Bid sniping and just a terrible app

[rowdygrug]

I'm using Huawei p30 pro

Went to contact support chat 3 times re bid sniping after end of auction by 1 cent

My bid $136.00 after auction ended was beaten by a bid of $136.01

Which is **bleep** as you can't even bid in 1 cent increments . This needs to be fixed asap

Next issue is that 3 times using the chat the chat screen went white and I had to reopen the chat and start again each time . Not a good experience at all.

Please fix all of this and completely stop all illegal bids, I say that as using the app that you have created doesn't allow that, or at bare minimum enable 1c bids for all users

Or charge 3rd party app sniperss $10 fee and that'll level the playing field.. l.!...

Does eBay even view these? Or an I just waiting my time?

[dryophelia]

@rowdygrug 

Never bid in even amounts. Always add a few pennies to your bid. 

If your max bid had been $136.02, you would have won. 

It isn’t the last bid that wins, it’s the highest bid. That bid can come in anytime, even up to a point when others don’t have time to react.
To be successful at bidding, one has to understand the way it works and use that knowledge to your bidding method. 

If you are willing to pay more, you need to bid more. 
Bid once.
Bid your max, with a few cents added. 
Bid as late as possible. 

[mudshark61369]

@rowdygrug,

Did you try to bid in the last seconds or earlier? If you placed your $136.00 bid earlier it could mean the price was at $133.50 or less, before the last bid came in. The minimum increment of the bid the winner had to place in that bid increment range was $2.50 to tie, or more to win. Therefore, they can and did bid $136.01 (one penny more than the minimum required bid) and that extra penny was enough to put them in the lead. Had they bid $136.00 your earlier bid would have won the tie.

If you still have the auction available, open it and click on the number of bids received.  At the top of Bid history page you will see the ending time of the auction down to the last second.  Below that look at the time stamp for the last bid that was received. It could have been accepted just as the auction ended.

If you were watching the auction end and saw the countdown clock go to zero, with no new bids, that information may have been many seconds behind the actual time left.  There is always a lag between the time a signal is sent by a server, and it is received and displayed by a device. There are a few factors that determine how much of a lag there is.

You mention the chat screen going white while trying to chat.  It may have been doing that if you haven't recently cleared your temporary internet files and cookie cache. Cookies especially, can cause pages to be slow to open, and/or disrupt it functions, and cause a several second lag in the countdown information you were receiving.

  "Please fix all of this and completely stop all illegal bids ... Or charge 3rd party app sniperss $10 fee and that'll level the playing field".

Read the information in the link below. Click on the Tips for winning auctions button, read those, and also the Bid Sniping article at the bottom of the Tips page.  Bid sniping is legal and encouraged by ebay.  Many who snipe, use a service to place their bids, and they have to pay for that service.  My self, I like the challenge of manually sniping.  I have won several auctions by a few odd cents as well.

https://www.ebay.com/help/buying/bidding/bidding?id=4003

[nobody*s_perfect]

"you can't even bid in 1 cent increments"

Each new bid must be at least one full bid increment above the current high bid showing. So a bid of $136.01 would be accepted as long as the high bid showing was $133.51 or less, regardless of the amount of that bidder's hidden full proxy bid.

"bid sniping after end of auction"

Some displays only show the hour and minute that the auction ends, rather than showing the full time down to the second. So a listing that shows as ending at 1:30 could end at any time from 1:30:00 to 1:30:59.  

Most sniping services have a default lead time of 6 seconds, so a bid placed within the final 5 seconds was probably placed manually. Just by looking at the bid history it's impossible to tell whether a bid was placed manually or by a sniping service.

"Does eBay even view these?"

No.

[rowdygrug]

Thanks for the info. My last bid was in the last few seconds as previous bid was outbid 5 or 10 secs before end so don't believe it would have been the scenario you mention .

I do know that they support sniping just think it sends the wrong image . I mean if you're trying to buy with the app they provide you get screwed with impossible to respond to bids. So eBay dislikes buyers.

And as a seller the snipers bid won't take action till time expires and no bids from others can come to increase if they'd want to. So eBay hates on sellers. Yet the system still exists.

[juicydrupes]

"Responding to bids" is your issue. 

It's a timed sale - time will run out - as will your ability to respond. 

In a real-life auction - you can hem and haw and keep the gavel up...

