay agreed that they would not raise the price in response to a new bid by a currently leading bidder without giving that bidder a warning that that could or would happen when s/he went to place the new bid. But instead of giving the warning eBay elected to not raise the price, which it put into practice by rejiggering its price calculation to use the LOWEST bid of the highest bidder that is enough to outbid the highest bid of the underbidder including an earlier tie, instead of his/her maximum bid as had been done before. This went beyond just "can't increase the current bid by placing a new bid when in the lead (unless of course the new bid met the previously unmet Reserve)" situation and also covered any additional bid the leader placed before the new underbid was placed like this case.
kensgiftshop
·2 years agoIt's here
https://community.ebay.com/t5/Ask-a-Mentor/I-believe-eBay-is-now-throwing-in-shill-bids/td-p/34265544
lacemaker3
·2 years agoYes, I think that's it.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/235403297385/?nordt=true
https://www.ebay.com/bfl/viewbids/235403297385?item=235403297385&rt=nc&_trksid=p4429486.m145235.l2565
It looks like there were 8 bids placed in the last minute of the auction, by 4 different bidders. Beginning with OP's first bid (of 2), after which there were 6 other bids placed by 3 other bidders.
@bryanandstacie, your page wasn't refreshing automatically, so those last-minute bids didn't show up on your screen. But they were really placed, in the last less-than-60 seconds.
They weren't placed by eBay. And the second-high bidder didn't match your proxy bid, they just came close to it. eBay upped your first bid to the maximum amount ($211.37) because the next-highest bid ($210) was less than a bid increment lower than your maximum amount.
bryanandstacie
OP2 years agoI was refreshing it every few seconds. And yes, every time there’s a new bid, it automatically refreshes. They can make it appear there was a last second bid by another bidder, but when the clock was at 0:00, the high bid was $177.
mudshark61369
·2 years ago@bryanandstacie,
If you can still open the bid history first look at the start time Ex. 7:04:38 pm. The countdown clock tends to show minutes rounded off to 7:04 and doesn't include the last several seconds. You were invoiced for $211.37 because the last bid (look at its time stamp) was $2.50 less than that amount.
"I am furious. It’s very obvious eBay tacked on a bid that didn’t happen in order to drive the price up to my first high bid".
If ebay were tacking on bids constantly for the last almost 30 years, don't you think people would have been in an uproar over the practice, and there probably would have been investigations, especially back in the day when the majority of listings were auctions? If you thought the watch was worth around $211.00 or maybe a bit more, don't you think others might think it was worth that much as well?
bryanandstacie
OP2 years agoI never said they’ve been doing it for 30 years, did I?? I’ve been on eBay since 2001, this is the first time in 23 years that I’ve seen them do it.
selsa84
·2 years agoTimes can vary from device to device. For instance I was bidding on an item and had my cell and laptop opened to the item page. My cell phone ran 3 seconds faster than my laptop.
nobody*s_perfect
·2 years agoSounds like you ran into a last-second sniper bid, but that's a huge coincidence that the maxed out your very odd proxy bid amount.
It would be very helpful if you would share a link or a listing number so we can look at the bid history.
monica-sells
·2 years ago@nobody*s_perfect
Item: 235403297385
I think this is it...
bryanandstacie
OP2 years agoYes, that is it
bryanandstacie
OP2 years agoThis issue with the last second sniper bid is that I literally watched it count down to 0 and the high bid was $177. So how do they add bids after the auction is over and how did it magically bid up to my first max bid?
nobody*s_perfect
·2 years agoThe sniper did not 'magically" bid up to your last bid. As explained in one of the other posts, it came in below that bid by LESS than a full bid increment: They bid an even $210.00 and your full hidden proxy bid was $211.37. In that price range, the bid increment is $2.50. In other words, both you and that other bidder were willing to pay about the same amount for that item.
The countdown is not always accurate, because it is tied to your computer rather than to eBay's. The bidder who drove up your bid placed their bid just two seconds before the auction ended. If they had bid $211.38 (or more), they would have won the auction.
nobody*s_perfect
·2 years agoOops, I misspoke above when I stated, "The bidder who drove up your bid placed their bid just two seconds before the auction ended. If they had bid $211.38 (or more), they would have won the auction." Of course that competitor would have had to bid one cent over the OP's SECOND bid of $219.11 in order win.
soh.maryl
·2 years agoWhen you look at the bid history, are you making sure you are clicking on "hidden bids"?
Or, if you care to share the item #, we can look at it and see what the problem is.
bryanandstacie
OP2 years agoOh it shows a “bidâ€, whether or not it was a legit bid is something else altogether.