But,  as many others will tell you - if you truly want/need an item, bid your highest amount.

Don't bid "responsively"

I bid in the last 5 seconds...as a rule.  I count on people getting distracted, missing the notification, not staying up late enough...etc.

[mudshark61369]

@rowdygrug,

"I mean if you're trying to buy with the app they provide you get screwed with impossible to respond to bids. So eBay dislikes buyers".

Every buyer can see what time the bidding will end, and has an equal chance to bid the most they are willing to pay before the end time.  If they do bid the most the item is worth to them, and are outbid, they should have no regrets. Sometimes the end price is less than their maximum bid, and that is decided by the 2nd place bidder. The only time we see topics about stopping Snipe bidding, is because a buyer did not place a bid for the most they were willing to pay. 

"And as a seller the snipers bid won't take action till time expires and no bids from others can come to increase if they'd want to. So eBay hates on sellers".

Snipers know they only have one chance to win, so they do not hedge on their bid price. Those who do hedge when placing a bid, are placing themselves in the position of being outbid with no time left to bid again. As an eBay seller for 18 years, I count on the snipers to raise the price. Often my auctions get several snipe bids, rising the final price by quite a bit.

eBay's auction format is not an English Out Call auction system, where time is added until  bidding stops.  It is a sealed bid Vickrey format auction, with a hard time limit for getting bids in.

  Forget about suggesting that ebay switch to a time added format. Sellers and buyers alike have shouted down that idea since 1995.  Sellers know they get the best price when sniping is allowed. Buyers know they do not have to sit there refreshing the page sometimes for hours waiting for an auction to end while other bidders nibble away at each other.  Time added auctions do not encourage bidders to bid their maximum amount. 

[mthbill]

"My last bid was in the last few seconds"

If you look at the bid history, you may see the winning bid was placed at the same time, or within 1 second your bid", and with one penny higher than your bid.

Sniping Auctions is an issue and the auction format should be an auction close time extended by 10 minutes after the final bid is received.  Just like a live auction, the gavel hits when there are no more bids. 

This way is better for ebay and the seller. 

Higher prices for sellers and higher fees paid to ebay!

[mudshark61369]

@mthbill,

 "Higher prices for sellers and higher fees paid to ebay!".

Read my previous post.  If ebay felt that time added auctions would get higher prices than a hard end time auction, they would have switched to that format years ago.  Sellers would have been begging them to do that.  We know better though.

[woodland_gnome]

You don't "bid in increments."  There is not a single “bid increment rule.” There are 2 entirely different rules that use the same bid increment table (to make 2 entirely different calculations) that many (including, unfortunately, eBay in the Help Page with the increment table) try to conflate into a single rule and get confused:

1. A new bid must be at least 1 increment higher than the SHOWING "current bid" (NOT the HIDDEN maximum of the current leader) in order to be accepted.

2. The price (a/k/a the "current bid" while the auction is running, which is simply what the price would be if there is no further bid-related activity before the auction ends) will be AT MOST 1 bid increment higher than the underbidder's maximum (unless more is needed to meet the reserve in a reserve auction).

Note that rule 2 establishes a MAXIMUM, not a minimum. As long as the new bid meets the first rule as of the time it is placed, it can be any amount, including 1 cent higher or exactly tied with the hidden maximum of the current leader: if it is 1 cent higher or more, the new bidder takes the lead; if tied or lower the old leader retains the lead.

Example: Starting bid $.99. A bids $.99. B bids $5.00. B's bid shows at a "current bid" of $1.04 (1 bid increment of $.05 over the underbid of $.99) and the minimum for a new bid is $1.29 (1 bid increment of $.25 over the "current bid" of $1.04). C bids:
C's bid amount:..............New current bid:...............comments
$4.00..............................$4.25.................................B retains lead at 1 increment of $.25 over $4.00 underbid
$4.75..............................$5.00.................................B's full bid amount is used up, but nobody else can tell that since it would still show at $5.00 if it were higher
$4.76.............................$5.00.................................Since B's bid is only $5.00, eBay cannot tack on a full increment, so B leads at the full amount of that bid
$4.99..............................$5.00................................Ditto
$5.00..............................$5.00................................B retains the lead since exact ties go to the earlier bid
$5.01..............................$5.01................................C takes the lead by 1 cent since his/her bid is higher than B's and that's the full amount of his/her bid
$5.50..............................$5.50................................Now C's bid is used up but nobody else can tell since it would still show as $5.50 no matter how much higher s/he bid, e.g.:
$6.00..............................$5.50................................eBay only uses enough of C's $6.00 bid as needed to beat the underbid by up to 1 bid increment and hides the full amount. Note that the increment increases to $.50 at $5.00 and the increment for rule 2 is not the same increment as for rule 1 since the amounts the increments are being added to are in different brackets (rule 1 is based on the showing "current bid" before the new bid is placed; rule 2 is based on the maximum bid of the underbidder, whether that is the old leader or the new bidder).

ETA:  The order that the winning bid and underbid are received in is not important except in the case of an exact tie.   The later bid can outbid the prior leader by as little as 1 cent, while the earlier bid can outbid the later bid by  as little as 0 cents (exact ties going to the earlier bid).  

[glasser]

@mudshark61369 I disagree. Soft endings are they every other site now operates. Auctions have always ended when the bidding ends not when the clock says over.

eBay is an outlier in this way. They haven't changed it because eBay does not promote the use of auctions any longer--a loss from my point of view.

At minimum, they should, as other sites do, require every bid no matter when made to be at an increment. So even if you are the first bidder you would have to bid an increment and not a random number in between.  This to would conform with how the rest of the bidding world works and would eliminate the I lost the bid by .01, which really feels like a slap in the face.

[woodland_gnome]

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@glasser wrote:

 . . . Auctions have always ended when the bidding ends not when the clock says over.

. . .

 That is not true.  OUTCRY auctions end when the auctioneer determines that no more bids are coming in.  eBay is not an outcry auction and most other auction formats do end according to the clock.  A "Dutch auction" for lots of flowers have a price clock that starts high and counts down the price and the FIRST bidder wins at the price the clock shows when s/he bids.  First and second price sealed bid auctions (eBay's format is a variation of the latter) end at a stated date and time.

Sniping is a legitimate defensive tactic that is the best single defense against shilling sellers. You have no need and no right to know anything about my bid to be able to bid effectively. If you can't decide your true maximum to bid in 7 days why do you believe you will do a better job in x minutes while in an emotional state over being outbid? On the other hand if x minutes is enough time for you to rebid, it is plenty of time (particularly if it is extended by another x minutes as most auction extension proponents want) for a shiller to drive the price up to your supposedly hidden maximum and then retract the last bid if s/he goes over.

eBay's auction format is what makes it fair to those in up to 24 timezones with different work/sleep/computer schedules. Anyone can bid what the item is worth to them at any time and anyone can set up with a third party (there are reliable and secure ones which offer free limited use) to submit that bid in the last few seconds to get the defensive benefits of not having one's hidden maximum out there for others (again, including shilling sellers) to probe or otherwise base their bids on. Making it so those who are able to be there to react at the end have the advantage is unfair.

The playing field is level.  That you wish to dig a foxhole and then complain that the runner with the ball went around you and you couldn't get out and catch him means that you need to change YOUR strategy, not demand that the rules change.  Your proposal to charge some bidders to do something within the rules UNLEVELS the field.

[myangelandmyprincess]

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@glasser wrote:

@mudshark61369 I disagree. Soft endings are they every other site now operates. Auctions have always ended when the bidding ends not when the clock says over.

eBay is an outlier in this way. They haven't changed it because eBay does not promote the use of auctions any longer--a loss from my point of view.

At minimum, they should, as other sites do, require every bid no matter when made to be at an increment. So even if you are the first bidder you would have to bid an increment and not a random number in between.  This to would conform with how the rest of the bidding world works and would eliminate the I lost the bid by .01, which really feels like a slap in the face.

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I would say if you prefer the way the other sites run you should bid there.  

However I don't think these other sites are as successful. A lot of sites run that way have failed over the years. 

I myself prefer the way eBay works. 

[zip-a-deedoodah]

Bid snipping isn’t illegal and isn’t against eBay policy.  It’s more a fine art.

https://www.ebay.com/help/buying/bidding/bid-sniping?id=4224&mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=711-53200-19255-0...  

[simba6]

When placing a snipe bid, you bid your max amount. An amount you would never go above for that item.  Add a little to break a tie. Don't  bid even amounts that's it. It it goes above that, you know you would have never bid a penny more on that item.

Since you only have one shot at it, you have to throw a strong bid.